Original subtitles

- I'm Matthew Burchette and this is "Behind the Wings."

And this episode is on America's iconic B-52 Bomber, baby!

(upbeat theme music)

Now I say this a lot, but how cool is this?

You guys are getting a really inside look at this thing.

Not everyone gets to do that.

Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam.

Bam! (chuckles)

Welcome to "Behind the Wings."

My name is Matthew Burchette.

I'm the curator at Wings Over the Rockies Air and

Space Museum in wonderful Denver, Colorado,

and get ready to learn about

some of the most iconic aircraft ever,

learn about some really cool aviation history

and generally come away with just an amazing appreciation

for aerospace in general.

You're not gonna wanna miss this.

(mellow music)

The B-52 Stratofortress came to life in 1945

when the United States army air forces needed

to expand its bomber capability.

In 1955, the first Stratofortresses

were delivered to the 93rd Bomb Wing

at Castle Air Force Base in California.

As America's big stick of diplomacy,

the nuclear capable B-52 was the nation's

main Soviet deterrent during the Cold War.

Designed to fly deep into Soviet territory

to strike cities and industry with nuclear weapons,

B-52s were on constant airborne alert from 1960 to 1968.

Luckily the big bomber never dropped

a nuclear weapon in combat, but it certainly

saw extensive action during the Vietnam war.

With the lessons learned in Vietnam,

America began to look for a replacement for the aging B-52.

While the XB-70 Valkyrie and F-111 Aardvark

were slated to fill the role of the Stratofortress,

neither aircraft lived up to their hype

and the B-52 soldiered on.

Even with the debut of the B-1 Lancer,

the B-52 remained a part of America's nuclear triad.

With continuous upgrades, the last B-52s

manufactured in 1965 are still serving our country

and are planned to serve until at least 2045.

All right, that's enough chitchat.

Let's go explore the second oldest

B-52 Stratofortress anywhere.

Hey, welcome to this episode of "Behind the Wings,"

which we're highlighting the B-52 bomber

here at Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum.

If you've ever been to our museum,

you certainly can't miss this monstrosity out front.

But what you may not know are some of the salient features

of this aircraft.

Take for example, the wingspan.

That's 185 feet wide.

Now for comparison sake,

that's nearly two B-17 bombers from World War II.

How nuts is that?

But even more nuts, the length!

She's 159 feet long, which is nine feet longer

than our B-1A Lancer that we have inside.

But guess what?

Speaking of inside, we got places to go, baby.

(upbeat music)

We decided to, (sniffs) woo, start at the end

and work our way forward.

So we are actually in the gunners position of a B-52B

and I will say this, there's a distinct smell

about old planes.

And I know there's some guys out there

that know what I'm talking about.

I can't place it, but it's kind of funky.

The B-52B was equipped with a quad 50 caliber machine gun

turret just like this one, but it had a radar gun site.

Now as the B-52 got older and more complex,

they went to a 20 millimeter cannon and finally

to a 20 millimeter Gatling gun

and there was nobody that actually sat back here at all.

And now they don't even have a gunner station.

Did you know that the B-52 Bomber

is the largest airplane to have an aerial kill?

It's true.

24, December, 1972, the crew of Diamond Lil

encountered a MIG 21 fighter over North Vietnam.

And the rear gunner shot it down with its four

50 caliber machine guns, just like we have here.

Now, you'll notice that this is not a large compartment

and you may or may not notice there's no ejection seat.

So how did this guy get out?

Well, guess what?

There is a handle right here,

but it's not for an ejection seat.

It just makes the entire end of the turret fall away

from the plane, which means that the guy just had

to dive right out.

Ah ah, not gonna happen.

Now, as much as I like being back here

'cause there is so much to look at,

there's even more to look at up front.

So let's make our way to the cockpit section

'cause we got a lot to talk about there.

As I crawl through our B-52, there are some things

you need to know about this aircraft.

Like the fact that our B-52 is 64 years old.

There's a saying in the B-52 community that goes,

this is your grandfather's B-52,

which means it's possible that pilots today

are flying the exact same plane their fathers flew.

That's nuts!

No other aircraft in the US arsenal

has that kind of legacy.

