B-52 Stratofortress

by Bill Yenne

A Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Booster Drop Test Vehicle (SRB-DTV) captive flight aboard the NB-52B on June 10, 1977. NASA

  The NB-52E testbed, the second B-52E to be built, was diverted from operational service and used for a series of special test programs. USAF

  The first X-43A hypersonic research aircraft and its modified Pegasus booster rocket are carried by NASA’s NB-52B from Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards AFB on June 2, 2001. NASA photo, Tony Landis

  In 1958 and 1959, two Stratofortresses were assigned as carrier aircraft. The first was the third of the three B-52As, tail number 52-0003. The second was the fourth RB-52B, tail number 52-0008. When given a permanent status as test aircraft, the two aircraft were redesignated as NB-52A and NB-52B. The NB-52A received the dramatic official name The High and Mighty One, while the NB-52B went unnamed, but came to be known, by its 0008 tail number, as Balls Eight. The NB-52A was retired in 1969, but Balls Eight went on to serve for an additional 35 years, until 2004.

  The High and Mighty One made its first flight with the X-15 attached on March 10, 1959, and the first flight in which the X-15 was air-dropped for a glide test came on June 8. The first powered flight of the X-15 was on September 17. Balls Eight carried the X-15 for the first time on January 23, 1960 in the fifth flight of the X-15 program. Over the next eight years, the NB-52B carried the X-15s for most their 199 flights, as well as several “captive” flights in which the rocket plane was carried but not launched. During the program, the X-15 established a speed record of 4,520 miles per hour (Mach 6.72) and an altitude record of 354,330 feet.

  An aerial view showing Stratofortresses on the flight line at Loring AFB, near the town of Limestone, Maine. U.S. Geological Survey

  The tall tails of a group of SAC RB-52B aircraft. USAF

  Members of a SAC B-52 combat crew race for their always ready-and-waiting Stratofortress. Fifty percent of the SAC bomber and tanker force were on continuous ground alert. USAF

  Even before the last flight of the X-15 on October 24, 1968, both of the Stratofortress motherships were being used to air drop other research aircraft. These included the lifting bodies, which studied how virtually wingless aircraft used their fuselage to produce lift. The tests evaluated the flight characteristics of such aircraft, which were seen as a potentially useful design for craft reentering the earth’s atmosphere from outer space.

  The specific lifting body aircraft tested in the 1960s and 1970s included Northrop’s M2-F2/F3 and HL-10, as well as Martin Marietta’s X-24A and X-24B. The M2-F2 made its first glide test on July 12, 1966, followed by that of the HL-10 on December 22. The M2-F2 made sixteen flights, all but four with Balls Eight, which carried the aircraft twenty-seven times after it was rebuilt as the M2-F3. The HL-10 made thirty-seven flights through December 1972, eleven of them with the NB-52A and the rest with Balls Eight.

  Balls Eight carried the X-24A on its first glide test on April 17, 1969, and for twenty-six of its twenty-eight flights, including all the powered flights in 1970 and 1971. The aircraft was rebuilt, redesignated as X-24B, and carried by Balls Eight on its first glide test on August 1, 1973, as well as its first powered flight on November 15. After thirty-six flights, including six glide tests, the X-24B made its last powered flight on September 9, 1975. This flight marked the end of manned flight involving rocket-propelled aircraft at Edwards AFB, but not the end of the career of the NB-52B.

  After having been the mothership for 127 of the 144 lifting body flights, Balls Eight went on to work with a series of unmanned research aircraft programs, such as the Drones for Aerodynamic and Structural Testing (DAST) program. During 1977–1978 and 1983–1985, Balls Eight was also used in the development of the parachute recovery system that was used for the Space Shuttle’s solid rocket boosters (SRBs). In 1983, it was used in the highly maneuverable aircraft technology (HiMAT) project. The NB-52B was then used for a 1990 series of eight tests of the drag chute system that was to be installed on the Space Shuttle Orbiters and first used by it in May 1992.

  Beginning on April 5, 1990, Balls Eight served as the mothership on the first six flights of the Orbital Sciences Corporation’s Pegasus rocket boosters.

  At the end of the century, NASA and Balls Eight returned to the lifting body concept for the X-38 program. The X-38 aircraft were a series of prototype research vehicles designed to develop the technology to build and operate a Crew Return Vehicle (CRV), or “lifeboat,” for emergency use by the crews of the International Space Station. The X-38 was an unmanned craft similar in size and appearance to the X-24A.

  The debut test flight of an X-38 atmospheric test vehicle was air-launched by Balls Eight on March 12, 1998, with NASA touting it as a first step toward “the first reusable human spacecraft to be built in more than two decades.” Though subsequent flight tests were successful, the program was cancelled in April 2002 for budgetary reasons, nine years before the Space Shuttle, the only other reusable human spacecraft, was permanently grounded.

  The career of the NB-52B ended on a high note as the mothership for NASA’s Hyper-X program. Developed by NASA in cooperation with Boeing, MicroCraft Inc., Orbital Sciences Corporation, and the General Applied Science Laboratory (GASL), the Hyper-X aircraft was an unmanned hypersonic vehicle designated as X-43A. The goal of Hyper-X was to accumulate research data for a possible future high-speed, single-stage-to-orbit, manned spaceplane.

  After launch from the mothership, the X-43A was powered to its operational altitude by a modified Pegasus first stage booster rocket, where the booster was released and a scramjet engine took over. Though the first flight in June 2001 ended in failure, the second, in March 2004, established the X-43 as the fastest air-breathing (jet-propelled) aircraft ever flown. The third flight, on November 16, 2004, set a speed record of 7,546 miles per hour (Mach 9.8).

  Gen. Curtis LeMay (center), flanked by Maj. Gen. Robert Terrill and Col. E. M. Nichols, at SAC headquarters. USAF

  Gen. Thomas Power succeeded Curtis LeMay as commander of SAC in 1957. He served until 1964, presiding over SAC when it was at its peak B-52 strength. SAC

  A month later, Balls Eight was formally retired from active service with NASA on December 17, 2004, destined for replacement by the NB-52H (see Chapter 12). As the NASA press release noted, it had “participated in some of the most significant projects in aerospace history. At retirement, the air launch and research aircraft held the distinction of being NASA’s oldest aircraft, as well as being the oldest B-52 on flying status. At the same time, it had the lowest number of flying hours (2,443.8) of any B-52 in operation.”

  “At the time [it came off the production line on June 11, 1955], I’d wager, no one could have conceived that this airplane would have a remarkable 49-and-a-half-year career,” observed Air Force historian James Young. “In fact, several times during that span of those 49 years there were many people who said its service life was over.”

  The Other Research Stratofortresses

  The two motherships were not the only Stratofortresses diverted from SAC for research programs. One of the others was the NB-52E (56-0632), which was used in the Load Alleviation and Mode Stabilization (LAMS) program, which was conducted in around 1966–1968 in response to the rash of vertical stabilizer losses suffered by Stratofortresses in low-altitude turbulence.

  According to Boeing’s P. M. Burris and M. A. Bender, in their report on the topic, this study demonstrated “the capabilities of an advanced flight control system (FCS) to alleviate gust loads and control structural modes on a large flexible aircraft using existing aerodynamic control surfaces as force producers. . . The FCS was designed to alleviate structural loads while flying through atmospheric turbulence. . . . [NB-52E] modifications included the addition of hydraulically powered controls, a fly-by-wire (FBW) pilot station, associated electronics and analog computers at the test engineer’s stations, instrumentation for system evaluation, and the LAMS flight controller.”

  The first of sixty-nine Wichita-built B-52D Stratofortresses, resplendent i
n Strategic Air Command markings. USAF

  While the N prefix redesignation denotes a permanent reassignment to research work, several Stratofortresses were reassigned temporarily and redesignated with a J prefix. One RB-52B (52-0004), called Tender Trap, became a JB-52B in 1955, when it was used to study the results of the Operation Redwing thermonuclear tests in the Pacific. One JB-52C (53-0399) was used for various test projects by the Aeronautical Systems Division at Wright-Patterson AFB, while another JB-52C was retained for testing by Boeing in Wichita.

