A grand old guard at Griffiss Park...

[loomex]

Thursday My family went on a drive to Utica, NY to a zoo, after the zoo I decided to see  how much Griffiss AFB had changed since I saw it last. ( it was an AFB when I had seen it last).  It is now an industral park with a few active Air Force  duty units like a communications unit and an R&D unit
As I rounded the corner near the old North gate, I spotted this vision of grace and beauty.


A cruise missile on display near the BUFF

Head on shot, showing the EVS "chins"

The Statue Of Liberty showing its home of Griffiss AFB, NY

To understand the size if you have never been near a BUFF, My four year old son is in frount of the rear wheel(which is taller than him!)

I was happy to see this old bird, and I hope that it is maintained for others to see it in the future

[Rifleman]

I remember seeing one of those little birds a few yrs back...well maybe 15 or so, .....I used to hang aroung not too far from there, just across Rt. 3, past Saranac and Tupper over to Wilmington....Ski trips to Whiteface abound in my memory............

[Mr. Bones]

well, about the size...as you all know i went to RIAT a few weeks back and actually, the buff on the static there looked very very small! i wonder if it really was a 1:1 model  ;D

[Tequila Sunrise]

I saw one up at RAF Leuchars a few years back and I thought it was kinda small (ish)???

[Rifleman]

Both you guys are quite correct in thinking that the B-52 isn't so large .......when it first came out there were no 747, 757,767,777, DC-10, L1011.........well you get the picture.........its all relative....I saw one about 20 yrs ago and thought it was small, as it sat on the apron of CFB Trenton in Ontario ........right behind it was a KC-10.....sorta dwarfed the B-52........one thing I did notice was the stress ripples on the fuselage in front of the wing root.........wasn't eager to go up in one after seeing that !

[loomex]

Ok, so the plane aint all that big, but I never said it was huge, I just stated for an idea of it's size compair my son to the wheel. Remember there are some people here that have never seen a BUFF.(of course they might have living under a rock) As for the "stress ripples", I have never seen a B-52 without them.

[Ivan]

30 years and still flying, no wonder you see the signs of that on the aircraft

[Craig.]

the only times i have ever seen one of these things with my own eyes is when they  were flying over for their missions to iraq, they were usually about 5000 feet above, and they looked impressive to say the least, they may not be as big as you'd expect but i sure as hell wouldnt want to be on the recieving end of one of those:)

[Rifleman]

....... i sure as hell wouldnt want to be on the recieving end of one of those:)

Well said Craig....me too !

[Mr. Bones]

about Iraq...can you imagine what it's like for the pilots who fly an 30 year old bomber...in a extremely old cockpit...during the night over an extremely dangerous area...trying to fly their buff to an exact location...drop bombs and return to England! i think it's hard but it's worth it (flying such a plane)  ;)

[Felix/FFDS]

30-years old?  It's older than you think....  Remember, most B-52 pilots were probably not even BORN when their plane was delivered to the USAF.  Of course, they've been rebuilt, re-engined, etc,over the years, but still, a venerable testimony to modern aircraft.



"The last B-52H was delivered in October 1962. Only the 40-year-old H-model aircraft remain in the Air Force inventory."

[loomex]

there have been reports that there are  pilots  flying the same B-52 that his father or grandfather flew. A show on Discovery wings made the comment that the current expected life of the B-52h is up to the year 2060. That would mean the plane flying out of Minot AFB or Barksdale AFB would be about 100 years old.

[Mr. Bones]

about the son and (grand)father thing i've heard too!

[loomex]

"The last B-52H was delivered in October 1962. Only the 40-year-old H-model aircraft remain in the Air Force inventory."

I think I have a picture of that plane. It was at Minot AFB while I was stationed there.(It was at Fairchild AFB, WA before that)

[X_eidos2]

Talking about stress wrinkles in B-52's.

I overheard two veterans talking about B-52's while at the museum at Castle AFB in California. One was explaining to the other that the wrinkles only showed up when the plane was on the ground. While airbourne, the shape of the wings changed quite a bit and all the wrinkles were stretched out. I wonder how the engineers calculated the wrinkle factor?