Sadly Don the last aerial gunner mission on a Bomber was flown on October 1, 1991 from Castle AFB (my station) by a B-52G of the 93rd Bomb Wing, fireout was 100%. (over Lake Superior no less) The guns were placed in the Castle AFB Air Museum. End of an Era! If your every up 99 Atwater/Merced way go to the museum its a very good one. Firing one Ma Duce is memorable, firing all four at once will rock your sole.
During Operation Desert Storm, B-52s flew about 1,620 sorties, and delivered 40% of the weapons dropped by coalition forces.[3]
During the conflict, several claims of Iraqi air-to-air successes were made, including an Iraqi pilot, Khudai Hijab, who allegedly fired a Vympel R-27R missile from his MIG-29 and damaged a B-52G on the opening night of the Gulf War.[188] However, the U.S. Air Force disputes this claim, stating the bomber was actually hit by friendly fire, an AGM-88 High-speed, Anti-Radiation Missile (HARM) that homed on the fire-control radar of the B-52's tail gun; the jet was subsequently renamed In HARM's Way.[189] Shortly following this incident, General George Lee Butler announced that the gunner position on B-52 crews would be eliminated, and the gun turrets permanently deactivated, commencing on 1 October 1991.
Sorry for getting off subject, got a little sentimental there.
Very cool, Greg.
My cousing who flies the BONE has had the pleasure of dropping some bad-assery in anger.
Here's a pair of anti-ship mines dropped at low altitude and speed:
He got to drop a round of 2,000 lb sticks of hate (read GBU-31), with "crowd-pleasers" (DSU-33 radar fuses) on the nose, which allows you to choose at what burst height the tritinol goes off. These caused much rejoicing from the snake-eaters (US Marine Spec Ops unit) on the ground that called in the strike. Package delivered courtesy of the 34th Bomb Squadron aka Thunderbirds out of Ellsworth, SD, then stationed in Qatar. It's pretty cool how they roll off of the carousel inside the bomb-bay. Pardon the profanity on the bomb (inside joke from my cousin to me):
I cannot imagine how cool it was to fire a quad of .50 cals at once. That's a nice wall of lead. The BUFF was and still remains one incredible workhorse. The taxpayers got their money's worth on that airframe! There's one on static display at the Zoo (USAFA). They had to cut portions of the wingspan, because it created so much lift it was straining the display mounts. The cadets are dared to climb the display and leave a momento inside if they can dodge the Acadamy's security forces. As you know, it was the featured aircraft in Dr. Strangelove
Major T. J. "King" Kong: Survival kit contents check. In them you'll find: one forty-five caliber automatic; two boxes of ammunition; four days' concentrated emergency rations; one drug issue containing antibiotics, morphine, vitamin pills, pep pills, sleeping pills, tranquilizer pills; one miniature combination Russian phrase book and Bible; one hundred dollars in rubles; one hundred dollars in gold; nine packs of chewing gum; one issue of prophylactics; three lipsticks; three pair of nylon stockings. Shoot, a fella' could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff.
