ThomasP
Chief Master Sergeant
re
I had a similar experience in 1965, when I was 6 or 7 years old .
I grew up on a farm in SW Minnesota. Highway 71 runs north-south past our farm and forms one edge of our 10-acre homestead. We were out in the garden gardening (I was playing in the dirt as were the cats, the dog was lying in the rhubarb patch) when I saw something low on the southern horizon (basically a smudged dot) and asked my mom what that was. She could not see it (it was probably about 13 miles away at the time). I went back to playing in the dirt but with the suspicion of a child I kept an eye on the smudge periodically. About 2 minutes later (I assume) I heard the noise of the engines at a distance and looked up just in time to see something huge fly overhead with a very load noise from 8x very loud jet engines accompanying it. I was about 50 yds from the garden on the porch under the overhang so fast that I barely remembered running there.
The cats and dog had followed me. Mom was swearing (a lot) which she very seldom did, as jet fuel vapors descended on us.
I found out later that SAC had just started low altitude mission exercises with the B-52s. They were using Highway 71 as a navigation leg on the way north to simulate low altitude attack approaches to the North Dakota air and missile bases, and were flying very low to avoid the radars. They routinely flew at about 330 knots and 200 ft AGL (in our area the land is very flat, the highest hill only about 45 ft above the surrounding farmland). After that first one we had regular day and/or night runs going over us every week or so for the next 3-4 years.
A few years later a Wild Weasel went down in a wheat field during the Fall, about 2 miles to the east. We heard the boom and saw the plume of black smoke. Dad headed off that direction to see what was what. The 2 crew ejected safely, but about 30 acres of wheat burned before they got the fire out.
Ahhhh, good times, good times.
reat find, it tells a great tale, but omits a part that was pertinent to me. In 1958, when he had a Valiant in New Zealand for the RNZAF's 21st anniversary, he undertook a flyover his old home town of Nelson, which is also my home town, which included buzzing his old school Nelson College. I was all of 3 at the time but can remember like it was yesterday, my mother with my sister a babe in arms, my gran & I were in the back yard waiting for something, I knew not what, to happen & happen it did. There was a large dark shape, which seemed to fill the sky, which flashed over head to be followed moments later by a most appalling noise, terrifying to a 3 year old. I ran inside as fast as my legs could propel me & dived under the bed clothes, to no avail as Trent had pulled the Valiant into a power climb above his old school, about 1/4 mile in a straight line from our house which was close to right under his flight path. By rights I should have hated aeroplanes from that time but happily not so. The darkness of the Valiant, at the time in antiflash white, was obviously the underside in shadow. Local legend had it if he'd had the U/C down he'd have taken the flag pole off the roof of the school. Hell, I'd love to travel back in time to see that again.
I had a similar experience in 1965, when I was 6 or 7 years old .
I grew up on a farm in SW Minnesota. Highway 71 runs north-south past our farm and forms one edge of our 10-acre homestead. We were out in the garden gardening (I was playing in the dirt as were the cats, the dog was lying in the rhubarb patch) when I saw something low on the southern horizon (basically a smudged dot) and asked my mom what that was. She could not see it (it was probably about 13 miles away at the time). I went back to playing in the dirt but with the suspicion of a child I kept an eye on the smudge periodically. About 2 minutes later (I assume) I heard the noise of the engines at a distance and looked up just in time to see something huge fly overhead with a very load noise from 8x very loud jet engines accompanying it. I was about 50 yds from the garden on the porch under the overhang so fast that I barely remembered running there.
The cats and dog had followed me. Mom was swearing (a lot) which she very seldom did, as jet fuel vapors descended on us.I found out later that SAC had just started low altitude mission exercises with the B-52s. They were using Highway 71 as a navigation leg on the way north to simulate low altitude attack approaches to the North Dakota air and missile bases, and were flying very low to avoid the radars. They routinely flew at about 330 knots and 200 ft AGL (in our area the land is very flat, the highest hill only about 45 ft above the surrounding farmland). After that first one we had regular day and/or night runs going over us every week or so for the next 3-4 years.
A few years later a Wild Weasel went down in a wheat field during the Fall, about 2 miles to the east. We heard the boom and saw the plume of black smoke. Dad headed off that direction to see what was what. The 2 crew ejected safely, but about 30 acres of wheat burned before they got the fire out.
Ahhhh, good times, good times.
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