October 14, 2010

Homage..


I heard a thought the other day about the piece of hardware I used to program. They said of the B-52 that its eight engines had the power of 10 railroad locomotives, it was constructed of enough aluminum to make 5,000 trash cans, and its avionics were interconnected with 10,000 feet of wire..

..and it flew exactly like that: 5,000 trash cans lashed together with 10,000 feet of cable and pulled by 10 locomotives.

-30-

5 comments:

  1. Of course I don't have the hands-on with the BUFF that you do, but I read they plan on keeping it in service 'til something like 2050. Can you imagine an almost 100 year old design still being viable? Kinda tells me it's pretty darned awesome.

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  2. "inno"..

    It is said that some time very soon there will be a family whose three generations -- father, son, and grandson -- who were/are BUFF pilots.

    My "hands on" was developing the flight sim and flight planning software and the SIOP that told these folks where to go. The luck of having bad eyesight kept me from being a Nav or EWO.

    They are also known as "SAC's long rifle" and, believe me, watching them scramble is a sight to behold.

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  3. The B-52 is one of my favorite airplanes.

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  4. Supi!

    How you been!? Long time no see! Good to hear from you! Yeah, mine too -- and it took considerably more than a Mosin Nagant to bring them down!

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  5. I had outpatient surgery a few weeks back. The surgery went well and tests came back benign but my back went out getting off the table. Heck of thing to happen.

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