In a time of chimpanzees, I was a penguin.
The religious right is motivated by the suspicion that someone, somewhere,
is having fun -- and that this must be stopped.
Bummer. Looks like all six people on board (five crew members and one passenger) are dead.
No info yet on whether this is another case of a B-52 pilot stunting a plane which is deadly when you exceed its operational parameters -- see the case of Czar 52. The B-52 is not an F-16, and if you exceed its flight parameters, it stalls and falls out of the air at an alarming pace.
More info when available :-(.
-- Badtux the Flightless Penguin
Ground rules: Comments that consist solely of insults, fact-free talking points, are off-topic, or simply spam the same argument over and over will be deleted. The penguin is the only one allowed to be an ass here. All viewpoints, however, are welcomed, even if I disagree vehemently with you.
WARNING: You are entitled to create your own arguments, but you are NOT entitled to create your own facts. If you spew scientific denialism, or insist that the sky is purple, or otherwise insist that your made-up universe of pink unicorns and cotton candy trees is "real", well -- expect the banhammer.
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I got EMAIL:
ReplyDeleteDear Badtux,
I just had to comment on your post. Please tell me, are you a former B-52 pilot or crew member? Were you ever in the military? Do you watch a lot of you tube videos and fly model air planes?
I'm a wife of a "current" B-52 pilot. Czar "stunting" a plane was an isolated incident. He was "one" of hundreds of B-52 pilots. Please keep your uninformed opinions to yourself on what "you" think might have happened. This was obviously a catastrofic accident if NO ONE got out alive. I seriously doubt they were over g-ing the plane at "30 miles out"..... or practicing barrel roles.....
People like you that try and make assumptions about something they have no idea or business commenting on, need to get a life!
My son worked on the B-52 flightline in Minot N.D. He tells me that when the guys came up from the Louisiana base this bomber came from, they emptied the Minot parts room. They were desperate for parts to keep those big birds in flight. I suspect it is more a case that they are not being supplied with necessary maintenance in spite of the dedication of the crews and pilots. And I am pissed that the television news hasn't even noticed that a crew of five is gone.
ReplyDeleteMy reply: I think I make it pretty clear that I do not know what happened. Thus the "more information when available". I (and you) do not know where exactly this plane went down or under what circumstances it went down. That said, I was not the only person who flashed back to Czar-52 and wondered if this was the case here (and note that Czar-52 is *not* the only large bomber jet that has gone down due to the pilot "stunting" it, it is merely the most recent).
ReplyDeleteThe B-52H is more forgiving to fly than earlier marks because they made changes to the tail between revisions, but still is built to military, not civilian, safety standards insofar as its flight characteristics go. There are still attitudes and speeds (clearly laid out in the operations manuals) which will cause unexpected loss of control. There are also things *not* in the manuals that can cause unexpected loss of control. Several B-52 crashes during the Vietnam War were caused by B-52 pilots taking action to evade oncoming SAM's and finding these limits the hard way. After-action reports then added that data to the operations manuals as a "don't do that!" warning to future pilots.
In short, you don't want to do anything abrupt when flying a B-52, whether you call it a "stunt" or not. It's hard to think of anything that will take out a B-52 in level flight in such an abrupt manner that the crew would have no time to activate their ejection seats, thus the question of whether the crew was engaged in something other than level flight is a fair one. Once again I note that I do not have the answer to that question and we will find out more as things go on. So it goes.
-Badtux the Military Penguin
Labrys, there were six men on board, the crew of five and a passenger (in the former tail gunner's seat).
ReplyDeleteThe War on Terra has hit the B-52 fleet at Barksdale especially hard, because they've been called upon to do most of the grunt work of that war. Parts for these beasts are hand-made on lathes because the production lines were shut down in 1961 and we are wearing parts out faster than they can be made. That said, it is difficult to think of a maintenance failure that can cause a B-52 to fall out of the sky so abruptly that its crew cannot activate the ejection seats. The only thing I can think of that would possibly do that would be an issue with the control system hydraulics that suddenly jammed the rudder all the way to one side and caused an immediate spin that caused the airframe to break up in flight. We will find out, I suppose...
_BT
I truly hope we find out. I am truly waiting with my heart in my mouth, wondering if they find enough of the plane to find out what happened. Of course, I am bitterly cynical enough to think we may never be TOLD what really caused this crash.
ReplyDeletebadtux,
ReplyDeleteI am working closely with one of the families on Raider 21, am a crewdog myself, and it wasn't "stunting", it wasn't pushing parameters, nor was it because the Navigator knew who REALLY executed the 911 plot, nor was it because the EWO knew who killed JKF. They were in an orbit at 14K' and descending to 3K' for a routine flyover of a Guamanian airshow/parade for Guams Liberation Day, celebrating when the U.S. freed Guam from the Japanese. That is all. The military spouse that emailed you thinks, as I do that it is a little incensitive to post in a public venue that your first thoughts (or what appear to be your first thoughts) on the issue are that its about a pilot attempting to hotdog a BUFF. You have your first amendment rights to speak, I am not saying you don't. I just think some taste and an apology to this spouse is in order for at least being incensitive, that's all.
Hi, I've posted updates. The speculation about hot-dogging was made before information was released that there were six crew on board -- pilots with a reputation for hot-dogging don't get someone filling their jumpseat. Speculation now is that it was a bird strike taking out two or more engines at exactly the wrong time (while in a bank at low speed and low altitude), which with the B52H's chopped-off tail and lack of ailerons is a difficult thing to handle since you can't use ailerons to bring up the "down" wing (don't have any, duh) and you don't have enough rudder authority to kick your nose to an attitude that'll keep you from stalling. Given the multiply redundant systems and such on the big bird, it's hard to imagine anything short of that known weakness of the G/H design taking it down. In level flight losing a pod is not a problem. If it's an engine pod on the down wing in a bank at low altitude and speed... that's Murphy. The bird'll try to cartwheel right into the ocean and you don't have enough rudder to handle it.
ReplyDeleteAnd it certainly wouldn't be the first time a B-52 spontaneously lost an engine pod even without a bird strike -- remember the one that crashed through the roof of a church in 1995 near US71 south of Bossier City? I do, I drove by that church every day when going to work and saw that blue tarp up there on its roof for months until the Air Force finally gave them the money to fix the roof. The fact that B52's drop engine pods easily was touted as a feature by the folks flying B52-D's over Vietnam, since it got a burning engine well away from their bird before it could do something evil. But the B52-D had a full-height tail and ailerons...