"On This Day" In Engineering History

Nice piece Moose. I knew a guy that flew an SR71. He said he'd trust it to Mach 10. I wonder what the Russian equvalent to the 52 was? Is it the B 1 that is now the preimer manned bomber? Think I'll watch Dr. Stranglove again.

Thanks, Transcendian. Good to hear from you again. Are you still in contact with the guy who flew the SR71? If so, I'd love to interview him for CR4. With regard to your question, I believe that the B-2 is now the USAF's premier manned bomber. The Air Force is already thinking about its next-generation bomber, though.

Another is said to have crashed in Gram, Washington state. We call it the crater and it used to be a 4 wheel drive playgroung. The local lore is that a B52 did a 600mph nose dive into the ground creating the crater. Never thought to verify the facts.

Last I heard it's all houses around it now. But it was a big enough hole that one side was used for shooting practice.

Brad

I'll do a little digging on the Web, UV. Thanks for the information.

Blogs like this bring back a lot of memories. I was stationed with the 93rd at Castle from '80 -'86. We had a double wing of BUFFS and tankers doing a crew training mission. Lots of 12 hour days and hard work but good duty.

In Nov. '82 I was on the line when the G model #2597 landed in heavy rain and blew a hydraulic line in the front wheel well. The crew egressed safely and then the plane exploded and burned to the ground. That was a sight to remember.

Three weeks later we were up Mather on MITO launch when ops got a G on water up behind an B-52H. The G's J57 turbojet on water injection was faster than the TF-33 the H used. 6482 was about to run up the rear of the H model hard and fast when the co-pilot chopped throttles and flooded out due to water. The pilot did a masterful kick and slew as he lost the bird, but he got it away from a rush hour intersection full of cars and that saved a lot of lives.

To answer Trancendian's question about the Russian equivalent... the TU-95 Bear. Although a turboprop engine...it was the backbone of the the Russian fleet for a long time and is still in service. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-95

Great to have you with us, Switchman. Thanks for sharing those stories of your own.

Moose,

It took me a few days of digging for this link in my old beast of a home PC.

You may find something of interest. Mr. Baugher has compiled a very good list of serial number, as well as having a ton of decent links to peruse.

http://home.att.net/~jbaugher/

Thanks, Switchman! I'm like a kid at Christmas here. This is a great website and a real treasure trove. Look for more blog entries about military aviation in the weeks and months to come.

Best,

Moose

it's something how bad something can start out, on the verge of cancelation, only to turn out the be one of the best ideas so far.

Also as equally interesting, is how the concept was conceived and derived, basically over the weekend.

Such as some of the side notes;

The pilot and co-pilot side by side configuration was not due to design efficiently. but solely to impress LaMay, because of his old fashioned favoritism that the pilots should be sitting side by side like the bomber pilots in WWII.

or carving a conceptual model that same week end.

I was station at Parks AFB CA. (in the Air police squadron) at the time of this crash

and pulled duty guarding this crash site.

Jim

Good to hear from you, Jim. I hope you'll come back to CR4 and register. I would enjoy learning more about your experience at Parks AFB. - Moose