MIflyer
1st Lieutenant
A year or so after I went on active duty in the USAF at Tinker AFB, OK our office received a request to look into a possible problem with the B-52D gunner's cabin pressurization system. It seems that a B-52D was flying along one day and some dust had clogged the sensing input of the gunner's compartment. This caused the compartment to lose pressure, and the gunner became groggy,and was unable to answer intercom communications coherently. Concerned about the gunner, the pilot had a steep turn to head back to base and the gunner's head was slammed against something, giving him a mild injury. Turned out that the gunner was Okay but we were asked to look into a way to fix the problem possibly by putting a dust cover on the gunner compartment cabin outflow valve to keep dust out.
So, a civilian engineer of vast experience told me about the problem and said we would go down to the B-52 overhaul line and take a look at the gunner's compartment, try to get some ideas of how to handle the problem. We boarded the bus and rode down to a huge hangar that contained a B-52. The vertical tail had been removed from the airplane so it could fit in the hangar. The senior engineer talked the foreman and secured permission for us to look at the airplane.
I looked at the tail and my first thought was that it looked nothing like the Revell and Monogram B-52 model kits I had built. The tail gunner position had no windows at all. But then again, neither did it have the .50 cal guns installed, nor did the model kits have the EVS, FLR, and SRAM mods. "They modded the hell out of the tail, just like everything else. But the tailgunner uses radar to he really does not need to look outside anyway." I muttered to myself. Then I looked at the hatch on the top of the tail compartment and realized that it would be very difficult for any human being to climb in there. So I went underneath, into the very small compartment. "Where is the ejection seat and the tail gunner's radar?" I asked. The senior engineer replied that all that stuff was removed during overhaul. The compartment seemed too small to hold that equipment so I moved forward, ducking under the bulkhead and coming up underneath the next compartment. Same story, a small area that had nothing to look at. So I moved up to the next one. There, I found a decal on the bulkhead explaining that was the location for the ALT-XX. I thought, "ALT is a radar jammer. What would the tail gunner be doing with a radar jammer?" Something was wrong!
I ducked out of the fuselage and went looking for the senior engineer. He was talking to the foreman, looked up at me, and said, "It's a G."
Normally the first identifier to tell a B-52G from a B-52D is the tall vertical tail of the D, but that had been removed. I had known from the first that the airplane looked more like a G than a D but when an authority figure told me it was a D, I assumed he was correct and rationalized everything else away. It turned out that most of the D's were overhauled at Kelly AFB. Presumably we had someone down there look at the tail gunner's compartment.
Sometimes the kids building the models really do know more than the experts. .
So, a civilian engineer of vast experience told me about the problem and said we would go down to the B-52 overhaul line and take a look at the gunner's compartment, try to get some ideas of how to handle the problem. We boarded the bus and rode down to a huge hangar that contained a B-52. The vertical tail had been removed from the airplane so it could fit in the hangar. The senior engineer talked the foreman and secured permission for us to look at the airplane.
I looked at the tail and my first thought was that it looked nothing like the Revell and Monogram B-52 model kits I had built. The tail gunner position had no windows at all. But then again, neither did it have the .50 cal guns installed, nor did the model kits have the EVS, FLR, and SRAM mods. "They modded the hell out of the tail, just like everything else. But the tailgunner uses radar to he really does not need to look outside anyway." I muttered to myself. Then I looked at the hatch on the top of the tail compartment and realized that it would be very difficult for any human being to climb in there. So I went underneath, into the very small compartment. "Where is the ejection seat and the tail gunner's radar?" I asked. The senior engineer replied that all that stuff was removed during overhaul. The compartment seemed too small to hold that equipment so I moved forward, ducking under the bulkhead and coming up underneath the next compartment. Same story, a small area that had nothing to look at. So I moved up to the next one. There, I found a decal on the bulkhead explaining that was the location for the ALT-XX. I thought, "ALT is a radar jammer. What would the tail gunner be doing with a radar jammer?" Something was wrong!
I ducked out of the fuselage and went looking for the senior engineer. He was talking to the foreman, looked up at me, and said, "It's a G."
Normally the first identifier to tell a B-52G from a B-52D is the tall vertical tail of the D, but that had been removed. I had known from the first that the airplane looked more like a G than a D but when an authority figure told me it was a D, I assumed he was correct and rationalized everything else away. It turned out that most of the D's were overhauled at Kelly AFB. Presumably we had someone down there look at the tail gunner's compartment.
Sometimes the kids building the models really do know more than the experts. .
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