The Most Secret Airplane to Ever Fly Over America?
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- Опубліковано 4 жов 2024
- The Boeing B-47 Stratojet was the world's first swept-wing bomber, a pioneer that revolutionized aviation design. When it first took to the skies in 1947, it looked like nothing else on Earth - with its six engines suspended under razor-thin wings, it seemed to have arrived from the future. The B-47 was not just a looker; it was also blindingly fast. In 1949, it smashed the cross-country speed record, flying from Washington state to Washington D.C., averaging over 600 miles per hour - faster than any previous bomber could dream of flying.
This extraordinary aircraft played a crucial role during one of the most dangerous moments in human history. During the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, B-47 reconnaissance variants assisted U-2 spy planes in providing photographic evidence of Soviet missiles in Cuba, directly influencing President Kennedy's decisions as the world teetered on the brink of nuclear war.
The B-47's innovations weren't confined to military use. Its revolutionary design - those swept wings and podded engines - became the template for virtually every large jet aircraft that followed, including the Boeing 707 that ushered in the age of mass air travel. From its record-breaking speeds to its Cold War espionage, from its nuclear deterrence role to its lasting impact on commercial aviation, the B-47 Stratojet didn't just push the boundaries of flight - it redefined them entirely.
My dad was a B-17 pilot during WW II and was shot down over Germany in 1943, spending the rest of the war as a POW. After the war, he remained in the Air Force and flew the B-47 for part of the cold war but transitioned to the B-52.
I don't know if this is true or not because I've never seen it mentioned in any of the histories of the B-47. My dad never talked about the missions of the B-47 alert crews as they were obviously classified. But there was one time my dad mentioned that some of the crews were on "dry tanks alert", and unofficial term that meant certain B-47 targets were so far inside Russia that after their final aerial refueling, certain B-47's would only have enough fuel to get to a deep target but not enough to make it back to an aerial refueler. In other words, it was a one way mission.
If true, I wondered were we found such crews that knew they were likely never to make it home.
I found the answer years later when I was a Marine platoon commander in Vietnam 1968-69 in combat. Every day you never knew if you would see the Sunset and every night you never knew if you would see the Sunrise. Yet everyday we did our daytime missions and every night we did our nighttime patrols. Every one of us knew that each day may be our last as either killed or wounded, but we saddled up and did the job regardless of the threats. I then felt I had a glimpse of what the mindset might have been for those B-47 crews on dry tanks alert--if such an alert were actually true. Even flying the polar routes from the last likely aerial refueling just to the center of Russia and back was at the max range of the B-47 and any deeper than that was beyond getting back to a refueler. It's possible that there were options to fly to some allied base, but if you look at the map, that would be unlikely in many cases and if it were a nuclear war, most if not all of those bases would be destroyed.
In 1962 during the Cuban missile crisis, we were stationed at Homestead AFB, Florida which is south of Miami. We lived on base and I clearly remember my dad getting a phone call at night. He listened on the phone but didn't say anything. He put the phone down, put on his flight suit, grabbed his flight gear and left without saying anything. A short time later, we could here the B-52's starting engines and taking off.
The next night I was with several friends and one of their parents was driving us to the high school football game. En route, we were stopped at a train crossing and waited for the train to pass. To our surprise, it was a very long train with Army equipment such as tanks, trucks, supplies, ammunition, etc. And then there was another train, and another, and another until it was too late to go to the game and once the traffic jam cleared, we went home.
The next morning, Homestead AFB was little more than a massive Army camp with thousands of soldiers, vehicles, tanks, etc. and all of the B-52's had been replaced with seemingly countless fighter jets.
We didn't hear from our dad until will after the crisis was over when he returned home as unexpectedly as he left. He never said where he went, but it was obvious that the nuclear bombers were dispersed outside of the range of the Cuban nuclear missiles.
One thing that was obvious to my mom, me, and my brother during the Cold War was that in the event of a nuclear war, the aircrews on alert would be able to takeoff before the Russian missiles hit their targets of which all of the bomber and US ICBM bases were primary. That meant that in the event of a nuclear war, all of the families of the air crews that managed to takeoff would be vaporized. We knew it and all the air crews knew it. In a way, it was kind of surreal experience. No one ever talked about it, but it was always in the back of our minds.
It was an interesting life. My dad was my role model and I had the best mom any kid could have hoped for. I'm 78 now and I still miss them.
Wonderful write-up, thank you.