  Several JB-52G aircraft (including 57-6470, 57-6473, 57-6477, 58-0159, and 58-0182) were assigned to the Air Armament Center at Eglin AFB in Florida for testing a variety of weapons and electronics systems, including the GAM-87 Skybolt missile. Another JB-52G, known as the Snowbird because it was painted overall gloss white, was used at Edwards AFB during the early testing of the AGM-86 Air-Launched Cruise Missile.

  Meanwhile, a number of JB-52Hs (including 60-0003, 60-0004, 60-0005, and 60-0023) were used for weapons tests, including the Skybolt, as well as electronics systems tests, such as those of the AN/ASQ-38 bombing-navigation system.

  “Casper The Friendly Ghost,” a B-52F-70-BW from the 320th Bombardment Wing, dropping Mk 117 750-pound bombs over South Vietnam in 1965. USAF

  THE STRATEGIC DOCTRINE most closely associated with Defense Secretary Robert McNamara is that of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD). However, his tenure in this post—throughout most of the 1960s—is also inextricably intertwined with the United States’ involvement in the war in Southeast Asia. He was present at the beginning, and he presided over both the escalation of it into America’s biggest war in the second half of the twentieth century and over the faltering attempts by Lyndon Johnson to deescalate and conclude it.

  While MAD became McNamara’s signature strategic policy, he is less well known for the equally significant concept of Sublimited War. As he wrote in a September 5, 1961, memo to military department secretaries, he viewed the creation of a Military Assistance Command in South Vietnam (MACV) as “a laboratory for the development of improved organizational and operational procedures for conducting sublimited war.”

  In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee in 1961, McNamara defined this category of conflicts as being warfare in which “the scale and character of the hostilities are kept just below the threshold where the world would recognize it as overt military aggression.” This was the initial step into a war that defined the United States for a generation, but one that McNamara viewed merely as peripheral. The prevailing beef in the American defense establishment at the time was that large-scale wars short of a full-scale conflict—which MAD existed to prevent—were a thing of the past. Future conventional wars, McNamara insisted, would be sublimited wars.

  In 1961, U.S. Army Special Forces were sent into South Vietnam to help train the South Vietnamese in the conduct of sublimited war against the Viet Cong guerrillas, who were supported by Communist North Vietnam—and who did not view the war as sublimited. McNamara’s dilemma was that the war could not be won if it remained sublimited. The service chiefs, whose job it was to win wars, suggested that the war should be won. By now, the former SAC commander, Gen. Curtis LeMay, was Chief of Staff of the Air Force. He advocated a concentrated strategic air offensive against North Vietnam to end the war at the enemy’s source of supply.

  Nevertheless, Secretary McNamara and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, U.S. Army Gen. Maxwell Taylor, were adamant that the war should be fought exclusively in the South after enemy supplies had been delivered. Their view that air power should remain at a tactical, rather than strategic, level prevailed. Nobody could have imagined that they were setting the tone for a far-from-sublimited war that would still entangle America a dozen years later.

  Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara discusses a “sublimited war” gotten out of hand at a White House cabinet meeting in November 1967. DoD

  A camouflaged B-52D on the ramp at Andersen AFB on Guam. Bill Yenne

  American involvement ratcheted up past the point of no return in August 1964, when North Vietnamese patrol boats attacked the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin off the North Vietnamese coast. A second encounter reported two days later was subsequently determined to have been a false alarm based on faulty radar data, but the die was cast. The Gulf of Tonkin incident opened the door to the use of American tactical air power against targets in North Vietnam. In August, Congress authorized President Johnson to order retaliatory strikes by carrier-based tactical aircraft, and, on February 14, 1965, a full-fledged tactical air campaign began. Known as Operation Rolling Thunder, it involved both U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force aircraft, and lasted, off-and-on, until 1968. Where once the strategy had been to allow the enemy to bring materiel into South Vietnam, now the effort was made at cutting supply lines.