Okay, we've made it to the navigator's position.

Yay, no more crawling.

We're actually back here in what they called the black hole

and you can kinda see why.

Not a lot of ways to look out of these tiny little windows,

there's one here and one over to my right.

But this is where the radar navigator sat

and just to my right was where the navigator sat.

Now that sounds redundant but in 1950s parlance,

the radar navigator was actually the bombardier.

And if you look at some of this equipment around me,

you start seeing special weapons and ASM lock

and internal bomb indicator light control,

you know, all that kind of cool stuff.

But right in front of me is actually the large radar screen

that the bombardier would use to figure out

where the target was and when exactly to drop,

in this case, usually a nuclear weapon.

Luckily the B-52 never dropped a nuclear weapon in combat.

Now, if you wanna stay safe in a super scary environment,

you definitely need a good EWO.

He lived above us.

Let's go see what he did.

(upbeat music)

So we're up on the flight deck now.

We've gone up a level from where we were before

and we're in the EWO station.

And if you remember correctly, EWO

stands for electronic warfare officer.

Now, when the B-52 was created

it was really meant to go straight into the Soviet Union

and bomb cities and large factories

and that kind of thing.

Well, the Soviets knew we were probably gonna come

and they had an amazing anti-aircraft system set up

with triple A batteries, which is anti-aircraft artillery

and SAMs, and that was the big threat,

the surface to air missile.

They had the SA-2 which was an amazing piece of equipment.

It didn't do great for us, but it was great for the Soviets.

So the EWO was there to counter that threat.

One of the things that he had as his disposal

was the AOQ 117, and it was a suite of electronics

that could literally prioritize all the threats

coming at this plane.

In fact, the EWOs like to say that it worked auto-magically,

which is kinda cool when you think about it.

But it was a deadly game that they were playing

because the Soviets were launching missiles from the ground

and from their aircraft to try to take down these bombers.

And the EWO was trying to jam their radars,

throw off their heat seeking missiles,

and generally keep themselves alive and get back home.

But how would you get back home?

Let's move up front and let's see where the pilot

and co-pilot were.

(mellow upbeat music)

To my left is where the pilot would sit

and I'm sitting where the copilot would sit.

Now, one of the things you're probably looking at already

is there a lot of bells and whistles in here.

You got to remember the B-52 had eight engines,

which means eight throttle levers

and all of these gauges for the corresponding engines.

You've got fuel flow, you've got RPM,

exhaust temperature, pressure ratio,

all these kinds of stuff that you know,

you don't have to look at a lot,

but you definitely got to keep your eye on.

The stuff you really need to keep your eye on

luckily like any other plane is always right

in front of you, it's the six pack.

It's your turn and bank indicator,

it's your altitude, it's your airspeed,

all that important stuff that you really need

to know to fly.

Now, one of the other things you're probably noticing

is (taps glass) some of this stuff looks kinda beat up.

Well, there's a reason for that.

In 1998, a gentleman came by before Lowry

was really well populated.

He climbed up on a ladder and he doused the cockpit section

with gasoline and he lit this plane on fire.

Now, why didn't he do that?

Well, he was protesting America's landmine policy.

Now what does the landmines have to do with B-52s?

I got no clue, but in his mind it made perfect sense.

Luckily, he was caught and this plane had some damage to it,

to the tune of about $250,000.

But luckily our volunteer Corps came to the rescue

and was able to repair this plane.

Otherwise, sadly, she probably would have gone

to the scrap heap.

Not a really fitting in for such an amazing plane.

So as I sit here I'm struck by how much

of the original equipment is still in here,

all the gauges and dials.

And it gets me to thinking, what's the difference

between a 64 year old, B-52 and a B-52

that well is maybe 60 years old

but it's still flying for the air force?

I know they've gotta be changes, you know,

technological advances and whatnot.

But luckily there is an air force base not too far

from here that still flies B-52s.

So I'm thinking why not Minot?

(happy music)

Okay, so all you can tell we are no longer in Colorado.

We're in Minot, North Dakota.

Everything you've ever heard about it is true.

It's cold out here and I've only been here

a couple of hours.

