Boeing B-47 Stratojet Combat Maneuvers
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- Опубліковано 7 вер 2024
- Watch the big Stratojet do an Immelman turn & more! B-47 crews loved this aircraft's maneuverability and sweet handling for good reason.'
In 1954 the Air Force conducted a series of maneuver tests that showcased the B-47's outstanding agility. Theses tests were specifically designed to explore the B-47s ability to "toss bomb." The aircraft would approach the target low and at high speed, pull up sharply, open bomb bay doors, use momentum to literally fling the bomb towards the target and then execute the rest of a half loop Immelman turn so that they were flying back in the opposite direction at the top of the loop. This maneuver allowed the bomber to drop nuclear and high explosive weapons at low altitudes without danger of blast damage or flying directly over heavily defended targets. Seeing the big, sleek B-47 execute this maneuver (and barrel rolls too!) is truly memorable. Cameras located all over the aircraft give unique views during the test flights
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This is a very thorough and accurate video. Dick Taylor was the pilot who conducted these tests for the Air Force at Boeing -Wichita. This maneuver came close to the structural limit of the airplane. Training within the fleet for this maneuver was stopped after fatal accidents occurred. The cause was structural failure traced to metal fatigue. I worked for Boeing on the design and testing of both the B-47 and B-52 from 1949 through 1968 at Seattle and Wichita. At the end of that period I was Chief of Structures Technology, with responsibility for many activities. I'm now 95, with a lot of memories of those times.
I happen just finished reading “The road to the 707” by William Cook. Awesome illustration on the pioneering breakthrough in the XB-47 that has set the basics of modern jet transports. My hats off.
My father flew B-47s back in the early 50s. He told me it flew like a six engine fighter. Keep in mind that the fighter he had flown was the P-38 and that he came to the B-47 from the B-29 and B-50 bombers. He did say that the B-47 had to be flown BY THE NUMBERS or it would kill you. We were at Castle AFB at the time and what I remember about the B-47 from a four year olds perspective was that it was very hot under that canopy in the bright California sunshine. Thanks for putting the vid up. It brings back memories.
mightaswellbe my be awsome knowing ur pa was a b-47 pilot 👨✈️ thanks for his service sir
Like other commenting, my father served a time in B-47. He was a bombardier navigator at a test squadron during the 50's. The nifty fifties of aviation. Must have been a heck of an experience.
My dad was a navigator in the B-47 at Schilling AFB in Salina, Kansas from 1953-57. He didn't care for the plane because of all the accidents.
@@timschmidt3784 During those days between new cutting edge tech and Gen LeMay pushing SAC to the edge and keeping them there. Aricraft accidents, Broken Arrows tough on men and machines. I appriciate your father's service.
You're welcome. I've heard from several SAC vets that this was their favorite aircraft. Sweet handling!
Tell that to the families of the huge number of pilots/crew that were killed flying this dangerous piece of crap.
My dad was a 24 year USAF pilot. He flew P-40, P-51 in WW11. B-29s in the Korean War, B47s in the Cold War and C7a's in Viet Nam. Many other planes in between. Our neighbor was one of the crew men killed when shot down by the Russians in the 1960's out of Forbes AFB in Kansas. My Dad was the alternate Command Pilot for that flight so fate could have had him in the cockpit in stead of our neighbor. He had many story's about getting chased by the Russians just because we violated their air space up the Vladivostok bay. Can you image if they flew up the Chesapeake Bay? He always said the P-51 was his favorite but the B47 was second. He said many times that the plane was totally unforgiving and most problems were because of inexperienced pilots pushing it too far beyond it's envelope. It could and did all the things in this video plus more. Remember this plane was on the drawing boards in the late 1940s and flying in the 50's. An amazing plane.
I was at MacDill AFB i 1957, when one of our (306 BW) B-47E's shed a wing while performing a roll or LAB over Avon Park Bomb Range, after returning from Goodwill tour of South America, where the LAB maneuver was an air show stopper. At Buenos Aires, they blew the windows out of the airport hotel. That Avon Park crash led to the grounding and the discovery of cracked spars throughout the fleet. Factory crews fishplated a fix as rapidly as possible.
