Won The Toss!

richh · Oct 9, 2001

Just down the road Gordon, just down the road.

gordon · Oct 9, 2001

That forest is right down the road from you isn't it? So have you seen some big tree driving down the road yet past your place?/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

By the way how is that shoulder?
Gordon

GrantMO · Oct 9, 2001

Does that picture mean that all that ordinance will fit on one B-52?

JATO_RaT · Oct 10, 2001

Grant, I should suspect easily, the payload is huge. Not as high as a C5, but then the C5 can't drop out its belly either. The wingspan on the B52 is the longest of any US plane, so long you can see the little landing wheels on either end of the wings. Rat...

JATO_RaT · Oct 10, 2001

Robert, I went to high school just north of Mather and quite often we saw the B52's launching and smoking.
Jesuit high school class of "75", Rat

Bird · Oct 10, 2001

You want to see something that'll get your attention, wait until you see one of them fly under you while you're tooling along in a little Cessna./w3tcompact/icons/shocked.gif

Bird

mikim · Oct 10, 2001

I've been in a "buff" a time or two and can tell you for such a big sucker - there is no room inside. I've worked the big cargo planes - C141, C5, and C130 (including spectre gunships) and they have room to work in them. That B52 is all business inside and is tough to work 'cause there's no elbow room. It's as tight a fit in that bomber as it is in an F4. On take-off if you're close enough you can see the wing tips flex like you wouldn't believe. I was told that on a fully loaded plane the tips will flex 12 feet --- next thing to flapping wings. I'd sure love to get a look at the inside of a B2 - that thing is big too - one flew over low landing in Missouri while I was driving down the interstate - darn near went in the ditch from looking up.
mike

Charlie_Iliff · Oct 10, 2001

Blots out the ground, doesn't it. In the 60's B-52's used to fly the oil burner routes in Georgia practicing terrain avoidance radar guidance. They claimed only 50 ft clearance from obstacles, but it was more like 150. Still pretty amazing, viewed from above, from my old 14-13 Bellanca.

Charlie Iliff

JATO_RaT · Oct 10, 2001

Watching the planes rotate on the 12,000' plus long runway at Mather was fun. The wings would flex signifcantly at rotation. While never working on planes, your comment about tight quarters is interesting. The little I've seen of US fighters makes me wonder how they can ever be repaired, I can't believe such a beast can even be made and engineered, its all amazing.

mikim · Oct 10, 2001

We spent a lot of time on removal for F.O.M. -- that's remove this part and remove this seat and remove this radio so we can get to that computer --- FOM = facilitate other maintenance. Keep in mind that it meant a lot of coordination with other shops - they didn't let just anybody remove an ejection seat - and the rear seat of an F4 had to come out on a real regular basis to get to avionics that sat on the floor under and behind the seat. Took 'em about 15 minutes. But I'm glad it wasn't me. I spent years working F4's and I never lost respect for that rocket pack. --- guess that's why I'm still here to tell it. There was many a night I wish I coulda got my hands on one of those design engineers and put HIS butt down there to do what I was trying to do in the dark. The long runway that a B52 needs is one of the reasons Bergstrom AFB is now Austin/Bergstrom Int'l Airport. It was an offer the city couldn't refuse. That runway will land anything the civilians will ever have. They used to land the piggy-backed space shuttle there when they transported it from Calif to Fla on the back of a 747.
mike