But my not is also home to the 23rd and 69th Bomb Squadrons

that fly the B-52, like the ones we have upfront

except mucho modernized.

And we are gonna see some of that stuff up close

and personal.

But right now we're gonna go talk to the bass historian

because I'm freezing.

So let's go!

Did you know that Minot Air Force base is one

of two B-52 bases in the United States

and also one of the areas where we store

some of our nuclear munitions?

In fact, if this base were to secede from the United States,

it would be the third largest nuclear power in the world.

Minot Air Force Base is also home to over 5,000 military

personnel who have access to their own grocery store,

neighborhoods and even a fitness facility.

(Matt grunts)

Now it's time to meet up with the historian, Rob Michel,

to understand how B-52s in the 5th Bomb Wing found

their home in Minot, North Dakota.

So, give me a little bit of background

on the 5th Bomb Wing.

How did it get here?

What did it do before it got here?

- So the 5th is a really old unit.

Started out in 1919 at Luke Field in Hawaii

if you're looking at an overhead image of Battleship Row.

Right, that's Ford's Island- - Right.

- [Rob] And that was actually Luke Field.

- So the 5th is kinda famous because they bombed a volcano.

- They did, Mauna Loa.

- Give us a brief overview of what the heck

that was all about.

- It's an interesting story and it's debatable

on whether or not it worked.

So the volcano is erupting and the bomb group

happened to be there, right, at Luke Field.

So a scientist came up with the idea

to actually bomb the lava tubes to save the city of Hilo

from the volcano.

The 23rd and 72nd got in their Keystone bombers-

- Yeah the Keystone. - The Keystones,

and decided to drop some bombs on the flow.

- It sounds like something right out of an episode

of Gilligan's island.

It's just kind of goofy.

Now that we've got the 5th Bomb Wing established.

When did it come to Minot and why Minot?

- Well, the shortest path to Russia

or the Soviet Union is over the pole.

- Right. - So all these

northern tier bases that were being built

were kind of usurped by SAC, right?

And taken over, - Okay.

- You know ans SAC said, hey, let's put some bombers

up there.

- How does the air force come around and just grab the land?

is it literally a land grab?

And just say, hey, we're the air force

and we get to do what we do, or is there a process?

- So the citizens of Minot decide,

heard that the air force was shopping North Dakota

to put in an air force installation.

So the residents and the local business owners said, hey,

this is gonna be a great thing for the city, right?

It's gonna bring us a lot of money.

Those local businesses and the citizens donated $50,000

in the late 50s-

- No kidding. - To buy the land,

where Minot Air Force Base sits.

- I just don't see that happening today.

- I don't either. - That's amazing.

(mellow music)

All right, so I'm standing here in Dock-8

which in air force parlance means well, hangar.

And this guy is Captain Arpin.

Now you're actually a B-52 pilot.

- That's correct. - That is very cool.

Before we get to that, tell us about

where we're standing.

- So Dock-8 as you said, a hanger

is one of our more recently built hangers.

And as you can see behind us,

we do have one B-52 currently in the hangar.

There's actually room for an entire

another B-52 in this hangar so that maintenance operations

can continue even when the weather is bad outside.

- That is nuts.

And considering Minot, North Dakota in the winter,

you don't really wanna be doing that stuff

outside. - No, not at all.

- So tell me a little bit about yourself.

How long have you been flying the B-52?

- Five years in the B-52 now, closer to six

but five years here up in Minot.

- How do you like it?

- It's a lot of fun.

I tell you what, the B-52 requires a lot of actual flying

as opposed to a lot of the newer airframes.

- Oh, that's nice.

Well, what I'd like to do is just kind of do a walk around

and kind of talk about some of the salient features

of this plane.

Are you cool with that?

- Yeah, absolutely.

- All right, let's go see.

We're standing here in front of the monster engines

on the B-52.

Captain Arpin, tell us about these things.

- All right.

So we're in front of engines, number one

and two of the B-52, which iconically has eight

of these TF33 turbofan engines.

- Now we've been seeing these guys take off

all day long and they're super smoky.

What's going on with that?

- Generally, because these are a slightly lower

efficiency engine than you're used to seeing today.