We had lost a few before and after that; one on the runway during take-off roll, due to an off-set nose gear through human error, (3/8 socket jamming the metering valve}, one over the Sunshine Skyway Bridge due to hydraulic pressure leak into A/C system, and one fire-balled off Azores during AR breakaway, on the way to Africa. I also took the crew chief maint cse, at RAF Upper Heyford in 1955 and worked on them at Greenham Common RAF Sta, Eng. I piggy-backed the boomer over Iceland, and got some great photos. She was a beautiful sight in the air and on the ground. I feel blessed to this day for the contact I had with her and the crews who flew her. Thank you USAF.
Interesting coincidence. I was a baby in my mother's arms at that air show in Buenos Aires! Thunderbirds were there too. I dont remember, but I still have the family photos of that day.
I had the distinct honor of being a member of Boeing Flight Test. It was the most fun I think I ever had. The men who I worked with, who were all 3 to 5 years from retirement. There were 3 of us in our 20's and we were not fit to Dump the Tu*d hearse or clean the windows without close supervision. But, I got an education that you can't pay for or purchase for any amount of money. In my case it forged who I became in my time as a Boeing Field Service Representative. God Bless all you hairy angels.
They rolled that B47 like it was a F16.
I thought the B52 couldn't be rolled without cracking up the wings.
And the B52 came after the B47.
Great video.
Much respect to the veterans who flew and maintained and with the B52 still maintain these jets.
Nice report! It took some real guts to go through an Immelmann with this six-engines behemoth! Also, this report makes me think that it was an another era, back when TV was still informative. Back in the days, reports were actually meant to teach people a few things, to make them more knowledgeable if not clever. Today, what we are served is stuff that is meant at provoking anger... or emotions!
This was not made for broadcast TV. It is a film produced for stakeholders in the B-47 program.
That was pretty impressive. A T-38 was 500 kts and 4 g's.
We had the XB-47 that is now at Edwards here at Chanute until the museum went tits up. Saw her many, many times as I spent part of my childhood in Rantucky. At least she was saved.
The "Flying the B-47" training film from 1950 (see related videos) notes that every 5 kts of excess speed on landing used 1,000 ft of runway.
We did over-the-shoulder toss bombing in the F-105. It's for accuracy and for getting the hell out of the atomic blast area in a hurry.
I've been engrossed in military aviation history since I was a young kid and this is my first time hearing of this technique. It sounds quite exhilarating! And it's pretty ingenious!
My father flew the B47's from 1959 to 1965. I got to crawl all around the cockpit a number of times and even went with him to some sort of simulator he was training on. It was an incredible aircraft but I do remember hearing about crashes. My mom was always worried it seemed. Thanks for posting this.
I somehow have never heard of this aircraft. Can a B-52 do all this? I am very impressed. Why was this not the stud of the sky. After watching this I wonder why the B-52 was ever devised. I would like to hear your reply, thank you.
@@paulh7589 Range and payload. B47 was a medium bomber. It was incredible for its day but like many of the comments indicated below you had to fly by the numbers with a steady hand. I remember being brought in from playing outside on a couple of occasions while at Lincoln AFB. The wing and squadron people had to notify a wife that their husband had died in a crash. Even as a kid you could feel the pall it brought to base. Fuel management was a bear and the copilot spent a bunch of time managing that. They used celestial navigation, I saw the manual my dad had from the USAF for that. The B52 had better range and and a better payload capacity and it is still doing the job today.
@@dkluempers I really appreciate the enlightenment. Thanks for answering my question and giving me thoughtful insight. Have a good evening my friend.
Barrel rolling a large plane is largely a function of roll rate. The Avro Vulcan, very similar in size to the B47 was rolled at airshows on more than one occasion. Concorde was barrel rolled too, and was almost twice the length and max take-off weight of a B47.
B-47 was way-ahead of it's time. How much fun it must have been, to do aerobatics, in such a large jet. Truely, these guys were exploring the unknown.
thanks for posting this.
The airframe was, but the engines were poor. The coffin corner for the B-47 at 35,000 feet was FIVE KNOTS between overspeed and stall! You HAD to be on the ball flying that beast.
One of the biggest drawbacks with this bird was her rather sluggish J-47 engines that took considerable time between throttle movements and engine power increasing or decreasing. There was an effort to fit later versions with the much better J-57's, but it went nowhere apparently because J-57 production was prioritized at the time for many other aircraft such as the B-52, F-102A, C-135/707, etc.