That always was! However I doubt it was standard as RB47's routinely overflew Russia until they could no longer do so without being shot down. It was not just a matter of technology since the USSR has a huge border. Without supersonic interceptors or long range SAMS it was easier, but reconnaissance flights being shot down was kept secret for some time. My father ended up in B47's and retired in v them at one of the last bases, Schilling when the base and the B47 were phased out. I went in the USAF and ended up having a unique connection when the last one to fly was flown to Castle AFB for the museum there. Having one discovered as a potential target at the Naval gun range at China Lake. Made airworthy it was flown to Caste in the late 80's. Rumor was the airspeed indicator didn't work as it stalled upon landing about 10 or 12 feet above the runway. The damage was limited by design as there was a landing gear towards the wingtip as well as the permanent outboard tank. In their heyday, Bombers and tankers would fly airborne alert. able to refuel and head to targets near instantly!
The B-47 was dangerous to its own crews.
_Really_ fascinating, and moving. Thank you for sharing this.
@@pirosszirom8998Thank you for your Dads and Your service. Thankless endeavors that only True American Patriots are able to perform and thus continue building the foundation of our wonderful country, The United States of America. That is why I simply want to get sick every time I see these far far left wing Communist Liberals on camera slandering our land. God Bless you and your Family!!!.
No. The most secret aircraft flying is the one we don’t know about
NGAD Fighter, the SR-71 replacement, all exo-atmospheric vehicles.
I didn't mark the times but the narrator pronounced Stratojet 3 or 4 different ways throughout the video. 😁
StratOoJet - yeah auto script reader I thinks
Narrator is Artificial Intelligence
I am gonna play my stray toe caster guitar.
I thought that was hilarious. Also those of us in the Strategic Air Command never called it S-A-C. We always said SAC (pronounced sack). Why is it so hard to get a human to narrate these things?
😂
Why does the video title call it the most secret aircraft? Click bait?
Talking about at that time in history.
Dad was on loan from Tactical Air Command to Strategic Air Command as an instructor pilot in the B47 the initial problems caused by those selected to fly the B47 were Lieutenant Colonels and Majors because my Dad at the time was a 1Lt Lieutenant but had multi engine jet ratings with 1300 combat hours in P47's and was currently flying F 84's as an instructor, SAC Generals basically told the field grades they will not only listen to and be respectful of him as he was not only decorated he had more jet time then they had. He primarily taught them a nuke delivery procedure referred to as "the over the shoulder maneuver" where by the nuke was launched from a vertical attitude with the B47 falling off and accelerating out of the blast area like a single seat fighter jet, a skill not used by bomber pilots in WWII and not taught to bomber crews as the B47 was the 1st bomber that flew like a fighter. In the end it was all good as many of the trained pilots and Dad became close friends for life. He returned to TAC completing 30 yrs and 6 months as a fighter pilot retiring @ 47 yrs old.
A B-36 crewman described the B-47 as a "homesick angel" upon seeing it for the first time. I have always remembered that, and I must have been 4 years old when he said it.
I had the privilege of listening to a lecture by the test pilot who conducted the initial flight of the. B-47. They flew the VFR only bird to Mose Lake on top of a solid undercast. At the lake there was a five mile wide,”Sucker hole,”(Break in the undercast.) They landed and were towed into a hangar where they exited the aircraft only to find the field had totally fogged in. Much of Boeing’s financial future rode on that flight that almost ended in catastrophe.
The early jet engines spooled up so inconsistently that in flight drag chutes had to be implemented to maintain lateral control doing pattern work (takeoffs and landings.) The drag allowed the engines to be operated above idle rpms to allow symmetric acceleration and control. The use of the chutes did lead to panicked phone calls from residents in proximity to SAC bases until it became generally known.
What the video failed to cover was the tremendous losses of the aircraft due to,”Toss bombing,” over stressing the center sections. The video alluded to the strengthening of the wing in late models but failed to mention the loss of over three hundred aircraft due to this self induced failure mode. Yes, the Air Force kept that loss rate quiet.
You mean catastr Oo phe
One of the best looking aircraft ever!
the B-47 would throw a bomb. It'd pull up hard into an Immelmann and release the bomb in a nose vertical attitude under a few Gs. The plane would complete the turn inverted, then roll upright and get the hell outa there cuz nukes are unhealthy to be near...
