Flightradar24 Interesting Finds

[MossRoad]

When I was in college in El Paso, we lived about 2 miles off the end of the main runway at Briggs Field. Nuclear equipped B52’s were stationed there. Every month or 2 they would do an emergency scramble exercise. First the KC135 tankers would take off, spaced about 15 to 30 seconds apart. Then the 52’s would go, same spacing. Crossed the house at less than 1000’.

It seemed about 10 minutes of deafening roar.

I never thought about if one of them would crash.

Just the thought of a B-52 with a big load of fuel would be scary on its own. 'The Bomb' wouldn't go off, but it could make for contamination for sure.

 

[orezok]

I’ve been watching this Alaska Airline jet trying to land at Palm Springs for about 15 or 20 minutes. He did 2 misssed approaches before getting it on the ground on the third try.

Wind was favorable from the northwest at 20 so that should not have been an issue.

Must have been a learner-earner pilot

 

[bcp]

Lots of swirly winds coming through the pass and around the mountain just to the west of Palm Springs. Landings often feel like a carnival ride.

Palm Springs is at the foot of the mountain over the left side white car. The pass is over the billboard. The mountains on each side are 11,000+- high.

Bruce

 

[dmccarty]

Just the thought of a B-52 with a big load of fuel would be scary on its own. 'The Bomb' wouldn't go off, but it could make for contamination for sure.

"would'nt" should be "should'nt" and thankfully, in all of the accidents with fission and fusion weapons, some of which were dropped, they never went off.

However, the B-52 that crashed over NC, did loose two of it's fusion weapons and one bomb was only one switch away from a fusion weapon going off in rural, eastern NC.

The Wiki is very detailed, 1961 Goldsboro B-52 crash - Wikipedia

Bill Stevens, a nuclear weapon safety engineer at Sandia, gave the following assessment in an internal documentary film produced by Sandia in 2010: "Some people can say, 'hey, the bomb worked exactly like designed.' Others can say, 'all but one switch operated, and that one switch prevented the nuclear detonation.'"

To make it more interesting, one of the fusion bombs buried itself in a field. There is an historical marker for the incident and you can see the stand of trees in Google Maps/Earth where the bomb hit. They were only able to recover PART of the weapon. The secondary stage of the bomb that takes the weapon from a fission to a fusion explosion is still in the field but deeply buried.

Excavation of the second bomb was complicated by the freezing cold, a high water table, and the extreme muddiness. Pumps were used to remove water, and the sides of the crater were reinforced with plywood, but it was decided after digging down to 42 feet (13 m) to abandon the effort. The fusion "secondary" of the second weapon was never recovered.[44] The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill subsequently determined the buried depth of the secondary component to be 180 ± 10 feet (55 ± 3 m)

There were a number of airplane accidents with fission and fusion weapons and it is amazing that none of the weapons had a nuclear explosion. Sometimes the conventional explosives would go off but the fission/fusion components did not. Thankfully.

 

[orezok]

What is this U2 doing?

 

[MossRoad]

Taking pictures.

 

[bcp]

Taking the "before" pictures for the 2025 San Andreas earthquake.

Bruce

 

[orezok]

Taking the "before" pictures for the 2025 San Andreas earthquake.

Bruce

That’s a possibility, but most of the “tracks” are south of the fault.

 

[MossRoad]

Taking the "before" pictures for the 2025 San Andreas earthquake.

Bruce

 

[Redbug]

Just a little west of Dothan, Alabama is the Army's training school for helicopters. There are 3 Army airfields around Daleville and Enterprise...and at times...even at night you may see a flock of helos going around in the area training.