6:25 DO A BARREL ROLL! xD
the B 47 is my favorite bomber of all times, fast, gorgeous and ubercool
Convair B-36 was more impressive: Six Turning Four Burning ua-cam.com/video/9FJVxtTNjJk/v-deo.html
Thanks for sharing! The B-47 is the most beautiful jet ever built
It's interesting some decry the utility of the B-47's maneuver capability. These qualities made it far more versatile then a normal bomber. Some of these would be wonderful choices in a nuclear toss bombing attack and egress. It also shows the aircraft could make last minutes target corrections fairly easily.
A properly-conducted barrel roll is a gentle, constant 1-G manoeuvre, (see videos of Bob Hoover pouring a cup of tea all the way round a roll). The Immelman is a different animal, with all sorts of load and speed issues. Control authority is key.
As always, thank you for posting this video.
I had no idea what a winner (for the time) this bomber was. Keeping the scale of aircraft in mind, it is really something to see it doing these maneuvers!
Must have been an amazing sight seeing this fly in real time! Those people don’t know how lucky they were! The b-36, b-58 too, It’s kinda how I feel seeing 747s fly over the house on final to LAX! There days are numbered And heck I haven’t had a non C-5M land at Los Al in years, sad they retired 57 or more of those.. the sound of the A/B is amazing during T/O and Landing.
I got a couple pictures of a C-5 taking off from Los Al a few years back. When it rotated, it rose out of the dust cloud from my perspective. And, it was loud!
Impressing to see such a large aircraft doing immelmans. Of course if 2,5 g is sufficient in the pullup, any modern passenger bus could do it but certainly, in the first 2 or three tests, the pilot probably will have a fast heartbeat! Thanks for sharing.
they could but they arent designed for it not like military planes which are designed for it
Did they have toilets in these things ? Good Lord....it must have been torture to fly this thing on long missions ......it reminds me of this fantastic movie Strategic Air Command with James Stewart.
I remember seeing it in French television......it blew me away......and I became a pilot all the way to the A380 command
I bet this jet was really fun to fly. From in the cockpit, it looked like he was flying a fighter. Watch some of the videos of the B-52, especially the crash where the pilot was practicing for an airshow. It's unbelievable what these huge aircraft can really do. I'll be really impressed when he pulls a Cobra...
I was at Fairchild AFB when they crashed a KC-135 while practicing for an air show. It almost crashed on me. The B-52 crashed a couple years after I retired there. They didn't learn their lesson--big planes have no business playing like fighters.
My dad was the aircraft commander of a B-47 from 60-61 out Pease AFB. He trained out of Walker AFB.
As hinted at below might have mentioned that toss bombing with the B-47 was cancelled around 1957 when the stress started making wings come off in flight. Worked ok with fighters.
The LABS maneuvers stopped because the parachute technology improved to the pace where the weapons cold be dropped in a standard flyover. Another consideration is that only 3 units were qualified to perform the toss delivery and the 310th BW that I flew with was one of the three and we never had any wings come off. The failures had more to do with basic low level flight and the turbulence in that envelope than toss bombing.
CWW Lt. C ol. USAF (Ret)
My Dad was a line chief at McConnell AFB KS...Dad found the CRACKS all in the B-47's wings from these maneuvers...It was a GREAT Bomber...but NOT a fighter.....
FYI there were only three bomb wings checked out in the LABS maneuver and the 310th BW of which I was member from 60 to 66 was one of the three. Tthe advance in parachute technology eliminated the need for the LABS maneuver by the time I was assigned to the unit. But the pilots who had flown the maneuver had little trouble with it. The wing lost one aircraft flying the maneuver when the pull up went into clouds and the pilot didn't start the roll out in time and came out of the overcast with the aircraft inverted and the nose too low for recovery. Only the pilot's ejection was successful.
I saw one at the museum of flight. This thing is a beast!
Robbo, thanks for that. Always great to hear insights from those who were there like your Dad. Zeno
Great looking aircraft. Great video. Love those B-47s. Thanks for posting it.
The B-52 was so vastly superior in payload and range that the B-47 was outclassed. Plus they were maintenance queens.
