Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: afsnco

full military power and MITO

- - - - -

Back in the early 90s I got to experience that (I assume) from a B52, about two miles away at Ellington field from a Natural Gas Storage facility. Every building was shaking and it drowned out normal conversation.

We had often seen practice landings and take-offs of military aircraft. That one stands out in my mind 2 decades later.


26 posted on 06/13/2014 9:02:37 AM PDT by thackney (life is fragile, handle with prayer)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies ]


To: thackney

We had a double wing of BUFFs and tankers at Barksdale, and they’d generate all but the alert birds for an exercise called Global Shield. Then they’d MITO them. I talked to a BUFF pilot and you wanted to be the first bird in line. By the 3rd or 4th, you were all over the place in previous jet wash. In this case it was 30-40 birds, 12 seconds between the bombers and 15 seconds between the tankers.


34 posted on 06/13/2014 9:22:27 AM PDT by afsnco
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies ]

To: thackney

The place to experience take offs of BUFFS and Stratobladders was at U-Tapao RTNB, Thailand.

At the end of the main runway was an outdoor theater (called the “Wash-out”) and a Thai restraint (called the “Green Latrine”). They were just west of the runway (about 1,000 ft) much closer than they could/would be in the CONUS.

A launch of an Arc Light strike, 3 x B-52Ds and 2-3 x KC-135s. The whole package getting off the ground in 5 minutes. All the aircraft used water augmentation to get airborne.

Five minutes of noise and vibrations. No sound tracks. No conversations.

On busy nights this went on every 30 minutes.

It was considered great fun to take newly arrived personnel to either the wash-out or green latrine just in time to experience a strike mission launch.


35 posted on 06/13/2014 9:24:17 AM PDT by Nip (BOHEICA and TANSTAAFL - both seem very appropriate today.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies ]

To: thackney
Back in the early 90s I got to experience that (I assume) from a B52, about two miles away at Ellington field from a Natural Gas Storage facility. Every building was shaking and it drowned out normal conversation.

I lived around McConnell AFB once and they had B-52, B-1 and KC-135R. I took a friend to the end of the runway and parked and pretended to consult a map when I saw a B-1 taking off towards us. He never looked to his right until the plane was over us and I remember him laughing hard and talking loud but I heard nothing except for jet engines.

Every once in a while late at night they would do what the media called a hot take-off. I think it was B-1s. The house I was in two miles away would shake and the noise was incredible. The plane would take off to the north, usually they went south, and then it would continue north until the nosie finally died a long time later.

39 posted on 06/13/2014 9:43:34 AM PDT by eartrumpet
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson