Low Flying B-52

[Tex_Hill]

My mom worked for Braniff for 21 years. My parents have about 50 to 100 hand painted mahogony models that Braniff had made of various A/C in their fleet.

A couple of the models are of "Fat Albert", as well as 3 or 4 of Braniff's "Flying Colors". The one that I told them that I want, (when they decide to divy up the collection between my siblings & I), is one of the Concorde with British Airways livery on one side & Braniff livery on the other.

Sorry for the thread hi-jack.
Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

 

[Catmando]

Already been done ... at my first airline.

Braniff was your first airline? I was hired by Braniff, before their demise, and placed into their new-hire pilot pool. Of course, I'm still waiting to be called for training, some decades later.

To think we might have flown together? I don't know about the CRM, but we surely would have had some great, "I've got one better than you" stories. Too bad we never did. (and those were some exciting times)

 

[Harrier Dude]

They may not be done just yet......

In 1996 I was flying a T-2 with the callsign Baffin 9XX (squadron callsign at the time when we weren't using Navy 1A 9XX) on a xctry. ABQ Center kept calling me Braniff 9XX. I corrected them several times, then gave up. I guess the controller missed the memo.

 

[JIMMY]

...yes, i got the memo... i just forgot...

 

[Catmando]

B-52 Sea Story:

I grew up on a farm in Eastern Iowa. Our farm was on a SAC low-level, sand-blower route. As a kid, I was absolutely thrilled seeing B-47's and B-52's occasionally streaking very low and very fast above our family farm. . . . but not my Dad.

One day, while my Dad was plowing a field, he stopped by a tree to take a break ,and a drink of water.

As he shut the farm tractor off, he heard this tremendous roar!

Startled, he jumped from the tractor to the dirt, thinking the tractor was blowing up! As he rolled over in the plowed dirt, looking up, he realized it was not his tractor – it was a B-52 as low as can be passing over!

Years later, he was most happy I became a naval aviator. After his encounter with the B-52, Air Force pilots were very low on his list!

Then even more years later, when he was no longer around, I would fly – low, fast, and loud - my own low level, sand-blower routes over other farms, in the F-4 and F-14.

As I did, I often wondered of the farmers below, their sons, (and now also daughters), reactions to my semi-legal, loud, fast and low, flat-hatting flights.

I can only hope they at least approached that of my father's and mine.

Maybe more than one youngster, like me, was encouraged to join our elite fraternity . . . and to make their own, low-level-victimized, father extremely proud.

 

[East]

B-52 Sea Story:

I grew up on a farm in Eastern Iowa. Our farm was on a SAC low-level, sand-blower route. As a kid, I was absolutely thrilled seeing B-47's and B-52's occasionally streaking very low and very fast above our family farm. . . . but not my Dad.

One day, while my Dad was plowing a field, he stopped by a tree to take a break ,and a drink of water.

As he shut the farm tractor off, he heard this tremendous roar!

Startled, he jumped from the tractor to the dirt, thinking the tractor was blowing up! As he rolled over in the plowed dirt, looking up, he realized it was not his tractor – it was a B-52 as low as can be passing over!

Years later, he was most happy I became a naval aviator. After his encounter with the B-52, Air Force pilots were very low on his list!

Then even more years later, when he was no longer around, I would fly – low, fast, and loud - my own low level, sand-blower routes over other farms, in the F-4 and F-14.

As I did, I often wondered of the farmers below, their sons, (and now also daughters), reactions to my semi-legal, loud, fast and low, flat-hatting flights.

I can only hope they at least approached that of my father's and mine.

Maybe more than one youngster, like me, was encouraged to join our elite fraternity . . . and to make their own, low-level-victimized, father extremely proud.

Thanx for sharing your stories and being so honest regarding to flathatting.

It takes a lot of courage to express these actions nowadays and defend yourself on forum like this as the majority of readers on this form disapprove such actions as expressed in a previous poll about yanking off wings from an aviator who did a low pass.

Flathatting...yank them!!!

2865.12%Give him another chance.

1534.88%Voters: 43. You have already voted on this pollhttp://www.airwarriors.com/forum/showthread.php?t=13426&highlight=yanking

 

[Catmando]

Unfortunately, "flathatting" was a poor choice of terms by me. Those low-level flights – both the B-52's, and mine were not for personal enjoyment, or a lark. They were absolutely necessary, and vital training missions of the time.