Would be cool to see a XB-52 with the tandem cockpit pulling one of these Immelmann turns
Very interesting vid. Thanks for posting it. Seems to me Chuck Yeager once observed that the 47 was so aerodynamic that wing lift plus ground effect on landing could keep it airborne far longer down the runway than the pilot anticipated. Don't quote me though...
I had NO idea you could roll one of these!!!!!!!
The B-47 was basically the blue print for modern commercial jet aircraft.
Was music mandatory back in those years ? ;)
Fabulous vid, man, what a treasure !!!
Yes, military march music, to be precise. :-)
Yes Kyle, it was a killer if you didn't pay attention to the numbers while at altitude. The window between stall and critical mach was very narrow at altitude as it was for the U-2. Control of approach speed was also very importatnt and the later version had a drogue cute they'd deploy so they could keep the engines spooled up as the plane had no speed brakes and was so clean that getting slowed down was problematic. But it was a beauty and did it's job well. And no you'd never do the toss bombing in a B-52.
mightaswellbe What Happens when those planes goes past its Critical Mach number"?
+Christopher Bloom They just fell out of the sky and then brake apart in mid air. That's how the Asiana A-320 ended. That's why every aircraft has a VNE (velocity Never Exceeding) specific rule.
As speed increases the center of lift moves aft on the wing, requiring the pilot to compensate by increasing either nose up trim or back stick. Past the critical speed, the trim/pilot can no longer compensate enough, the nose drops (called "Mach Tuck") and the plane accelerates even more, rapidly reaching a point where aerodynamic forces destroy the plane.
@@miles2378 Exceeding the so-called 'Coffin Corner', (which was only a difference of roughly 5-7 knots for the B-47), would result in a deadly stall and subsequent in-flight breakup due to the excessive load factors...
The B47 looked great. But it was marginal on power, high wing loading - note the lack of climb on takeoff - and the loss of an engine at some points in the flight could bring the plane down.
Grew up on this AFB and that. My dad knew people who flew them all: B-10 through B-58, P-38 through F-104. His drinkin' buddies were terrified of the B-47 ... both before and after the re-winging (at the OCALC depot). It ad many more ways to kill you than simply shedding the wings. Example: Sledding behind a KC-97 over/in a thunderstorm: Woops! and you're in an inverted flat spin.
So, tell me again how many B47 crews were lost from airframe structural failure while doing this toss bombing technique in training? Too many I’m sure.
Think about it, the Wright Bros. flew 200ft fifty years before the B-47 was built,... It was quite a leap in performance in a short period of time ..It might have been a bit expensive of a learning curve but much of what was learned went into the B-52, how did that workout for money well spent ...... Bill 47 crew chief
B-47 absolutely best plane
Awesome 👍✈️
i have read about this many times. so great to see it thank you.
graceful and beautifull... thaks !
As Yeager put it succinctly, "The Idiot's Loop". I think it was him that cooked up the technique, or Bob Hoover, I forgot.
Love those leather flight gloves!
Doing anything but straight and level great way to over stress the air frame. Buffet at critical Mach number would get to severe and could disintegrate structural integrity.
What the hell are you blabbering about?
The content in this video
They did the test flights with stress-testing instrumentation.
You obviously don't know anything about what you're speaking of, so kindly SHTFU.
The Barrel Row - "Relatively East to Perform..." Yea, Right... The Key Word, being "Relative" Compared to what..? A B-29..?
Yah. A barrel roll in a B-29 can be a bit difficul, even for the most experienced of pilots..
Not so sweet-handling in certain areas. According to guys I know who were B-47 crews, they had severe stall/spin recovery problems. This was a big deal when flying behind KC-97s. There was a standing order to bail out if a stall/spin hadn't been recovered under 14,000 feet.
All the more impressive considering there was a symphony orchestra on board.
I remember seeing these at Forbes Air Force Base.
They used rocket bottles in flight?
Okay, the B-47 is officially the coolest jet ever.
No they did not use rocket bottles in Flight only on takeoff
The RATO bottles were only fitted to the early A models. They drastically improved takeoff time at the cost of considerable weight and being useless in flight...
i love this
If ever there was an actual aircraft that should have been given the name 'Widow Maker', this was it.
What a terrible record it had.
Over 10% of the total number of aircraft built, were lost in crashes.
WOW!! Great video,maybe they should've called it the F/B-47...