And what you're seeing is actually a little bit of the

imperfect burn coming out of the back of the engine.

We can carry up to 290,000 pounds of gas

as a full fuel load.

- So just in comparison, my super awesome Subaru Crosstrek

holds a whopping 16 gallons.

That's a whole lot of Subarus in that plane right there.

And you guys refuel

in the air all the time. - Yeah,

- No big deal. - Very typically on most

training stories and definitely on any story

that we're taking out any further than outside

of the continental US. - That's awesome.

Well, let's keep walking around 'cause there's way more

that we wanna talk about.

We're in the bomb bay right now and this thing,

this looks really super scary.

What is this?

- So what we're looking at here is called

the conventional rotary launcher.

It's actually one of the newer features that we have,

and it allows us to drop JDAM and other precision

guided munitions- - Okay.

- Where we actually have the capability to talk

to the weapons from the bomb bay.

Whereas what we used to do is only release

our gravity weapons.

So really no initial guidance, no any kind of guidance

out of the bomb bay.

So this gives us the capability now to launch smart weapons

out of the bomb bay and allows us to really increase

the overall amount of smart weapons

we can bring. - So all these plugs

literally get plugged into the weapon

and then the weapon and the plane talk to one another.

- That's correct.

So all of these, there's a plug in every single

one of the eight stations, which can carry up

to a 2,000 pound smart weapon.

So each one of these plugs actually allows

the weapon to talk to the aircraft.

It allows us to program into that weapon in flight

where we want it to go. - Wow.

Taking a tour around this aircraft got me to thinking,

how much of the aircraft is original?

Well, everything you're looking at on the outside

is actually from the 1960s.

Yeah, the tech on the inside has been replaced,

but considering there's no Boeing store,

you can go to and say, hey, I need a new front landing gear;

maintaining this old girl for over 50 years is impressive.

Oh, big difference though.

The tail.

So one of the things I really wanted to point out

was this guy, the tail.

Ours is a B-52 B, which means it's got quad 50s

in the back.

This has got nothing.

- What you definitely notice here is absolutely correct.

They've remove the gunner position

and it's really kinda came about when we realized

that there's really not much more a gunner

could really do for us in the way of defense

with long range missiles and stuff like that

to defend against a gun- - Yeah, no kidding.

- [Captain Arpin] A gunner is really isn't gonna

take care of that.

- I'm loving this.

I could spend all day checking this out,

but I really wanna see the inside.

Can we go to that?

- Well, as you can see behind me, Matt,

we've got a little bit of active maintenance going on

so we can check it out right now,

but we can come back later and when we do,

I'm gonna bring out a full B-52 crew,

and they can show you around the crew compartments

and talk to you a little bit about what they do

in the aircraft. - Seriously?

Okay, I can probably wait for that, maybe.

Waiting for the B-52 crew to get ready,

I headed out to the flight line to watch some B-52s

take off.

Man, to actually see these guys fly was amazing.

Big?

Yes.

A bit smoky?

Yeah.

But what do you expect from a plane that your grandfather

could have flown in?

Back inside Dock-8 it was time to meet up with Arpin's crew

and get a tour of the inside of the plane.

Up first, we joined Captain Henry in the cockpit.

This really doesn't look that much different

than the aircraft that we have at the museum.

- No, and it wouldn't.

She's got some new tricks but she has not changed a lot

as far as just the aesthetics internal to the jet.

So we have our, you know, our ADIs, our altimeters,

VBI, things you would expect to see in a, you know,

your normal, your aircraft's. - Right.

- But as far as systems are concerned,

some of your systems that keep the jet operating,

we have our hydraulics off to the left-hand side there.

And then you've got your instrumentation right here

for what's going on with the engines.

You got oil pressure across the eyebrow panel here.

We've got electric software right here inside here as well.

So kind of some big picture systems.

- It does look so similar to what we have

and ours is literally the second oldest.

- [Captain Henry] Yep, it really does look the same,

but this old girl still has some teeth on her

and she still goes out and does the mission.

So. - Yeah.

Well, like they say, this is your grandfather's B-52.

- [Captain Arpin] It really is.

- Well, thank you so much.

