B-47 Beautiful bomber
- Thread starter Wildr1
- Start date
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Hey! That guy is stealing a tire!
Airframes
Benevolens Magister
If he got the wheels, who got the stereo ?
Great pics of a nice looking aircraft.
Great pics of a nice looking aircraft.
- Thread starter
- #5
Beautiful Aircraft. I think the wing tips had a flex of about 27 ft.
vikingBerserker
Lieutenant General
I love the white-walls!
Donivanp
Captain
Love the B-47, One of the sexiest designs every to come out of an aircraft company.
The drooping wings when on the ground gave it the nick name "Sick Chicken". I think they used support poles under the wing tips when parked for a period of time.
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During the Cuban missile crisis Plattsburgh AFB dispersed a squadron of B-47s to BTV in hopes they'd survive a nuke attack on the base. Their KC-97 tankers had our local airport, MPV, as a designated recovery field for "after the blast" so they kept coming over to practice approaches and mix it up with the Cessnas, Pipers, and Ercoupes in the pattern. They couldn't land or even do touch and goes, as they were too heavy for the pavement, and the runway was too short for safety. If they had ever had to actually land, it would have been a last-ditch situation. When one of them would go missed approach from 200 feet over the runway with "four churnin' and two burnin' " you would wonder if WWIII had begun and hope all the little planes were securely tied down. Four 4360s and two J-34s could wake the dead! And create a mini tornado.
When the crisis was over and it was time to go home, the B-47s defueled til they only had their payload and enough gas to get across the lake to Plattsburgh, but they still had really long ground runs on takeoff, and wound up firing their JATOs to get off.
Cheers,
Wes
When the crisis was over and it was time to go home, the B-47s defueled til they only had their payload and enough gas to get across the lake to Plattsburgh, but they still had really long ground runs on takeoff, and wound up firing their JATOs to get off.
Cheers,
Wes
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Sounds like a real fiasco. That would give the Air Traffic Controllers a fit.
What air traffic controllers? Lazy Podunk country airport with a 5000 foot strip and one (DC-3) airline flight a day? Dream on! Vermont not only has the smallest capital city in the US, it also has the smallest capital city airport in the country.Sounds like a real fiasco. That would give the Air Traffic Controllers a fit.
Cheers,
Wes
Sorry about that. I didn't always hit the target during WWII
Sounds like a place I would enjoy!
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Did you see the shot of the -97 and the -47 tanking? Notice the deck angles of the two? My old Chief Pilot at the airline started out as a crew chief/flight engineer on 97s and then became a boomer. He said the B-47's stall speed at altitude was same as the 97's max level flight speed (on fresh engines), so they would routinely tank in a shallow dive at full throttle with the bomber throwing out all the drag it had available. Hairy business. He got tired of it and applied to the Air Cadet program and came back as a KC pilot, went on to 135s, then FB-111s and retired as a full bird and an FB-111 check airman and Director of Training.
Cheers,
Wes
Cheers,
Wes
The refueling sounds complicated. Your Chief Pilot had a great career.
You would have back then. It's kinda dead now. NO airline service, one UPS feeder flight a day, and the FBO laid off their last flight instructor a year ago. They still run a maintenance shop and pump gas, but they're withering on the vine.
Burlington International Airport, 29 miles by Interstate highway, has all the facilities, good airline service, reliable ILS approaches (to both ends of the main runway), two FBOs, two flight schools, a world class charter company, and any level of maintenance you could hope for, including a Pratt and Whitney service center. Hard to compete with that.
Cheers,
Wes
Lovely shots!
Sounds like Burlington International is filling the roll of a Regional Airport. I saw a lot of that taking place during my time in Commercial Aviation. The Regional Airports enabled Airlines to bring modern day jet service to the rural areas which they could not prepare for.
Yup, that's what they do. I used to take my flight students over there to experience the RAPCON and Control Tower. In those days you could walk right in and get a tour of the facilities any time, day or night.
The facility chief got in trouble frequently with his Air Traffic Service superiors because he didn't meet his quota of FAR violation write-ups against pilots, and because he had so many controllers on staff who were licensed pilots, a combination that died-in-the-wool controllers are inherently suspicious of. It took them awhile to realize that BTV actually had a lower than usual violation rate, and that it was due largely to his (and his controllers) pilot education efforts, and his low-sress management style.
Cheers,
Wes
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