Anyone know if this was before Bill Allen rolled the dash-80 or did he do so because of the B-47 LABS tests and knowing that the roll was a one gee maneuver.
William Hennessy Yes the B-47 did these immilmans before the 707 roll. They were doing immilmans in the B-47 back in 1954, the 707 roll was 1955. A properly executed aileron roll puts very little load on the airframe but, if you roll too slow and let the nose get too low, you can need some serious g to recover. I always wanted to try a roll in the B-52 but the roll rate of the B-52 is so slow that I worried I would end up pointed straight at the ground by the time I made it through 360 degrees. I was probably spared a footnote in the crash records by having a crew that was a bit more worried about dying than I was.
I think part of the problem with this immilmans manuever in B-47s was that most bomber pilots at that time had trained specifically for bombers, so had little aerobatic experience. Later the USAF went to a single track training program, where all pilots trained the same way, with lots of aerobatics in the T-37 and T-38. Today we are back to the 2 track system with combat pilots flying T-6 then T38 and tanker-transport pilots going from T-6 to a business jet. I would think that a pilot less familiar and current in aerobatics would be much more likely to accidentally over g or end up disoriented in this maneuver than would be a pilot with more recent aerobatic experience. Since G-loading wasn't recorded in B-47s there would be no sure way to know how many g were being pulled when practising this maneuver (other than during the test flights) so maybe the wings were falling off due to damage caused when the planes were over g ed in training?
Man was I not thinking. I got it wrong. It was "Tex" Johnston who did the roll. In his book Tex Johnston: Jet Age Test Pilot he wrote that the roll was a 1G maneuver and so was not in any way dangerous but it was the "sell" . Boeing president Bill Allen had asked Johnson to do something that would show the air frame off. Johnson also wrote that after landing Bill Allen told him not to do a roll again. But the sell did work.
the avro vulcan could do it i wonder if the b52 could or is it too big to roll?? why retire the b47 so early it looked like a wonderful jet
"Looked like a jet?"
But could it "dog fight?" NO!
By the mid-1960's the latest-gen F-111A could literally do everything the B-47 did as a bomber over the same range, but far better. It had an 900mph higher top speed, far superior avionics, and was much smaller and far more survivable over enemy territory...
I can't believe 2000 were built.
I like the 460IAS bit. A man's plane :)
And know the question of all questions. Can you roll a B-52? I've seen one going up close to a 80 degree angle as it disappeared into the clouds at Openhouse at Blytheville in 80 or 81 and have only heard that it could be done.
Maybe in the earlier models that didn't have the wet wings that the H model has. But they would never allow a BUFF to do maneuvers like this for safety, nevermind the fact that the air launch cruise missles that they can carry make this an obsolete maneuver for them.
Interesting that the B 36 and the B 47 had what was a limited life, one superseding the other but then along comes the B 52 and it is still, some 60 plus years considered a viable aircraft with many more years ahead of it.
USAF plans on flying the B52 tell 2050 just saw video on it today on UA-cam
@@briandyer8907 A rival in longevity to the iconic DC3.
I knew a retired colonel who flew B-47's and B-52's. He hated the -47's because the were unreliable death traps in his view.
B-52 airplane could do this, but with ALCM it isn't required- the jet never gets near the bomb target.
Pleasant 50s leave it to beaver music while the narrator describes the maneuver used to lob a nuclear weapon at somebody...
In case of a nuclear attack, in grade school , we were taught how take cover under our desks. “Duck and cover.” Today’s kids have no idea what it was like living in a time when your friends parents were digging bomb shelters just in case the Soviets dropped the big one.
@@ZenosWarbirds And kids during the Cold War would beat the living snot out of today's non-binary, everything is offensive kid.
Just about every Boeing every built has no problem with a Barrel roll. Take for instance, one of our favorite's.. The Boeing 707! When their test pilot did a roll at an Air Show with that beautiful bird, it just blew everyone away. The pilot said he was just trying to sell Boeing Airplanes. The told him that is good, but don't do the roll again. Therefore, I bet a 747 could easily pull those G's and do a roll just as easily. B O E I N G rules.
StellarBlue1 : that was Tex Johnson who did that barrel roll over the hydroplane races over Seattle...Boeing prez James Allen wanted to fire Tex for that...but it impressed the prospective airline customers who were watching.
