The AM Forum

And now for something completely different -
For you aviation/defense buffs, I just received an email from my old roommate and shop-mate at Minot AFB.  We were there at the peak of the cold war, in the maintenance squadron for the Minuteman ICBM wing.  View the video link below at fark.com.  It is of a (15) B-52 alert response at Minot 2 years ago as part of a big exercise.  They take off with minimum spacing.  I don’t think we had as many as 15 at Minot back when I was there 1971 - 74.  They probably have consolidated with some of the base closings.

15 B-52’s off in about 10 minutes after alert :

http://www.fark.com/cgi/vidplayer.pl?IDLink=4632948

Hi Tom,

The subject matter is very good but the guy really takes some poor video!  He needed a tripod big time or maybe some lessons from Burt  ;)  It was tough to watch with all the constant movement.

Joe, W3GMS

Thanks Tom,

Worked with the buff for almost 20 years as a Nuclear Effects weenie.

Phil - AC0OB

Poor devil with the camera was probably on an adrenaline rush being that close to the flight line for what could have been the End of the World.  The sound carries it just fine, I can deal with the shaky video. Adds to the urgency.

This summer I was under a B-52 as it passed over a ceremony at Arlington. Altitude maybe 1000 feet.

Nothing like that scream.

I can only imagine what it was like to scramble more than a dozen of them. whoo ya !

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2011/08/13/courson.b52.pilot.funeral.cnn

I counted 12 take-offs depicted in the video.  The whole alert building to flight line trip was not shown.  So it was probably about 13 minutes for the whole deal.  It seemed that the last few aircraft did not smoke as much.  I guess due to more warm-up time.

Joe, yes I was thinking also how much nicer it would have been if the guy had used a tripod.

At Minot we also had KC-135 tankers, F-106 Delta Dart interceptors, and UH-1F Hueys.  It was tough to sleep sometimes.

Anyhow, hopefully this is a good example of federal expenditures.

Once they got going , they took about 25 seconds rolling to get airborne..lotsa smoke...the kerosene queen...

Agree on the shakey video - that panning was dizzying -- BUT -- what an awesome display of power!  Makes ya proud to be an American
!!

I like this one. Be patient wait for the middle part.  Put yer puter on some good speakers

http://www.fark.com/cgi/vidplayer.pl?IDLink=4632948

That's the same video Al.  ???


Paul,

Nice narration and no belches.

As you can tell by the picture, I was on the defense end of the Cold War in the 60's.  Did a lot of work with SAC, like radar bomb scoring.  One of the techs on the department here was stationed at Minot; wish I could remember when.  Did maintenance on survival equipment and other things IIRC.

If you want the Hollywood version with nice, stable cameras, etc, watch this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3v-PY3PiPw&feature=related

Must've screwed up with the copy & paste.  The one I liked was a different one.  After you play this video, play "Meet the B52"

I lived in the Eastern suburbs of Sacramento, CA in the late 70's and early 80's. Mather AFB's 320th bombing wing at SAC called that home. MITO was a weekly thing and while never seeing it up close and personal like in the video, ALL of us knew when a mito launch was happening. The BUFF was made to make noise and they could be heard up to 10 miles away. Nobody complained because it was part of the community.