Alive and kicking (Air Force’s youngest B-52 Stratofortress turns 50 this year)

Airman Magazine ^ | 2 April 2012 | Tech. Sgt. Chris Powell

[sukhoi-30mki]

[Yardstick]

STRATOFORTRESS — gotta be one of the best plane names ever.

[factoryrat]

The B-52 bomber: A testament to American ingenuity and engineering prowess. Long live the B-52! Keep the faith, and keep us safe!

[hinckley buzzard]

STRATOFORTRESS — gotta be one of the best plane names ever.

Reminiscent of the B-17 "Flying Fortress" from WWII. And the B-52 was designed without benefit of computer modelling...just human engineering, with slide rules.

[montanajoe]

The story of the B-52 is so cool.

It reminds me of what this country once was and gives me hope that there are a few folks around that will keep the American dream alive..

[unkus]

STRATOFORTRESS — gotta be one of the best plane names ever.

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For sure.

[unkus]

The story of the B-52 is so cool.

It reminds me of what this country once was and gives me hope that there are a few folks around that will keep the American dream alive..

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Well said!

[WildWeasel]

The Arsenal of Democracy

[T Minus Four]

BUFF ping!

[T Minus Four]

"Peace is our profession. (War is just a hobby)"

[CORedneck]

Too bad the B-58 Hustler didn’t stay in service though.

[T Minus Four]

[eartrumpet]

B-17 Flying Fortress
B-29 Superfortress
B-50 Superfortress
B-52 Stratofortress

[doorgunner69]

As much as I loved that plane (built the plastic model), from what I read later, it was a non-starter. Very short range, maintenance issues, cannot recall it all.

Gorgeous plane, just not the same beast as the B-52.

[Sparticus]

I got “buzzed” by a B-52 back in the nineties while driving on the interstate in Eastern Washington. It was simply awesome! It came flying toward me a little to the side of the interstate at about 500 feet or so - low enough that I could see a head through the cockpit window. Just after it passed me it made a hard banking turn of maybe 30 or 40 degrees such that the tip of the bottom wing wasn't that far off the ground. It was loud, proud and I was whooping, “Yeah! Who-ho!” as it finished it's turn and headed back in the direction it came from, possibly heading back to Fairchild AFB in Spokane.

[Dogbert41]

I was on the side of a mountain deer hunting with some friends when a B-52 flew below us inside the canyon. Out in the middle of Jarbidge, Nevada.

[Donkey Odious]

I used to live near March AFB just outside of Riverside, CA at the time when a B-52 wing was there. Had the pleasure of watching one take off on several occasions. What a combination of noise, power and beauty!

America! **** yeah!!

[hoagy62]

I used to live in Spokane and attended many an Open House at Fairchild. One year (one of the last that the B-52 was still based there), I had a friend who used to be a crew chief show me his plane. He let me inside the cockpit (after using his BDU shirt to cover up things I didn’t need to see) and I sat in the pilot’s seat. Next, he actually let me climb onto and walk up the wing. I think that somewhere I still have the picture he took with me standing atop his plane.

It was kinda funny...this was during the short time that ‘nose art’ made a resurgence. The way I understood it, individual commands could choose to allow “appropriate” nose art if the crew so chose. One of my friend’s housemates (he lived off base) was a graphic designer and artist. At the crew’s request, he drew a cartoon of an eagle with a leering grin, picking his beak with what looked like an ALCM. The plane had a nickname painted under
the cartoon, but I can’t remember what it was.

Within the next couple years, the BUFFs were gone.

[EQAndyBuzz]

I was stationed at Ellsworth back in 1980. We had BUFF’s. What a magnificient plane.

[gigster]

When I first moved up here, to North-West Lower Michigan, there was a radar base just East of us in Bayshore. The “Buffs” fron K.I Sawyer, Minot, and other places would come in low over Lake Michigan, then swoop up, with their bomb-bay doors open, just over U.S 31, only a few hundred feet in altitude. Quite impressive, to say the least.
A B-52 also crashed onto the ice in January, 1971 on a practice flight from Wendover, Maine, just North of Big Rock Nuclear Power Plant, here in Charlevoix, with the loss of the entire flight crew.