[Expand the video, clap on headphones, and enjoy.]
I find “inside the cockpit” videos fascinating, primarily because you and I seldom get there.
The B-52 is officially 60 years old. The last B-52 came off the Boeing production line in 1962.
Boeing’s “60th Anniversary of the B-52” video.
BZ
It may not be your father’s Air Force but it probably is your fathers B-52.
Darned near. When we lived on WPAFB in base officers’ housing (beautiful brick house!), I used to drive down to the flight line and watch the B-52s lining up to take off on an alert. One pilot actually opened the window and waved one time.
I would also drive over to the east end of the runway and watch as they landed. One time I lay back on the hood of my car, on the windshield, and experienced the jet wash and smell of aviation fuel as they landed right over me. An incredible, incredible experience.
BZ
“What’s this button do?”.
“Not THAT one!!”
[sees scene from Dr Strangelove and Major Kong astride a nuke.]
BZ
The big BUFFs did an outstanding job of high altitude carpet bombing the Ho Chi Minh trail that was the virtual highway of supplies from the North to the South.
I can sometimes still hear them, then I wake up,, look around,, use a kleenex to wipe away the sweat, and then go to sleep again.
To me,, it was the sound of victory.
Apparently you were witness to that. Would it be out of order to say “thank you” for your service in Vietnam?
BZ
When I was in High School, I took vocational drafting. We took a field trip to Carswell AFB and got to actually get in a B-52 and a tanker. Amazing piece of engineering.
Considering, like the SR-71, it was designed by dudes with pocket protectors and slide rules.
BZ
And mechanical calculators that went clunkety-klunk, and jumped around some as it manufactured the numerical truth to build one.
In today’s world, it still would be an achievement in design.
We called them in slang: BUFF’ers.
I’ll let you figure out what it meant.