It has been 12 years since we were attacked by the forces of Islam....12 years since we watched 3000 Americans die....it has been 12 years later and 2 wars and America is irrevocable changed. Before 9-11 we still had our innocence so to speak, this was before the TSA and DHS and the other alphabet agencies that like to view us as cattle to be prodded and harassed and controlled. It has been 12 years since this country was free. I do miss the America that was "Before". The America that is now, I don't recognize. We have been changed and not for the better.
I have posted a lot of the B-52 on my blog. The airplane is legendary. There are stories of sons flying the same plane their dad did a generation ago. We in the army loved the B-52 especially as a close support weapon. When a cell of BUFF's "Big ugly Fat F**kers" drop ordinance on the enemy, it brings the world of pain to our adversary. I saw the results of the strikes on the republican guard of Saddam Hussein during the first Gulf War, the damage was incredible. The airplane carries a wide assortment of ordinance from the ever popular dump-truck of iron bombs to the smart bombs, JDAMS, and many other choices depending on the mission requirements. The B-52 is slated to be in service until 2050, that is a 100 year run for the airframe. A record that I think is unequalled.
In this photo made Friday, Dec. 14,
2012, Greenville, Maine, Police Chief Jeff Pomerleau views a monument
next to wreckage from a B-52 bomber on Elephant Mountain near
Greenville, Maine. The plane's 40-foot-tall vertical stabilizer had
snapped off and crashed on Jan. 24, 1963. Seven of the nine people on
board died in the crash. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
ELEPHANT MOUNTAIN, Maine (AP) — Flying low over snowy terrain on a
Cold War training mission, Lt. Col. Dan Bulli's massive B-52 bomber hit
turbulence that shook the plane so violently that he couldn't read the
gauges. Pulling back on the yoke and pushing forward on the throttle, he
tried to fly out of the severe wind. Then there was a loud bang.
Moving at about 325 mph, the unarmed bomber banked, nose down,
toward the unforgiving winter wilderness below. Unable to control the
plane, Bulli signaled for the crew to eject.
They had seconds to save themselves.
Today, the B-52 Stratofortress is a legendary aircraft, one of the
longest-serving in U.S. military history, even flying missions in
Afghanistan and Iraq. The planes will remain in service for years to
come. But it would not have become the workhorse it is without one
disastrous flight 50 years ago next week, and a similar one six days
later in New Mexico, that helped to underscore a deadly structural
weakness.
"When you're flying combat aircraft, you're pushing your aircraft to
the edge" to simulate combat, said Jeff Underwood, historian for the
National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Ohio. "It's very dangerous and
the air crew knows it."
The fateful flight originated on Jan. 24, 1963, at Westover Air Force
Base in Massachusetts. The crew was learning to use terrain avoidance
radar, designed to help the pilot fly at treetop level to deliver a
nuclear strike. Radar advances by the Soviets forced the aircraft with a
185-foot wingspan to fly low to the ground to evade detection, causing
unexpected structural fatigue, Underwood said.
The crew had a choice of two routes, one over Maine and the other over North Carolina.
Maine was selected because of better weather.
Bulli, now 90, was an experienced pilot with 9,000 flight hours,
responsible for overseeing proficiency of other B-52 pilots and crews.
Others, including two instructors, joined the flight. Gerald Adler, a
navigator, took the seat of the electronic warfare officer, one of only
three on the plane that ejects upward during an emergency, along with
the pilot and co-pilot. Remaining crew had to eject downward or bail
out.
The flight started out as routine. Powered by eight jet engines and
capable of carrying up to 70,000 pounds of conventional munitions, the
B-52 approached rural Greenville, 150 miles from Portland. Gusts coming
off the 3,000- to 4,000-foot-high mountains buffeted the plane with
moderate turbulence, Bulli recalled.
Eventually, the turbulence became extreme.
"The instrument panel was vibrating so badly that I couldn't read the
dials. I couldn't interpret the radar returns because it was juggling
so bad. It was the worst turbulence I had ever encountered," the pilot
said.