One cannot adequately fly in harm's way, in a flight regime for which he has never trained. During the Cold War, SAC constantly trained in low-level ingress missions for the potential mission of a nuclear strike, deep within the Soviet Union.

Navy Spads, A3D's, A4D's, and later A-6's and A-7's routinely trained with extremely low level missions at high speed, for the same nuclear eventuality.

The low-level, "sandblower" routes were FAA approved, covered all the U.S., were on the charts and were NOTAM'ed. We flew ours for several hundred miles on specific routes, across CA, NV, and AZ never higher than 500' AGL, nor slower than 360 knots.

Overseas, we trained even lower and faster, but with a real purpose. In the F-4 to defend against SAM's, one had to fly at "corner speed" – 420kts. To be slower, meant you lost maneuverability. As we bled off airspeed avoiding enemy fire, we became an easy target. Therefore, we often got as low as we could - right on the deck - to avoid subsequent SAM's guidance radar and AAA radar. It was essential to have some prior low level experience and training to keep you from auguring in, in that most difficult situation.

Later, during peacetime, I found I had no longer the desire, the need, nor the ability to fly as low level as before. And although allowed on some training missions, I never did. There was no necessity; I was not proficient; and I was older and wiser, and with a family to ever take any foolish and unnecessary risks, even if they were authorized.

 

[A4sForever]

^^ Man, not me ... if they'd let me bring the 747 into the break @ 500' and throttles full forward --- making all the speed that Big Girl could do-o-o-o-o-o-o --- I'd do it.

BTW, when the Concordes came into DFW for the Braniff "Supersonic is Here" PR stunt --- they were preceeded ... INTO THE "BREAK" ... BY THREE ORANGE WHALES FLYING ECHELON PARADE FORMATION AND ... BREAKING DOWNWIND. Great stuff ...



Believe it ....

And I can think of nothing more fitting than to take the 747 under the Deception Pass bridge to close out the career --- in more ways than one. Oh, well.

 

[Fly Navy]

BTW, when the Concordes came into DFW for the Braniff "Supersonic is Here" PR stunt --- they were preceeded ... INTO THE "BREAK" ... BY THREE ORANGE WHALES FLYING ECHELON PARADE FORMATION AND ... BREAKING DOWNWIND. Great stuff ...

THAT must have been cool to see.

 

[Catmando]

BTW, when the Concordes came into DFW for the Braniff "Supersonic is Here" PR stunt ---
....

Would this be one?

[/URL]

 

[Fly Navy]

Anyone ever taken a trip on the Concorde?

 

[A4sForever]

Would this be one?

Nope ... no mountains in the background in Dallas ... just ask J.R. Ewing ....

from a Braniff-Concorde webpage:

At Washington Dulles, a vinyl sticker (14-15" X 24") was removed revealing the "G-BO" (Great Britain) or "F-WT" (France) letters, allowing the aircraft to travel on to London or Paris. On U.S. domestic flights, the stickers were place over the foreign registration and sported the "N81" or "N94" letters.

At this point, British Airways or Air France crews would take over, and fly the "normal" Concorde routes to London or Paris taking the "white swan" to Mach 2 and 57,000-60,000 feet.

Flight certificates were kept in the forward lav of the airplane, and had to to be switched at Dulles.

"We put all our BA docs into the forward "loo", and they used quite separate docs and checklists. On the FAA register they could not use the autloand [sic] in CAt 3 conditions, as their airline president Harding Lawrence had refused to pay for the certification of pilots for this. The FAA required 12 training approaches for each pilot to gain approval. So if the Dulles winter weather produced low visibibility we could get in from LHR, but they could not get in from Dallas. On arrival from Dallas the G would be reapplied during the transit, and the BA crew would climb on board top find that the Braniff crew had left yellow roses on each seat. They never did get to fly Concorde supersonic, and were therefore miserable about this," - Former British airways Concorde Pilot

 

[A4sForever]

Anyone ever taken a trip on the Concorde?

The closest I got was ground school ... I went to Toulouse for simulators and then "they" CNX'ed the program.

A very "busy" S/O panel ... truly, a S/O's nightmare.

 

[Fly Navy]

The closest I got was ground school ... I went to Toulouse for simulators and then "they" CNX'ed the program.

A very "busy" S/O panel ... truly, a S/O's nightmare.

Nice drawn in sunglasses.

Wow, that's a lot of stuff. I'll take my glass cockpit...

 

[A4sForever]

Nice drawn in sunglasses.

Harding Lawrence wouldn't pay for real ones ...