I think what we're gonna do is we're gonna climb around

and see some of the other positions.

- Okay sounds great, Matt.

Have a great time.

- Okay, Sara, where are we?

- Well, Matt, we are in the electronic suite of the B-52.

So we also have the retired gunner position

sitting next to me.

We are upstairs facing backwards

behind the pilot and the copilot.

- All right so, what exactly do you do as an EWO?

- Obviously, with the gray curtain behind me,

a lot of my equipment is classified, but what I do,

my primary mission is defense of the jet

and defense of the crew.

If you go around the world each country

has surface to air missiles,

better known as SAMs. - Right.

- And when they want to take a shot at an aircraft,

that's thousands of feet in the air,

they have to radiate with a radar.

Each threat system has an original sound to it

and we study those so that we can identify it

as soon as possible on board.

- So when you say you listen to it, are you getting a tone?

- Yeah, so we ever had set on, we get audio.

A lot of people in our career field

will call it the beeps and squeaks.

And once I determine what threat or SAM that is,

I apply the appropriate jamming package to it.

So when they do take a shot, hopefully they miss.

- So literally through the beeps and squeaks

you can go, okay, that's an SA-21 or whatever.

- Correct. - Wow.

So you're pretty good at your job, aren't you?

- I try to be.

There's a lot of studying.

- Oh, I bet.

Well, and you've got a lot of people counting on you.

- Exactly.

So this is the only crew compartment

that has one individual.

So there's a lot of pressure riding on it,

but you also get a lot of reward too

because you're the one who's gonna bring the crew home.

- Very cool.

Well, thank you

for your service. - Yeah.

- Okay, so I'm now in, let's just face it, a black box.

- Black hole.

- [Matt] And I'm with newly minted Captain King Fisher.

Congratulations on the promotion captain.

- [Captain Fisher] Oh, thank you.

- So tell me what you do down here

in this very tiny black compartment.

- Yeah so, this is the, we call it the offense compartment.

It's where the navigators or the weapons systems

officers sit.

We work together 'cause a lot of times

we'll be trying to navigate and employ weapons

at the same time.

Hence two people down here, it can get kinda busy.

But yeah, it's kind of our primary thing

is to navigate and work with the weapons.

- I notice that you guys have the same kind

of tunnel situation that we have.

Do you guys ever go back there or is it just kind

of sealed up since there's no gun out?

- Oh, we go back there. - Really?

- Not on every flight, but yeah, when we need to,

when you drop weapons out of the bay for dropping, you know,

like 27 gravity weapons out of the bay

we don't always have a way to verify

that all of them released and that we don't have

any weapons still back there. - Okay.

- So in that case, what we'll do is we'll descend down

and we'll depressurize.

And then we'll send one of our crew members,

one of our weapons qualified members

back through that door and we'll go back into the bomb bay

and make sure the weapons are gone.

And then we crawl back here and you know,

thank the Lord was still alive.

(both chuckle)

No, it's not too bad.

- How's it like flying in this box?

- You know, I personally love it.

It's one of the things you get used to.

- [Matt] I mean, there's a lot going on in here, I'm sure.

- There's a lot going on.

And then you don't have windows.

We have a FLIR,

which works on most jets.

So you can kind of get something of a picture outside,

but for the most part when you're banking

and turning and it's dark down here.

It's fun, I like it.

I enjoy it.

I wouldn't want to do anything else so.

- Well, excellent.

Well, I am going to stay here for the next month or so.

I think the camera crew might go out and film other stuff,

but I- - There's actually

like enough room down here to lay down and sleep

if you want. - Oh seriously.

Oh, I am totally moving on.

- Yeah, yeah, just yeah. - I'm totally moving in.

- I think you will be just fine. (chuckles)

- This is an aviation icon,

a timeless aircraft that has been literally flying

for generations.

From crawling through the second oldest B-52

in existence to watching active B-52s

takeoff at Minot Air Force Base,

and even taking a tour inside with a full crew,

we've taken you behind the wings of the B-52 Stratofortress.

(upbeat music)

69 font pa.

I can't talk in the cold.

Captain Archer. (laughs)

(Matt inhales)

(Matt chuckles)