Tobias Ammann das isch doch es interessants video zu airframe strucuteres:)
That airplane must have been a great airplane and too bad it didn't fly longer for SAC.
B-47. B-52 little sister
More like the B-1 actually IMO.
2:02 wow i hope that guy is ok..sheesh..they were testing it right?
Try any of these maneuvers in a B-52?? Not a chance!! I have always loved this Bomber with the Fighter Plane cockpit ever since Jimmy Stewart's 'SAC' and always resented the -52 for replacing it. I just have a feeling a lot of politics were involved and that these craft could have maneuvered like this and possibly reduced bomber casualties in Vietnam. But why no -47's in Korea 1950 - 1953?? Could have stood a better chance against Migs that the poor 29's.
The answer to "why not Korea?" is that the B-47 had basically no conventional bombload capacity. The same goes for Vietnam.
I friend of mine that I went to school with is a relative of Max Immelmann, my buddy looks the hybrid part 6'5" blond hair and walked with a slight goose step.
The use of the Immelman or half Cuban 8 for toss bombing was impressive but stupid. After bomb release at around 40-60 degrees, putting the aircraft into a 90 degree bank wingover provided a far wider safety margin for recovering to level flight with very little difference in exit speed and distance reached at detonation.
Makes one wonder how accurate "toss" bombing was compared to dive bombing?
@@chucksavall You do know that toss bombing was a tactic that was designed to improve escape and evasion, after relaxing a nuclear gravity bomb, don't'cha?
hmmmm..i wonder...when you look at airspeeds and power to wheight ratio, as well as max tollerable g-load..they are very comparable to a modern day jet liner. could you do thoose maneuvers in a 737 or a320 as well? (without fly by wire restrictions, of course).
+soaringtractor It's not a matter of copying Boeing, rather the fact that Airbus or any other plane makers didn't have many choices for a truckload of reasons : aerodynamics, space on board, maintenance matters and easy building. There isn't any better design than a tubular fuselage and low mounted wings. Other manufacturers both from the East and West did the same in long range airliners, except for Tupolev with its TU-154 that proved not to be that good (4 engines at the back of the plane and a T tail). Eventually the actual son of the 707 was the A-340 after Boeing 707-700 project failed to attract customers in 1978 (707s with CFM-56 engines that appealed only to the military).
Digi20 Most airliners are rated at a maximum of 2 g so that would be very very iffy. Also, these immilmans were being performed at over 450 indicated, much higher than Vne in any airliner I am familiar with. This is not to say one could not successfully do an immilmans in a 737, just that you would almost certainly be operating outside the speed and g limits in the manual. Obviously a lightly loaded 737 could pull more than 2 g and there is no question that a 737 will survive at speeds over The, so an immilmans could likely be performed safely with no pax or cargo.
Sounds like the band of the R.A.F. playing. Anyone know if so?
The B47 was an absolutely beautiful plane, but... Of the 2,032 built 203 B47's were lost, but not ONE in combat. The B47 killed over 450 crewmen but never saw combat. It was a beautiful deathtrap. We were retiring B47's in 1965 that were built in 1958! A 7 year old plane should not be retired, it should have never been built. The money spent (wasted?) on manufacturing B47's could have been more effectively spent on a couple hundred more B36's and an extra thousand F105's. The B47 should have never been built beyond the prototypes when they found how easy the wings could tear off or the plane could be lost in a high speed, high altitude stall. I'm a DoD employee at an aerospace facility (over 35 years) and know many retired pilots of Fighters and Bombers. The B47 was a beauty and that's why I think we built so many. It's like a "pretty girlfriend", you will allow her to break your heart over and over rather than break up with her because she's so damned pretty ;-)
+randy109 For the defenders of the B47, I don't expect anyone to just take the word of some guy on the internet. Go to the B47 Stratojet page on Wikipedia and go to the "Accidents and Incidents" portion. It is nightmarish. If your own son was in the Air Force and was ordered to crew a B47 you would have wrote your Congressman about this "Widow Maker". B47 was a tragic, and costly (in lives and money) mistake.
