![]() After some trial and error, the pilots found that the aircraft behaved the best at around 210 knots, which was 30 knots above the plane’s minimum speed at this configuration.The last of 744 Boeing B-52 Stratofortress bombers, B-52H-175-BW, 61-0040, is rolled out at the Boeing plant at Wichita, Kansas. Lowering the rear landing gear only was an idea that came from other members of the team, on the ground. The pilots turned towards Boeing’s flight test base at Wichita, Kansas. But it was also disrupting the airflow around the elevator, limiting its authority. The 17% still remaining was producing a lot of drag, which under the circumstances, was adding some stability. It later turned out that the B-52 pilots had lost 83% of their vertical stabilizer. Finally, Fisher asked: “ Don’t I even have 50%?”, to which Felix replied, “ No, you don’t have 50%”. All of your rudder and most of your vertical fin are gone.”Ī long pause followed this alarming piece of news, as the B-52 crew digested it. In disbelief from seeing the B-52 flying merrily without its vertical stabilizer, Felix responded: “ Chuck, that’s a good idea. With a chase plane (plus the one taking the photo). They were about to conduct a series of tests at 350 knots – when it happened. ![]() As a result, the pilots abandoned the really low-level portion of the test (500 feet AGL) and started climbing. ![]() The loads on the rear of the aircraft that their instruments measured were higher than Boeing’s engineers expected. And from early on, the crew didn’t like what they saw. This would be a multi-hour test flight, with multiple short runs for each speed and altitude. As part of the test, the crew wanted to test what sort of loads the aircraft would undergo, during turbulence, at different airspeeds. Their B-52 sported sensors, recording aerodynamic loads on key surfaces. This was a four-person Boeing crew: three test pilots and a navigator. This is what the B-52 and its crew were doing before they lost their vertical stabilizer. So Boeing’s engineers and test pilots had to evaluate the plane’s performance and stresses in these conditions. But flying such an enormous aircraft close to the ground, at high speeds, introduced stresses that Boeing never designed it to handle. This was because newer anti-aircraft missiles made the jets vulnerable at higher altitudes. In the early 1960s, the US Air Force decided that it would start flying its B-52s at low level. The size of the vertical stabilizer of the B-52 is relevant to this story. Fitting the B-52 with four bigger engines instead would require an extensive systems redesign – and a bigger tail. And this, incidentally, is part of why the B-52’s current re-engine program involves replacing eight engines with eight newer ones. If the crew lost an engine, its missing thrust didn’t cause much asymmetry, compared to a four-engined or twin-engined jet. Over time it got smaller (shorter) thanks to the B-52’s eight engines. So it could carry many of them.Īnd then there is the vertical stabilizer of the B-52. And it needed that so that its bombs could sit as near the plane’s centre of gravity as possible. It needed outrigger wheels, because of that bicycle landing gear. It needed to have a high-wing design, because its wingtips had to be low, to have outrigger wheels – and a low-wing would thus put the engines too low to the ground. Of course, the plane’s role, of carrying large bomb loads over large distances, was the reason behind these features. And finally, the sweep of that large wing is 35 degrees, more than that of modern airliners (but the same as the 707’s). But its wingspan is only a bit smaller than that of the 777! The vertical stabilizer and rudder of the B-52 (particularly the later versions) are comparatively small. Its length is about the same as that of a Boeing 767-200. The basic proportions of the aircraft are odd.
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