Pictures of Cold War aircraft.

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I'm confused, going to Jolly old England via San Diego seems a bit counterintuitive.
Well, someone was such a poor planner that they put THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS in a bad spot. They had to fly down to San Diego to get lined up with a course that would prevent them from having to climb very high with that load. I don't know where they refueled or how often, but one source says max range with max load is 1200 miles so maybe they first gassed up at, say, Davis Monthan AFB.
 
Unquestionably the best flight in my life was in a FRADU Hunter T8 where we did this against a Leander frigate that was working up. We were the air to surface missile and flew very close to the bomber, a Canberra, until the launch point where we were 'fired'. We dived to the deck and went straight at the frigate pulling up to go over it.

Slightly funny story. When I was told what we were going to do I asked about the ejector seats. He asked what the question was and I commented that the seats we had (Type 3) had a minimum working height of 100ft, and we would be flying at 50ft. He looked at me with a sigh of resignation and said 'Herbie, at the speed and height we will be going, if something goes wrong and we lose height, you will be in the water before you can react. If something goes wrong and we gain height we will easily get to 100ft, so what's the problem? Or you can stay on the ground.

I went, it was an easy decision.
 

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