+randy109 3 B-47 were shot down by Soviet fighters : one above the Kamchatka peninsula in April 17th, 1955 (by a MiG-15), one RB-47H July the 1st, 1960 above the Barents Sea (by a MiG-19), I don't have details about the 3rd one. At least two others were damaged in similar confrontations : a B-47 in March 8, 1954 was hit by three brand new MiG-17s and an ERB-47H by a North Korean MiG-17 above the sea of Japan in April 27th, 1965 which flew back to base with two engines out of commission. It seems the .50 calibers in their back failed to score any round against their opponents (the first B-47s, the latest versions didn't carry guns).
randy109 The B-47, as well as most century series fighters, B-52 and B-58 were all designed and built in the wild west days of jet aircraft, when everything was new and mostly untested. I'm not saying these were great aircraft but if you consider the pace at which these aircraft were being designed and built it is little wonder that they had issues. Consider that the B-47 was being designed when the US had no operational jet aircraft. We went from straight wing piston engine fighters to jet bombers cruising at 0.85 Mach and 50,000 ft in just a few years. Today a new airliner or military aircraft can take a decade to reach the field, and maybe 5-10 more years to get all the issues sorted out. That the B-47 went from design to mass production in 5 years, at a time when it's performance was roughly the same as a front line jet fighter, it a remarkable feat.
Wasted my butt. It helped to keep shots from being fired. It kept Ivan at bay.
Somewhat of a specious arguement there randy.
Unfortunately, many lessons are learn't from the loss of blood.
The metal fatigue lessons still weren't fully understood, jet engines were still relatively low powered for the fuel consumed and many other diabolically complex parameters came into play.
Some of those parameters were the high degree of maneuverability discovered in such a large plane (for the era) led to them doing things in this Bomber that would not be considered safe today. They were testing the boundaries, found them and designed something better.
My favourite plane of the era was the B-58. What a beast of a plane. Consider, barely 50 years elapsed from Kitty Hawk to the B-58.
I read what killed the B-58 (also very prematurely) was the onerous maintenance regime. Get this, 150 hours maintenance for every 1 flight hour. I bet the B-47 was like this too.
Imagine one built with modern materials and similarly sized, but modern engines :D
I'd pay a hundred million to see it happen xD
Might be what it would cost to retrofit one if that could actually happen!
@@BAS19.6 Given the way the B52's current re-engine program is going, yeah probably
Wasn't smoke... water alcohol for additional thrust on takeoff, or possibly jato...
The loss of altitude (requiring intiating pull up) in a barrel roll was interesting. Do modern jets simply have better power to weight than the B47 to do a roll in level flight (since they can fly inverted) then?
Not sure which modern jets do you mean? Large modern jets are just as roll limited as the B-47 if not more since the B-47 was actually smaller than it looks.
Barrel rolling any large aircraft will require the positive G method shown in the film - initial climb, rolling inverted while nose drops (continue pulling "up") then level out while raising nose again. I don't believe any large planes have enough nose down elevator travel to maintain inverted flight.
Burnedtoastify I meant in aerobatic flying, so smaller jets really. Thanks.
Paul Miller if you mean fighter jets, yes they can fly inverted. They have since the 1920's back in the day of v8 piston engines!!
Paul Miller That's not how it works. Inverted flight has no real reliance on power to weight ratios,but is dependent on the aerodynamic and structural performance of the aircraft. If you have a symmetrical aerofoil, it produces lift as well upside-down as right way up. Other wing designs will need to be given some pitch angle to still produce the lift required, but as far as the engine is concerned, there's no difference in what is required - so long as all the fuel systems etc work properly when inverted!
You can roll a B-47 but never a B-52 its just not possible besides that the fuel going through the jet would cause a stall much like the USAF pilot did back in 1994 when Col Holland made a flyby at an angle of 90deg.left bank and he was only less than 1,000 feet when it turned and then crashed on the base it was a tragedy there.
What an abysmal failure. As an orphan of this experiment, the biggest problem was the failure of Boeing to manufacture parts and the failure of the military to stop the tests when crews were lost all over the US.
Tammy Maher Accident rates in all military jets was awful in the 50s. A pilot had a better than 50% chance of having to eject at least once in a 20 year career, not accounting for combat. I had a wing Commander in the 80s who had ejected from 6 different aircraft from the late 50s to 80s. He was a short guy but claimed, half joking, that he used to be 6' 2" but lost an inch in each ejection.
