The B-52 Flying in 2044?????

I was working in the Command Post (Maintenance Operations Center) at Minot when the Fairchild bird went down. We had 2 buffs in the pattern at Fairchild at the time, and because of where I was, I knew that one went down, but we didn't know if it was one of ours, or one of Fairchild's.

The B-52 community not being a huge one, I knew the Crew Chief that did the preflight on that bird.

I have video of it from several angles. It's horrific. Yes, if you go slow, you can see at least one of the upper hatches (the co-pilot's) come off and bounce off the vertical stab.

And yes, Col Arthur "Bud" Holland knew better than to do the things that he did, and had been warned. The entire tragedy is attributable to him, and he cost others their lives. Not cool.

Hey Murceilago or however u spell it... its David haha.... i belive the B-52 is a good choice for todays modern life. Yes it has been around for a long time but it is still one of the hightest marking planes around... It's one of the best fighter jets we got in a world today and hopefully it will stay around for quite some time...

ECLIPSE

About payloads:



www.globalsecurity.org...
www.globalsecurity.org...
www.globalsecurity.org...


And using jammers for protecting first strike comprising of B-52 wouldn't be perfect idea, any jammer looks like homing beacon for anti radiation missiles.

And of course range of Triple A's is limited but every respectable army uses also SAMs, for which BUFF would be piece of cake.
Of course if you could fit MTHEL style defensive laser to BUFF it could solve problem with incoming missiles.

But currently BUFFs require more advanced assets to punch hole through defenses/destroy them.

Job in which they excel is mass bombing of low-tech enemy in which plane doesn't have to be advanced.
They would be poor choise for only planes to do long range strikes to deep inside enemy territory, their use would be limited to use of long range cruise missiles (AGM-86 CALCL, BGM-109) before obliteration of enemy's air force and air defense.
Now they're still good and cheap tool because George Warlord Bush is going against only those countries which doesn't have modern armies.

Originally posted by ECLIPSE
It's one of the best fighter jets...

Sorry but if you didn't notice that BUFF is bomber, not fighter.
Talking about modern aircrafts...
Pretty much every modern fighter introduced after WW2 (and equipped with radar, also PIR would work) could shoot it down, its just too slow and easily detectable.

Now I could be wrong, but I have never heard of a HARM shooting down a aircraft. Usually a wild weasel ( today mostly the F-16 ) protects the sortie by launching a HARM as soon as the radar site becomes active. It would seem that if HARM was used on aircraft there would be no AWACS left.

[edit on 11/9/2004 by just_a_pilot]

Originally posted by just_a_pilot
Now I could be wrong, but I have never heard of a HARM shooting down a aircraft. Usually a wild weasel ( today mostly the F-16 ) protects the sortie by launching a HARM as soon as the radar site becomes active. It would seem that if HARM was used on aircraft there would be no AWACS left.

At least some radar guided AAMs have home-on-jam mode where they work like anti-radiation missile. So it wouldn't be miracle to see same in SAMs.

AWACSes stay away from dangerous zones, that's biggest reason why they aren't shot down so often as fighters/bombers.

EDIT:
It works:

...one was unlucky enough to be hit by a US "high-speed anti-radiation missile (HARM)". The HARM was fired at an Iraqi radar that then went silent, and the missile then locked onto the tail radar of a B-52G and hit the bomber...

www.faqs.org...

[edit on 9-11-2004 by E_T]

I can only think of one BUFF that was shot down by an enemy fighter. That occured in Vietnam. What are the loss stats by way of shoot down?

Originally posted by just_a_pilot

...one was unlucky enough to be hit by a US "high-speed anti-radiation missile (HARM)". The HARM was fired at an Iraqi radar that then went silent, and the missile then locked onto the tail radar of a B-52G and hit the bomber...

www.faqs.org...

[edit on 9-11-2004 by E_T]

I was stationed on Guam during Desert Shield/Storm. The aircraft that is spoken of here arrived on Guam after some ABDR (Aircraft Battle Damage Repair). The flight to Guam was that aircraft's last flight. The missile strike removed about 10 feet from the tail of the fuselage, to the drag chute bucket. The missile strike left the aircaft temporarily flyable, but it caused massive internal structrual damage, and it was dismantled on the ramp at Andersen AFB.


