Remember as a boy playing outside and heard a sound like the world was going to end. Only a low-level pass overhead. Both terrifying and inspiring. Was going to be a pilot! My eyes had other ideas.. Great picture and thanks for the memory!
My father was an officer at Bergstrom AFB. Back in the early 1960's watched 26 B-52 take off from Bergstrom AFB, Texas. Something I will never forget. Loud, Smoke and taking off one after another. Loaded and had to use the whole runaway to get up. Was also close to the runaway. I must have been 11 years old. Once in a lifetime day.
Great pic - a little different from the usual venues we see! The cows fooled me, though...I was thinking this must be near one of the Midwestern bases.
This looks like it might be parallel to Hwy 71 and a little south of the houses that are close to the end of the runway at Barksdale. My great-grandfather owned some of the acreage that the city of Shreveport bought up and sold to the US government to build Barksdale.
I was stationed at Barksdale for 6 years as a B-52G Radar Navigator (bombardier) also at Wurtsmith AFB, Michigan. Had a real love/hate relationship with the BUFF...it was an awesome beast of an airplane but could also be cantankerous. Similar to all us old folks I guess. I remember the worst part of the training missions we flew was at the end. We'd fly 7-8-9 hour training missions then RTB and the pilots would do endless touch-and-goes (or crash-and-dash as we called them) around and around and around and........ Possibly what the BUFF in the photo was doing. Guess it's like a lot of things where you forget the "pain" and kind of miss it!
Used to love sitting on the beach at Uncle Dean’s cottage N of Oscoda watching the 52s and KC 135s run out over Lake Huron and turn base and final for Wurtsmith AFB back in the 1980s. So cool....
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