B-52 bomber marks major milestones in 2012

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B-52 bomber marks major milestones in 2012

Apr. 9, 2012

They've been part of the landscape of Northwest Louisiana since the late 1950s, and this year the big B-52s at Barksdale Air Force base will mark a number of milestones.
It was 60 years ago Sunday that the prototype YB-52 first took to the air, thrilling employees of the Air Force and Boeing and civilians in Seattle, who witnessed the event.

It was 50 years ago this summer and fall that the last of the 744 B-52s built, an H-model that is still flying out of Minot Air Force Base, N.D., rolled off the assembly line and was accepted into the fleet.

October also marks the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, when all of the old Strategic Air Command's bombers, including Barksdale's B-52s, were put on 100 percent alert status for a full month.

And it was 40 years ago this December that the airplanes faced and met their greatest challenge ever, in the epic Linebacker II bombing campaign over the skies of Hanoi, then the most heavily defended airspace in the world.

"Dec. 18-29 is the 40th anniversary of the eleven nights of Linebacker II raids," said Terry Snook, president of the Eighth Air Force Museum Association. "Our D-model in the airpark flew on the raids on Dec. 26, perhaps the most intense night since there was a 36-hour bombing halt to see if the North Vietnamese would respond. ... Our aircraft was hit by a SAM (surface-to-air missile) that night and suffered some battle damage."
On Dec. 18, the museum plans to dedicate a monument honoring the memory of the crew members killed, taken prisoner or wounded in the 24 B-52s that were shot down or damaged in the operation.
"I cannot think of a more fitting place for a monument to Linebacker II than in front of the B-52D in our airpark," Snook said. "The board has approved the money raising effort, and Col. (Tim) Fay likes the idea as long as we keep it to a size, or segments, that can be moved when we move the museum to the new gate. I have already talked to two monument folks and they are doing some conceptual work that I can show when I go out and ask for money. I already have a significant pledge that might well cover the entire cost."
Details of the dedication, including the date, are subject to change, but form a fitting end to what the base and Air Force Global Strike Command are calling the "Year of the B-52."
"The Year of the B-52 is a series of milestones we will celebrate, throughout the year, " said Major Dave Donatelli II, whose flight specialty is as an electronic-warfare officer, or E-Dub, on the B-52s, but who now works in the Commanders Action Group of Air Force Global Strike Command.
"I don't fly any more, so sitting here in the headquarters listening to the airplanes taking off or the engine run-ups is kind of depressing," he said. "I love the jet."
That's why his work helping to plan the events to celebrate this important year in the bomber's life is important.
"The command is leading an effort to honor the heritage and recognize the accomplishments of the B-52 and the people past, present and future, who have developed it, acquired it, operated it, maintained it and secured it."
The B-52 is "one of the best airplanes ever built," says retired Brig. Gen. Peyton Cole, a former 2nd Bomb Wing commander whose final flight was an epic around-the-world sortie that included a near-midair nighttime collision with an Egyptian 747 over the Mediterranean. He also helped put together a photo of a B-52 surrounded by the impressive accumulation of weapons it can carry, a photo that continues to impress people to this day.
"The B-52 has been a wonderful flying box," he said. "It's persevered all these years because it's been able to adapt and still continues to fly. It started out as a high-level flying platform during the Cold War. Then as air defenses got better it became a low-level penetrator, and more than that was the first aircraft to fly low-level at night through FLIR (forward looking infrared) and night-vision TV. We were flying 800 feet over the desert floor at night in B-52s in the Cold War when I was a squadron commander. The airplane has had a tremendous ability to adapt that I don't think any aircraft, other than perhaps the DC-3, can claim."
He pointed out recent advances tested in part through the efforts of such outfits as the Air Force Reserve wing at Barksdale, the only one to fly B-52s. "Even today they are coming up with new and innovative technologies to put on the airplane, and it's big enough to take them."
He said the airplane is large but surprisingly agile with plenty of power. "When a B-52 is 'light' you can go from surface to about 20,000 feet fast and actually out-climb a fighter. In fact the H model has 'thrust gates' so you can't give it as much power as it can take.... it's almost uncomfortable when you point the nose up, climbing out."
A Boeing sibling of the B-52, the "Dash 80" prototype of the 707 airliner, was put through a barrel roll over an awed crowd by its test pilot, the late Alvin M. "Tex" Johnson, who also flew the first B-52 on April 15, 1952. There's no proof a B-52 has ever done a barrel roll, but Cole said he heard that one of the bombers made this spectacular maneuver over Hanoi while evading a missile during the costly "Linebacker II" missions in December 1972.
"I don't think he went down," Cole said. "He regained control of it."
It's a classic airplane that people here should be thankful every day they get to see up-close and personal.
"I think the B-52 will be around as long as we are, if the Air Force is smart," he said.
Col. Larry "Robbie" Robertson of Shreveport was at first dismayed when he was transferred from flying the A-1 Skyraider, a hot propeller fighter, to the eight-jet B-52.
"I wasn't real happy being assigned to it," the retired pilot, now 77, said. "I thought I was the world's greatest fighter pilot."
That soon changed when he and his top-ranked crew flew combat mission, including the Linebacker missions whose fury forced the North Vietnamese back to the negotiating table and led to the successful end of the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War and the release of U.S. prisoners of war.
Taking off from Andersen Air Force Base in Guam for Linebacker, Robertson at first couldn't raise his landing gear. Normally that would lead to an aborted mission, since the gear would produce unacceptable drag that would limit speed, altitude and maneuverability. But he was determined to take his B-52 to the enemy.
"I said 'Hell no, I'm going to Hanoi,'" he recalled.
Now when he hears the airplanes flying and sees their sleek forms coming to or leaving Barksdale, there's the tug of nostalgia.
"When I see the planes going over, I think I'd like one more time to go up in it and get behind the tanker and get plugged in and then go low-level," he said. "I don't know if many of these young guys know how lucky they are to be flying such a good piece of machinery. I think it's a great airplane."

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