  The Strategic Air Command entered the Vietnam War (also called the War in Southeast Asia because of the ongoing air operations, and periodic ground operations, in neighboring Laos and Cambodia) in a support role. The U.S. Air Force had designated SAC as the single manager of all KC-135 air-refueling operations, so SAC was tasked with providing tanker support for fighter and other aircraft operated by all other major U.S. Air Force commands, including those operating in Southeast Asia.

  Arc Light

  At the same time, the Defense Department began drafting plans to use B-52s in Vietnam—but not in a strategic role against targets in North Vietnam. The idea was to use the ultimate strategic bomber against suspected hideouts of the Viet Cong insurgents in the jungles of South Vietnam. The capacity for carrying conventional ordnance, which had been secondary in the development of the Stratofortress as a weapons system, was now in the forefront.

  This operation, code-named Arc Light, received the personal attention and approval of President Johnson. The Arc Light missions, flown from Andersen AFB on Guam, were originally to have included B-47s as well as B-52s, but the former were cut from the roster due to their shorter range.

  The much-discussed, and widely reported, first combat mission involving B-52s came on June 18, 1965, with twenty-seven B-52Fs of the 7th and 320th Bombardment Wings attacking a supposed Viet Cong concentration at Ben Cat, just 33 miles north of Saigon. According to intelligence reports, the target held four battalions of Viet Cong, but a post-strike investigation found tunnels that had been used by the Viet Cong, but no casualties.

  It was an inauspicious beginning. While en route, however, two of the Stratofortresses were lost in a midair collision on a refueling track. The incident was blamed on bad weather, poor planning, and an ill-advised decision to run the entire mission under radio silence. The Strategic Air Command History Office publication, Activity Input to Project Corona Harvest, Arc Light, observes that in 1965, “the concept of operational bombing procedures for large scale non-nuclear strikes was inconsistent with existing SAC materiel concepts,” because Stratofortress crew training and doctrine had been designed for strategic nuclear missions.

  In the early days of Arc Light operations, the Stratofortresses, such as the three B-52Ds seen here, flew in close formation for maximum effect on concentrated areas.

  An Arc Light strike disintegrates a Viet Cong encampment and staging area approximately 30 miles northeast of Saigon on November 20, 1967. USAF

  A pair of B-52Ds approaches their Arc Light target north of Saigon in South Vietnam. USAF

  Meanwhile, the American media considered the use of B-52s to be overkill. John Correll of Air Force Magazine credits Time magazine with coining the phrase “killing gnats with a sledgehammer.” Other commentators substituted fleas and other small insects. In its June 25, 1965, issue, Time reported that “In hindsight, use of the B-52s had been an expensive means of hunting guerrillas, and the scheme’s only real merit may well have been psychological. Hanoi could hardly fail to notice how quickly and easily SAC’s huge squadrons had been brought into the Viet Nam battle. The B-52s would, of course, be enormously effective if
turned onto the cities or factories of the north. But the jungle strike also served to prove once again that the war in South Viet Nam can be won only by foot soldiers, closely supported by tactical air strikes.”

  Nevertheless, after standing down for about a month, the Arc Light force resumed the attacks. Through the end of 1965, Guam-based B-52Fs of the 7th, 320th, and 454th Bombardment Wings flew over one hundred missions to Vietnam. Most of these were simply saturation bombing, but in the fall the B-52s turned to direct tactical support missions, backing the U.S. Marine Corps’ Operation Harvest Moon and the U.S. Army First Cavalry operations in the Ia Drang Valley. Initially, the typical weapons load consisted of forty-two M117 750-pound bombs loaded internally and twenty-four 500-pound Mk 82s loaded externally.

  As the Arc Light missions became routine, the Joint Chiefs of Staff designated “free bomb zones” where missions could be flown without any prior approval from the office of U.S. Army General William Westmoreland, commander of American forces in Vietnam. These zones were located in the southern Mekong Delta, north of Saigon and southeast of Da Nang. It also became routine to fly more frequent missions with smaller numbers of B-52s.

  When Arc Light began, SAC had committed its fleet of B-52Fs, the newest of the high-tailed first-generation Stratofortresses, while reserving the B-52G and B-52H aircraft for the nuclear alert mission. Because Arc Light missions were often flown at night, the B-52Fs had their gloss white undersides repainted in gloss black.