Interesting technical information about the B-52

Traditionally, large aircraft use ailerons to bank. Early models of the B-52 had a combination of spoilers and ailerons as well as a tall tail to help maintain directional stability. Ailerons are capable of providing lift on the "down" wing in order to help an aircraft get out of a bank. Spoilers are used to decrease lift on the "down" wing in order to help an aircraft enter into a bank, or are used to decrease lift on the "up" wing in order to help an aircraft exit from a bank.

The B-52G (no longer in service) and B-52H (the only ones in service) were designed without ailerons. They were redesigned for low-level penetration with the ailerons removed to make room for more fuel and with a shorter tail to reduce weight at the back so more bombs could be carried there. All attitude control is done via spoilers, which cause a reduction of lift upon a wing -- i.e., cause the wing to drop. The problem is that this made the aircraft much harder to fly. You cannot, for example, bank a B-52H at greater than 45 degrees. The bank will swiftly hit 90 degrees and the plane will crash since there are no ailerons to increase lift on the "down" wing and increasing drag on the "up" wing will not cause it to drop, since the drag will be applied both in the horizontal and vertical directions. The result is Czar-52 -- the lower wing continues to drop due to being in the wind shadow of the fuselage, and then the jet falls on its side at a 90 degree angle until the lower wing smashes into the ground.

The only way to get out of this is to a) have some altitude, and b) use your tail to get your nose pointing down at the ground so you can get air flowing over your wings fore-aft again and fly out of the stall. Pilots of large airliners are trained when they are doing their stall training to use the rudder (without ailerons or spoilers) to "kick" the plane over so that the nose is going down in the right direction and air is flowing over the wings again, at which point you can hopefully bring the plane out of the stall before it goes nose-first into the ground. But one thing is true about this: you need altitude. If you are below 1,000 feet and you stall, *you die*.

In the case of the Guam crash, we know that a) the bomber was below 1,000 feet, and b) the bomber was "flying strangely" with one wing dipped. Engine failure is unlikely to cause a B-52 to crash... *unless* the engine failure happens while the bomber is going around at an angle where an increase in speed from the engines is needed to prevent stalling. If multiple engine failure occurs at the exact wrong point in time the B-52 will act like Czar-52 -- it will continue sliding over to the side in a stall and smash into the water quickly. The pilot would likely try kicking the rudder over to put the nose down to get more airspeed but remember that the B-52H is missing half its tail because they chopped half of it off to reduce weight for more munitions! This makes stall recovery a bitch in the B-52H even if you do have altitude. And yes, multiple engine failure has occurred before, most recently making the papers on August 8, 1995 when a Barksdale AFB B52-H *lost an entire engine pod*. Yeppers. Lost. As in, gone. No longer there. Fell right off through the roof of a church (luckily unoccupied at the time).

In short, given the information available, it seems the most likely explanation for the crash of the B52-H at Guam was a) the pilot was making a banked turn at low altitude practicing for his flyover, and b) at the *exact wrong time*, he lost an entire engine pod, causing the bomber to go into a fatal stall. Due to the design of the B-52H, with no ailerons and a too-small rudder, it is easy to stall at that altitude and impossible to recover from a stall at that altitude.

And that's my take for today. Maybe someday we'll "really" know. But I suspect this is the best that we'll ever know.

-- Badtux the Flightless Penguin