Ever wonder how well a B-52 could fly without a tail fin?

Was looking at some old jet videos and Youtube recommended this 1964 Air Force training film about a B-52H that lost its vertical stabilizer during a flight test and the pilot who brought it home safely:

_________________________
Their system of ethics, which regards treachery and violence as virtues rather than vices, has produced a code of honour so strange and inconsistent, that it is incomprehensible to a logical mind.

-Winston Churchill, writing of the Pashtun

Posts: 3989 | Location: Holly Springs/Canton, GA | Registered: November 02, 2004

Sigmund

Member

posted

Hide Post

Lost vertical stabilizers were a known issue causing several crashes, but the pressures of the Cold War kept the planes in the air. My brother and I visited one of the crash sites in western MD, here's a great article from the Washington Post. At the bottom are links to photos.

http://www.salisburypa.com/buzzonefour.html

Posts: 16127 | Location: Eastern Iowa | Registered: May 21, 2000

Orguss

Purveyor of
Fine Avatars
Picture of Orguss

posted

Hide Post

Is that the standard paint scheme for the flight test operators?

"I'm yet another resource-consuming kid in an overpopulated planet raised to an alarming extent by Hollywood and Madison Avenue, poised with my cynical and alienated peers to take over the world when you're old and weak!" - Calvin, "Calvin & Hobbes"

Posts: 18136 | Location: Sonoma County, CA | Registered: April 09, 2004

Ignored post by Orguss posted

Show Post