[edit on 10-11-2004 by Ouizel]

Originally posted by ECLIPSE
Hey Murceilago or however u spell it... its David haha.... i belive the B-52 is a good choice for todays modern life. Yes it has been around for a long time but it is still one of the hightest marking planes around... It's one of the best fighter jets we got in a world today and hopefully it will stay around for quite some time...

ECLIPSE

ummm...ok

Its a bomber, not a fighter. and its not the best bomber in the world today.

Originally posted by ECLIPSE
It's one of the best fighter jets we got in a world today and hopefully it will stay around for quite some time...

Uhh, dude, are you sure you know what your talking about?

Because I could have sworn last time I checked that the B-52f Stratofortress Bomber is a bomber.

Shattered OUT...

cut him some slack guys....he probably means "combat" aircraft......several people have pulled him up on it and you could scare him off you keep it up..This thread is not an exclusive "club"

OK just so u all know i meant it was a bomber i just had a typo alright... not a big deal but i do like the B-52 and think it should be around along time yet, becuase they can like step them up to China's aircraft bombers. China might start getting better bombers, but it doesn't mean that US cant upgrade theres. Make the B-52 a better more successful aircraft US can do it!

ECLIPSE

[edit on 10-11-2004 by ECLIPSE]

ECLIPSE
becuase they can like step them up to China's aircraft bombers. China might start getting better bombers, but it doesn't mean that US cant upgrade theres.

you make it sound like the US is behind China technologicaly.

Originally posted by ShatteredSkies
Uhh, dude, are you sure you know what your talking about?

Because I could have sworn last time I checked that the B-52f Stratofortress Bomber is a bomber.

Shattered OUT...

FWIW, The B-52F hasn't been used in years. The only B-52s that are currently flying are the H models.

Originally posted by Ouizel

Originally posted by ShatteredSkies
Uhh, dude, are you sure you know what your talking about?

Because I could have sworn last time I checked that the B-52f Stratofortress Bomber is a bomber.

Shattered OUT...

FWIW, The B-52F hasn't been used in years. The only B-52s that are currently flying are the H models.

I wasn't referring to the H models.

Shattered OUT...

Well what were you refering to? You certainly confused me.

I think he was referring to the Vietnam shoot downs as opposed to the gulf war 1 write off.

I'll check my sources (cant at moment because book is in same room wife is sleeping in) but at least several B-52s were shot down over Northern Vietnam by SAMs. But I am uncertain if any were brought down by MiGs.

Will check figures.

Query.

Were the H crew aware of how serious thier battle damage was?

Why recover to Andersen AFB, Guam when the B-52 forward base at Diago Garcia in the Indian Ocean was closer?

Was there some difficulty or limitation in making for the closer base.

I also recall that a B-1B Lancer was lost of the Afghanistan mission in 2002.
Not combat according to reports but a catastrophic systems failure.

They recovered to DG and ejected in a SAR zone offshore. Indicates they were worried about jamming up the runway with a pile up.

[edit on 13-11-2004 by craigandrew]

A little of both. Most were taken out by the SA-2 SAM system. I think there was a few A to A kills, but the majority were SAMS

Hey Snoopy, seen the Red Baron lately? I tried to look up some stats, but I could only find one instance of a BUFF shot down Air-Air and it was an NVA pilot.

Found these stats.

Between 1964 and 1972 (Linebacker II) B-52s based at Andersen AFB Guam and U-Tapo Thailand flew 126,615 sorties losing 17 BUFFS (including 15 in Linebacker II) and numerous others damaged.

B-52 tailgunners claimed 5 MiGs, but only two were ever confirmed.

MiG's scored no kills on B-52s in the war. The stats did not give a split on AAA -v- SAM kills.

The Soviets were dismayed thier client's SA-2 and SA-3s only scored a 2-3% success rate against all US air targets.