Barnyard wrote:Super A wrote: The other is to see a B-52 fly by IN PERSON.
I saw many of these in 1971. An awesome sight at the time just watching it leave the ground, let alone wondering how it ever stayed in the air.
This gives me the chance to tell one of my all-time favorite stories. The closest I have ever come to seeing a BUFF in person was in the mid-late '80s. I live about an hour from Seymour-Johnson AFB in Goldsboro, NC, so it's not unusual to see the occasional AF jet fly over. (Since we are only 15-20 minutes from Camp Lejeune, most military AC we see are Marine Corps.) Anyway, I was in middle school, and we were out of school for a holiday. At that time, we had two old chicken houses where the machinery was stored. I was out hitching up a piece of equipment in one of them, when I heard a roar, getting louder, coming from the north. It was loud enough to get my attention, so I ran outside just in time to see about a half a dozen BIG AF planes come over the horizon, low and slow--they were so close to the ground they needed license plates! Since then, from what I could find out on the internet, the B 52's at Goldsboro left in '83, but they still have tankers. So, I think what I saw were either KC-10 or KC-135 tankers. Don't know where they were going, but they put on quite the show! Sometime after, we happened to be in Goldsboro for farm business, and stopped at Wilburs BBQ for an early supper. Got there just in time to see the tankers come in to land. Again, an impressive sight.
Al