This is what caused one of the biggest secrets with the B-47s. It caused cracks in the wings in the B-47. SAC started a top secret program to fix the wings in all of the B-47. They didn't want the Russians to know our fleet of B-47s was crippled. Boeing had to hire little people who were small enough to climb into the thin wings.
Leaving more than one B-47 without wings as a consequence
There is a B-47 on display at the SAC Aerospace Museum located along interstate 80 between Omaha and Lincoln, Nebraska. Visiting this museum is time well spent
From 1958 until he retired in 1960, my father flew B-47s out of Davis-Monthan AFB in Tucson, AZ. They were one of the prettiest planes the Air Force had I think. Davis-Monthan is probably best known as a 'graveyard' of decommissioned AF planes, mainly from WWII and Korea when I lived there.
The First Swept (Forward Swept) wing Bomber was the Ju 287.
After my Dad got out of the AAF he worked for Boeing at the Wichita plant for 42 years. We lived probably 3 or 4 miles from the plant and we could always hear them testing the jet engines, running them up and down. Noisy but we got use to it.
My grade school was used by B-47's to practice low level bombing. They flew right over the school in a small town in Iowa. We all would run to the window to watch when we heard them. Not so secret.
SAY STRATOSPHERE >>>>>>>> SAY STRATOJET If your about ONLY PLANES, I'd think you would know better
(sigh) back when Boeing was ahead of everyone and had scientist and technicians that knew their business with a slide rule... not like today, hope the new CEO turns it around.
Here's a"secret"our gracious virtual intelligence narrator did not mention: The StraTOEjet exploded a lot in midair. It took many an aircrew's lives because it was for one, a multitasking nightmare to keep the plane on the air and two, the airframe suffered much in terms of excellerated fatigue when performing exercises that involved lobbing practice bombs halfway through an Immelman maneuver.
If you ask the homo sapien AF generals and Boeing geeks that never had to strap into these monsters they would say the plane was a success in terms of learning how to build a better airplane and what not to do to them and their crews. Two hundred and three B-47's were lost in crashes along with four hundred and sixty four people in the air and on the ground lost thier lives to this"success".
I guess I don't understand this pervasive hand-wringing over long-dead aviators. After all, there weren't many "safe" military aircraft back then. Yeah, the raw numbers look pretty grim, but the B-47 attrition and accident rates were considerably better than the Century Series fighters, for example, or the airplane that replaced it, the B-58.
1964, While outside with my science class a B47 flying a low level training flew slightly off set from our spot along a golf course. This was in Western NY, I found from my uncle who was in Air Force Reserve that a town atop a hill nearby was a target. I remember seeing the Lightning bolts on the Co-Pilots helmet. Looking back I believe that the aircraft was lower than 300 feet. Very exciting! for a 9th grader in science class studying trees.
NEVER a big secret.
CLICK BAIT
I was in THE US NAVY STATIONED AT PT. MUGU CA. THE-PACIFIC MISSLE RANGE HAD A B-47it was flown a lot.
That's the one that wound up at Castle Museum. It was refurbed enough to make the ferry flight to the Central Valley. It was the absolute last flight of a B-47 ever.
I saw a B-47 the Navy was using at NAS Roosevelt Roads during springboard in 1974.
On 13 March 1958, I was at a baseball game when I saw a B-47 explode over southeast Tulsa.
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Slava Ukraini
10:19 That's "sack", NOT "S. A. C". No one I knew when I was a service dependent living on base said the letters individually. "SAC", okay? I can tell by the cadence and the way pauses that should happen didn't that this is a bot. I only subscribe to channels with human voices.
Ditto's from R. March AFB 1963-66
SAC (sack) Brat here, Dad was jet engine tech. FMS.
Great work!
What do you expect from a robot?
A toothless blowie...?
It maybe pedantic but mispronunciation that are easily fact checked irritate me. Strat-O-jet Thule Air Base is pronounced Too-Lee.
Well ..Big-O-Deal.
If you want to get picky...your
" mispronunciation" is incorrect as used....it should say
" mispronunciations" if grammar were to be correct.
Too-Lee.....
@@Craig52-zq1bt You sound a little angry. Did you make such a negative comment to everyone who pointed out the mispronunciations? There were several. Go get them.
You should not share that information.
I just love these B-47 videos. I get to see the XB-47 engineering model I used to own, at 3:37 in this video. Except the model they're showing there is the Model 447. The Air Force Test Flight Mueum has it now, (you should go and see what else they have there, a fabulous collection of development aircraft)
Stra-TOW-jet??? C'mon.