Point being, 1940s 50s 60s were an extremely dangerous time in military aviation, not just B-47 s but all jets. Today, due to huge improvements in training, aircraft reliability, better understanding of high speed aerodynamics, our accident rates are a tiny fraction of what they were back in the day. We would never accept loss rates like we did back then but we had just come out of a war where 10s of thousands of planes were lost, where in 1943, bomber crews had a less than even chance of surviving 25 missions, so life was cheap and crews accepted huge risk as part of the job.
This pilot had some nerve.
Does anyone know if any of the B-47's around?
Here you go: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_surviving_Boeing_B-47_Stratojets
None flying. The one probably closest to flying condition would be at the AF museum. Several are on display at various places, including the 8TH AF museum in GA.
Thank you, I remember the B-47's and B-36's flying over the area were I grew up.
47 was a technological innovation, would be great to put a couple of these aircraft together.
Miliyr Cyrus
Nice visuals, but were they REALLY anticipating the Stratojet to be Dog-fighting ?
During initial testing, Boeing had the 707 doing barrel rolls. Probably not on American Airlines wish list either.
wow.... I can just envision the wings ripping off, halfway through a barrel-roll. Spooky.
No, the turn is used for bombing in a toss profile.
+ZenosWarbirds Lol, imagine the passengers in the loos experimenting that.
+Chengdogu I agree, but this reminded me of the British Lancaster pilots, who could perform an evasive maneuver (after de-bombing) called the "corkscrew," to evade night fighters and being caught in searchlights... sort of like dog-fighting, for a bomber at least!
Also known as “The Idiots Loop”
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God how much smoke to take off does it need?
NO SOUND
Ben Wine Yes, there's sound. Must be something to do with the settings on your box.
Oviously, this Pilot had all his shit in one bag ! WOW !
I hope that he did not lay any ' green fog ' in the Cockpit or leave any, behind !
Crew Chiefs don't ever appreciate doing a BPO and have to gag when you reach
that point in the end of the days' flying, or all sorties ...Are finished for the day !
It was structurally weak and underpowered. In it’s day it was good on paper. Pilot death machine. Glad the B52 replaced it soon after. There is a display of one at the entrance of McConnell AFB in Wichita, Ks.
They also have one at the museum next to it
I'm sorry, but the various tolerance envelopes associated with fighter aircraft handling characteristics and performance potential bear little/no resemblance to the ultra narrow tolerance envelopes of the B47. To say that the B47 handled just like a fighter would be like claiming that a broken clock works just as well as an unbroken one because it happens to be right ie overlap with the functioning clock twice each day---you simply have to catch the numbers "just right." Silly hyperbole. Not so much harping on the limitation of the aircraft and technology of the time as pointing out the Emperor's New Clothes willful dissembling transpiring in B47 videos. And, unfortunately, not too different than the F35 program and Zumwalt platform fiascos of the present day, insofar as "Move along, nothing to see here, everything is fine..." theme is concerned.
You must be really fun at parties that is if you were to actually get invited to one.
@@haywoodyoudome Curious. I'm at a party right this very moment.
Stupid waste of US taxpayer dollars for an aircraft that was never used in a war. The managers of this project should have been prosecuted and jailed.
If it *HAD* been used, we'd all be piles of radioactive ash right now. Also, what about all those F-101Bs and F-106s that flew interceptor sorties but never fired their missiles? Or the "Chrome Dome" B-52s that flew their patrols but never fired their Hound Dog missiles or dropped their Silver Bullets? Should *their* project managers have been prosecuted and jailed? Deterrence isn't about using something just because you happen to have it. it's about being able to show your enemies that what you have will make going to war too expensive in terms of lives and treasure to be worth it, and your allies that you'll have their backs if they should need your help. tl;dr: "Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it."
@@reynard61 Absolutely damn right. That it was a waste of $ Because it was never used in a war is about the stupidest comment I've ever heard. Our ICBM nuclear force has never been used in a war either. I wonder if we should start one so we can say this force wasn't a waste. Lol! Amazing!
@@michaelbee2165 "I wonder if we should start one so we can say this force wasn't a waste."
Atomic Don wondered that as well. Luckily he was distracted from delving too much further into the subject...
I waited something more special...so stupid.
Et mes messages ils sont passes où