Posted on 03/17/2019 12:22:01 PM PDT by Cecily
Good old B-52 workhorses with their droopy wings.
Wow.CWO4 Novasol was awarded the MOH for service flying medevac.He started his flying career on B-17s in the AF and finished on Helos with the army.I thought we may have been talking about the same guy.
This guy, I am sure, won some medals but not the MOH.
He did have a huge number of good stories and knew just about all the famous pilots of his era.
Roger that. Not familiar with that aircraft. I was a dogface. The concept of piston and jet on the same craft is new to me. Now JATO boost on an already jet plane, but not piston and turbine. The company I worked for 13 years 1968-81 had a Gulfstream I. It had 2 Rolls Royce turbines swinging big four-bladed props. They were so powerful, on takeoff rotation our company pilot, a former WWII B-17 pilot, could take it up almost vertical. Blessings.
” four burning six turning ..”
Sound to me you’re describer the old B36 Peacemaker.
A predecessor to the B52.
B36
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convair_B-36_Peacemaker
P.S. Harriet Tubman’s full maiden name was Araminta Ross. When she married Tubman she apparently ditched Araminta for Harriet. I’ve been all thru her Underground Railroad history around Cambridge, MD. She wound up owning 50 acres of land in Canada with a home for runaway U.S. slaves and a church on it.
at Walker AFB, Roswell NM, in 1966-67, we were often at the end of the runway when a B-52 took off. They always reminded me of a big moth sitting on the ground with their wing tips almost touching the ground. they had landing gear on the ends of the wings.
As it begins to roll, the wings elevate, then become almost straight, then slightly upward, then the body of the B-52 would lift off and over us.
MAGNIFICENT SIGHT!
I saw a B-36 fly low over Farmington NM back in 1953 or 1954. I distinctly remember the props being on the back side of the engines. I was seven or eight years old.
Back when I was doing genealogy, I noticed that one of my grandmothers was born in the 1830s and lived until 1917. She had twelve kids, they all reached adulthood, and I used to wonder a lot about her. I was shocked, stunned, while talking to a great-aunt, that she remembered that grandmother from childhood. It was like I made a connection back to her to the 1830s.
Boy that looks familiar. I deployed to RAF Fairford during Desert Storm. Every morning the B-52’s took off heavy and returned at night after off loading their bombs over Iraq. Nothing spells US power like a flight of B-52’S flying overhead on the way to war. It still makes an impression on me. Can’t imagine what thousands of heavy bombers flying on their way to Nazi Germany must have looked like and felt like during WW2. East Anglia was just one big airfield in those days.
I am sure they knew each other.
Which freighter.line did he work for on the Lakes?
I hear you. B-52s have great charisma. I love that they put little wheels near the wingtips to prop them up. Another favorite of mine is the F4 Phantom. I don’t know what it is about those machines but you just can’t help but like them.
***Another favorite of mine is the F4 Phantom.***
We used to refuel them from our KC-135 over Korea.
I’ll never forget it. We were flying from Okinawa to Taiwan, refueling the F-4 over Korea, then to Taiwan. I was sick as a dog with a head cold.
At 30,000 feet, my head was still at ground level and I was miserable. Then my ears popped and I had relief. We landed in Taiwan, and my head was still at 30,000 feet. I was more miserable.
Chuck Yeager is qualified for more planes at one time than any other pilot, IIRC.
Reminds me of flying out of Okinawa on a KC-135 refueling B-52 bombers. Out the left window I could see refueling going on, then farther away more refueling, and father, more refueling. Out the right window it was the same.
Below us was an aircraft carrier which looked like a little toy you could pick up.
This is nice and all but the fact is that bombers and land based missile silos are all assets that can be targeted and neutralized. The key to our nuclear deterrent is an asset that cannot be targeted or neutralized. Specifically the ballistic missile submarines. And they are out there, all the time, ready to strike. And Putin knows it, no press release required.
Haha - I hear you.
My dad was stationed in Puerto Rico in the sixties (Marines) and they flew F-4s out of there. He loved those machines and I think I inherited my appreciation from him. F-4s’ve got those great droopy tail fins and turned up tips on their wings. Just amazing machines with Hollywood great looks. I often wonder about the degree to which the designers are thinking of beauty rather than pure function when they’re drawing up the designs...
I guess beauty really is in the eye of the beholder. I never liked the looks of the Phantom but it’s predecessor, the F-101 Voodoo was a real beauty.
Now I always thought the WWII Spitfire was the prettiest plane ever tho the ME-109 and the P-40 were also beautiful.
Of current planes the F-15 looks the best to me.
F-101 is a cool plane but it’s no F-4, in my worthless opinion.
F-4 is sort of the Harrison Ford of fighter jets. It just looks the part somehow.
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