That was hilarious
The most secret aircraft were Rivet Amber and Rivet Ball, two RC135 spy planes that documented Soviet nuclear missile tech development. At one point these individual planes were two of the top five top secret military projects.
Both were superseded by Cobra Ball. I have seen photos that Cobra Ball took of Soviet warheads at re-entry. You could almost read the Cyrillic writing on the thing, even at 16,000 mph.
Great movie with Jimmy Stewart entitled "Strategic Air Command" where is AC of a B-47. Little bit corny but still got across the story of the early days of the Cold War. Thanks to all of our Service Members for keeping the peace during those difficult years of tension with the USSR.
There's nothing secret about a B-47.
RB-47 flew over and near Russia. Some shotdown.
This was at the time when Boeing was interested in making planes that flu as opposed to simply making money after their merger, which seems to be the time that they started to fall apart
I remember the Cuba crisis. We joked about digging shallow trenches. The if the sirens sounded. Climb in cover ourselves with brushwood. Leave the place nice & tidy.
The lost A-bomb off of Tybee Island still hasn't been found.
This is available variation of the B3a. Bomber used for intercontinental crop dusting ,Boll Weavels
It's not mentioned that the other result of the Cuban crisis is that Kruschev forced Kennedy to withdraw our own medium range missiles from Turkey....which was the goal of the build up in Cuba. Kruschev won.
How is it even possible that Boeing designed such an advanced airplane with only captured German engineering data, middle aged men and absolutely no DEI hires whatsoever?
Good one.
Uncle Joe captured those German aeronautical engineers personally. Then he was eaten by Gestapo cannibals.
They didn't have to deal with Racist idiots. They were too busy building a team that valued intelligence and hard work over ethnic background.
There are several aircraft designer and development companies in the U.S. that all used pens, paper, pencils and slide rules driven by brains, experience and common sense to create everything from aircraft to space craft. Also, German Engineers were not the only ones designing wing forms. They just got funding and contracts first.
Now they can't build an airliner that can keep their doors from falling off mid flight.
You would think they would get an announcer who knew what he was talking about!
Robot...
@@Airsally I only subscribe to channels with human voices
The B-47 "Strat - TOE - Jet" ? What's UP with these "robo-narrators" anyway ?
Maybe they grew up in Thule AKA too lee.
RCAF even had one (on loan for engine testing)
I think, you’re full of it. Presenting the USAAF as the leader of axial flow turbojet engined swept wing airplanes development, when in fact it was the last to catch up after the Germans developed and deployed the Me 262 in 1942 and ‘44 respectively, and the UK Gloster Metor with straight wing, powered by centrifugal compressor jet engines was developed almost contemporarily. The P80 had straight wings and a British jet engine deployed only middle of 1945, the first swept wing jet deployed by the USAAF was of course the F 86 Sabre deployed first in 1949.
Beautiful aircraft. Excellent even if it wants to kill it’s crews
Didn't a B-47 crash carrying a nuke?
Please fix the pronunciation of "Stratojet." It's not "struhtuhjet, it's "STRAtoejet (with the "A" as in "back").
Obviously long before BOEING went boing, and has now lost all credibility !!!
Incompetant management and mediocre technical employees.
And virtually no quality control .......
I don't know of anyone feeling comfortable about flying
on a Boeing aircraft anymore. .?...
SAD !
Tooley AFB, not Thooley. The "h" is silent.
With a little editing and a human narrator this would be a lot better. Grade C minus before the clickbait title, barely D considering.
Strat O jet ? O they mean stratooooooooo jet 😂
How to send you Business Inquiry?
Bull$hit title as the B2 or the new secret plane we do not know about !!! Thats a lot more secret 1! !
Nothing secret about it ~ It was even in the movie in 1955. Click-bait is why I tell UA-cam to not recommend channels ~ Goodbye.
The B-47 at Castle is the last one to fly it was restored at China Lake a Navy test range and flown to Castle in the late 80s I know because I was stationed at Minot AFB when it happened and the wing commander their was a asshole I know because he was my bomb wing commander at Minot
The pilots had to be specially trained to fly these planes. The wings had a tendency to come off when landing.
Bull$hit they did !!! It was the overstressing with the toss bombing and barrel rolling !!!
The airplane had plenty of issues both taking off and landing, but the wings falling off wasn't one of them
A LOT OF MAJOR PROBLEMS WITH THIS AIRCRAFT! But its design let to the B52. One of the longest living designs in the world!