Edward R. Murrow of CBS radio had prepared a segment of his popular "Hear It Now" series telling the story of a simulated long-range bomber mission featuring a Convair B-36 Peacemaker and its crew, culminating in a bomb run over the Eglin Field practice range in Florida...All went well, and Murrow got the story he wanted, but at the exact time it aired on April 27, 1951, the same B-36 and crew were on another practice mission over Oklahoma...
Included was practice for a flight of P-51 fighters as they took turns diving at the giant, while the bomber's gunners simulated defensive gunnery with their gun cameras...One P-51 pilot miscalculated his attack, sawed through the fuselage of the B-36 with his plane's own propeller, and both aircraft fell from the sky...
I can only imagine the horror experienced by the crewmembers as they helplessly fell to their deaths, and what went through the survivors' minds as they floated down to the ground in their parachutes after exiting the broken-off tail section, and being forced to watch the remainder of their team plummet to their fate...A video of the incident can be seen here...
The incident listed next is particularly troubling for me not only because it concerns aircraft on which I had some training, but because it was completely avoidable...On June 24, 1994, a Boeing B-52H Stratofortress crewed by four veteran USAF officers circled Fairchild AFB at a very low altitude practicing for an upcoming airshow appearance...The pilot, Lt. Col. Arthur Holland, was known for pushing his aircraft to its limits to test its performance and his own skills...
On this day, after receiving what seemed like enthusiastic clearance from Fairchild's control tower, Holland took the B-52 into a banking left-hand turn...It is not known at what point he tried to come out of the turn, but the video evidence clearly shows the 92 ton winged monster airborne at 30, then 60 and finally a 90 degree angle before contacting a power line and impacting the ground, killing all four crewmembers...
From my viewpoint as an observer of the video footage only, and my reading of the various articles written about the incident, I can only conclude that the pilot unnecessarily risked the safety of his crew and his aircraft only to put on a good show...No one can ever know the final thoughts of the four men as life suddenly ended for them, but we can only hope the lessons learned at their expense will be taught and remembered by every aircrewman from this point forward...
Our next discussion example in this article involves what should have been the best, although the most expensive, strategic bomber to ever enter the USAF inventory, the North American XB-70 Valkyrie...One of the largest aircraft ever flown, the six-engine bomber was capable of speeds exceeding three times the speed of sound while flying at altitudes up to 70,000 feet...
Before it even reached production it was already obsolete, as Soviet advances in SAM technology had already negated its speed and altitude advantages over the latest fighter/interceptors...This together with the push for more ICBM sites, and the exorbitant costs associated with B-70 deployment relegated its further use to research and development of new technologies...
On June 8, 1966 the second of the two XB-70's left the ground for a photo shoot at the request of General Electric, the maker of its six engines...Four other aircraft, all powered by GE engines joined the flight for publicity filming...As explained here, the Lockheed F-104 which was in formation with the others, unexplainably came into contact with the bomber's right wing, rolled across its tail and was destroyed in flame...
The F-104 was a NASA registered aircraft with a civilian pilot, and the argument still exists whether he had enough experience in formation flying, or if he was just added to fill out the card...Pilot Joe Walker certainly had the credentials to be present, but even he didn't know why the F-104 was chosen since it was never designed for this type of mission...
The disheartening video shown here explains 20207's last flight...The remaining XB-70, on permanent outdoor display at the USAF Museum at Wright-Patterson AFB in Ohio, is still the fastest, largest, highest-flying, most powerful and potentially most deadly penetration bomber in aviation history...
To end this essay on a somewhat happier note, we will examine the history of a tactical bomber...And I realize this didn't happen in peacetime as the article's title suggests, but it's my blog and I make the rules...
Our previous examples, all strategic bombers, were designed to support the overall fixed strategy of retaliation against enemies of America in a time of uncertainty...A tactical bomber is usually designed with multiple purposes in mind, and with the ability to fulfill tactical needs as the situation calls for them...
The Douglas SBD Dauntless was a pre-war design meant to fill the role of air reconnaissance as well as serve as a dive bomber for the US Navy...It fulfilled both needs admirably with its long range and excellent flight characteristics and good defensive armament...
They were used extensively in training new pilots for carrier duty...The one talked about here was returned from Pacific war service after heavy battle damage, and rebuilt before joining a training squadron in Illinois, and subsequently ditched in Lake Michigan by a student pilot training for carrier approach...
The tough old bomber rested on the bottom for a half-century before being discovered, and successfully raised from its watery grave...Following restoration, it was put on static display as a veteran of the Pearl Harbor attack and the Battle of Midway at the US Naval Aviation Museum at NAS Pensacola in Florida along with two other SBD's...
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