FOUR DECADES AGO ON A MID-WINTER MORNING AT LARSON AIR FORCE BASE in Washington state, a cold war routine was being played out by Strategic Air Command B-52D bombers and crews of the 768th Bombardment Squadron (Heavy). Crews were at the end of five days on ground alert, living together in the “mole hole,” within sprinting distance of their aircraft. It was “changeover” morning, with fresh crews relieving those coming off alert.
My crew and one other 768th crew had a mission to fly before going home for a two-day break, then five days of flying before our next ground alert tour. I was a young first lieutenant who, at the moment, was strapped into the navigator’s seat aboard a B-52D, call sign Ranger 42. It was January 5, 1966, and a 27-hour workday was just getting started.
In 1961, SAC announced that nuclear-armed B-52s were conducting airborne alert missions. Code-named “Chrome Dome,” these flights were a part of SAC’s nuclear alert posture for seven years. B-52 units rotated on flying routes over the Arctic and Mediterranean. The idea was to reduce retaliatory response time in the event of a missile attack. To that end, several two-ship formations of armed B-52s were airborne around the clock within striking distance of the Soviet Union.
Most Larson crews flew an Arctic route, and though it was a complex, challenging, and exhausting mission, we considered it routine. On this morning, waiting for takeoff clearance with engines idling, Ranger 42 sat just off the runway and behind Ranger 41, the other 768th B-52 making up our flight of two. Each aircraft carried two 9,000-pound B53 nuclear bombs. Secured in each cockpit was a sealed metal box containing the top-secret “go codes,” charts, and target data necessary for the execution of a retaliatory nuclear strike.
One minute after Ranger 41 lifted off the runway, Ranger 42 was rolling. As the pilot slowly advanced the power on the eight J57 jet engines, he made his customary takeoff announcement: “Everybody grab a throttle and run forward.” A mile and a half later, we broke ground in the distinctive nose-low B-52 climbout attitude, bumping our way through a patch of the leader’s wake turbulence, then fell into two-mile trail formation.
Over Pennsylvania, the flight took up an east-northeast heading for our rendezvous with a pair of KC-135 tankers in the “Black Goat” refueling area off Newfoundland. Each bomber would take on about 12,500 gallons, enough to carry us over the pole and down to our next refueling, over central Alaska.
At 60 degrees north latitude, south of Cape Dyer and the Arctic Circle, it was time to “go into grid”—an air navigation technique used in polar regions where the unreliability of the magnetic compass and the acute convergence of geographic lines of longitude (meridians) close to the pole rule out steering by conventional methods.
On normal polar charts, the convergence of meridians close to the pole causes one degree of change in true course for each meridian passed. This change occurs more rapidly the closer the aircraft comes to the pole. The practical effect of this is that in order to fly a straight course, the aircraft would have to be placed in a constant turn—not good.


Comments
that picture is DEFINITELY NOT TWO B-52's!!! the lager one is, the smaller one is NOT. prolly an EB-66
Posted by Karlaz Fredrick on July 21,2008 | 05:04PM
It's actually a B-52 being refueled by a KC-135A...seems consistant with the story.
Posted by Jeff Sterling on August 18,2008 | 11:30PM
Well, no one ever said that the photo was of "two B-52's." It is a KC-135 and a B-52 ready to hook-up or already taking on fuel, which I have done 100's of times.
Posted by Bob on August 19,2008 | 07:05AM
I know I'm a little late commenting but just came across this great photo. Definitely looks like a KC-135 & B-52D. I was a jet engine mechanic working on both planes out of McCoy AFB, Orlando. Spent lots of time at Kadena in Okinawa and Anderson in Guam. ('66-'70). FYI; both aircraft used the same engine a J57-59w on the KC-135 (4) and a J57-29w on the B-52 (8). The 'w' was for water injection used as takeoff thrust augmentation before the advent of the turbofan engine. Pilots will tell you lots of stories about running out of water before getting those "heavys" off the ground. Only 2 minutes of water on board. Hope this adds to the story.
Posted by John McQuade on June 18,2009 | 06:02PM
That brings back many memories-I started as a BUFF nav [G model, Blytheville AFB, Ar], then by a miracle, I got into tankers. While in the BUFF, my crew was within three weeks or so of our first 24 hour mission before the program was cancelled! We would have orbited off the coast of Spain. Grid and celestial-what a combo. Never could get the astrotracker to find stars as well as the EWO did!
Posted by DON FISK on August 17,2009 | 07:44PM
I liked the comment of Don Fist, Buff Nav. I was an EWO. Had to go thru nav school prior to EWO school. I did not care for navigation and was relieved to be selected for EWO school. However, I loved to shot the stars using the D1 sextant. Wish I had one with the mount from an aircraft to play with in my old age.
Posted by Al Pringle on September 3,2009 | 09:55AM
Don Fisk and Al Pringle got me to thinking. When I wrote this article, space requirements did not allow me to go into much detail concerning crew duties. In particular, the total reliance by the navigator upon the Electronic Warfare Officer’s (EWO) skills with the periscopic sextant, which was installed near his ejection seat, above the navigator's position. He had to locate, identify and shoot each celestial body, using azimuth and altitude information called up by the navigator over the intercom just prior to shot time. In SAC the celestial navigation pace was furious, so there were no do-overs on celestial shots - the EWO had to be on the correct star each and every time. So “Bless ‘em all” to all you “Beeps” and especially to our own EWO on S-13, Don Hamilton.
Posted by Bill Robinson on September 6,2009 | 05:24PM