Author Topic: The story of the first and only B-52H Stratofortress’s tailless landing!  (Read 112 times)

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rangerrebew

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The story of the first and only B-52H Stratofortress’s tailless landing!

On Jan. 10, 1964, Boeing civilian test pilot Chuck Fisher and his three man crew launched from Wichita, Kansas, for a mission aboard B-52H serial number 61-0023. The aircraft was involved in a test mission whose purpose was to examine the effects of turbulence at varying altitudes and airspeeds. In other words the aircrew would shake, rattle and roll the Stratofortress bomber at high speed and low altitude to record sensor data on how such conditions could affect the plane’s airframe.

This kind of testing was done because new tactics required the B-52 to fly a different flight profile than the one it was originally designed for. In fact, the Stratofortress bomber was designed to fly at high altitude and hi speed (near supersonic). However, as the Russian air defenses advanced in their ability to hit high flying targets, so the best method to defeat the emerging Soviet threat was considered to be a high-speed low level penetration, whose stress on the airframe required additional testing.

For the test, the Air Force loaned 61-0023 to Boeing that installed 20 accelerometers and 200 sensors to record the stresses on the airframe. The first part of the test went as expected: the crew flew some of the test patterns to measure the effects of turbulence on the jet, then aborted one portion of the flight due to turbulence becoming too strong for what was needed for the tests.

https://theaviationist.com/2021/01/11/that-time-a-b-52h-stratofortress-bomber-lost-its-tail-over-new-mexico-but-managed-to-land-6-hours-later/