After hearing what sounded like an explosion — he later learned the
vertical stabilizer had broken off — Bulli had just seconds to determine
whether the plane was still flyable. Unable to control the aircraft, he
ordered the crew to bail.
The B-52 crashed into a mountainside, killing six crew members who
couldn't escape. A seventh, the co-pilot, died after slamming into a
tree.
Bulli shot his ejection seat into the air, bursting through the
escape hatch. He smashed his foot on the instrument panel but cleared
the aircraft. His parachute snagged a tree, and he ended up dangling 30
feet above the ground.
Adler's parachute failed to deploy because he remained strapped in
his ejection seat, and he tumbled through the air before crashing
through trees and into the deep snow, which slowed his impact enough to
save his life.
The harsh landing broke ribs and fractured Adler's skull. But worst
of all, it crushed his survival kit, leaving no access to the sleeping
bag to protect himself from the cold. He pulled out the unused parachute
and wrapped himself in it. Bulli eventually lowered himself to the
ground, dug a hole in the snow, and climbed into his sleeping bag.
The two survivors remember a strange sense of quiet, interrupted only
by wind whistling over the mountainside. Neither remembers the sound of
the plane hitting the mountain.
Not knowing the fate of the others, or each other, Adler and Bulli
settled in for a frigid night in shoulder-high snow. As darkness
descended, the temperature plummeted, eventually reaching more than 20
below.
Their fight for survival wasn't over.
For 20 hours, they waited.
The region where the plane crashed remains wilderness, part of the
vast North Woods that inspired naturalist Henry David Thoreau. Rescuers
had to use helicopters, snowshoes and primitive snowmobiles to reach the
wreckage.
"This is still the last frontier east of the Mississippi. There are
fewer people living in Piscataquis County per square mile than anywhere
east of the Mississippi," said Greenville police Chief Jeff Pomerleau.
Eventually, the survivors were found. Adler had severe frostbite. He
was unconscious for five days and eventually his leg was amputated
because of gangrene. All told, he spent 14 months in a hospital.
Later, he left the Air Force as a captain to start a new life as lawyer and a city councilman in California.
After recovering, Bulli continued to fly B-52s. At one point, he
returned to Maine to serve at Loring Air Force Base. He retired as a
colonel from the Air Force in Nebraska, where he lives.
Coming at the height of the Cold War, the flight showed that risks
and sacrifices even outside of combat were significant. The crash left
nine children without fathers and six women without husbands, Adler
said.
"People who're killed in peacetime are often forgotten. Memorial Day
events often forget them. Veterans Day events often forget them," said
Adler, 81, who lives outside Davis, Calif.
But the crashes in Maine and New Mexico helped to make the B-52 the
reliable aircraft it is today by revealing a fatal weakness in an
aircraft that wasn't designed for low-level flying: The vertical
stabilizer snapped off under certain conditions.
Fifty years after the crash, much of the debris remains on Elephant
Mountain. Torn pieces of riveted metal. Wing chunks with hydraulic tubes
dangling. Parts of the fuselage. Bundles of wire. Wheels and strut
assemblies. The 40-foot-tall vertical stabilizer remains where it
landed, 1½ miles from the other wreckage.
About 10 miles away, at the clubhouse for the Moosehead Riders
snowmobile club, newspaper clippings, Bulli's parachute and Adler's
ejection seat are on display. The club has held ceremonies for 20 years
at the site and will hold this year's on Saturday, ahead of the
anniversary. Pomerleau has taken over organizing the remembrances from
another club member, Pete Pratt, who helped keep memory of the flight
alive for years.
Pratt has been to the crash site a hundred times, but it's still an
emotional experience. Tears welled in his eyes on a recent visit.
"It's a very solemn place," said Pomerleau, who joined Pratt at the
site. "You think of the families, the wives who lost their husbands, the
kids who lost their fathers, the grandchildren who heard the stories.
There's so much to absorb."
