In North Dakota: View from a BUFF

By Don Sider

This ancient bomber is groping upward, electronically blind, attempting to join five others stacked in layers just 500 ft. apart. At 10,000 ft. the sky is an inkwell, and the primary and back-up heading systems are out. The radar works sporadically, and even when it does function, it provides tunnel vision, off to one side. The only dependable navigation aid is a simple compass, just like the ones people stick on the dashboards of their cars.

The pilot and copilot, Don Schlaht and Dave Maher, swivel their helmeted heads, straining to pick up the flashing lights of the other planes, their own faces dimly lit by the soft red glow from the instrument panel. As the minutes pass, tension shows around their eyes. Schlaht begins to think he will have to turn back to base. We are in a plane that can carry more explosive power than was set off by all the participants of World War II. It looks like a flying shark, and is equipped with electronic gadgets that allow it to make a precision bombing run at midnight in the middle of a blizzard--when they work. Navigator John Kyme has crawled under the instrument panel, into the "wine cellar," with a handful of small tools and a look of determination. "I don't know where to begin," he says. "But we'll take it one step at a time."

NOR-08, the plane's code name for this training exercise, is the last and most modern of the B-52s to come off the Boeing line. It has 9,050 flying hours on it, though. If it were human, it would be old enough to vote and buy liquor in any state.

To air crews the B-52 is known as BUFF, a fairly loving acronym that stands for Big Ugly Fat Fellow. But there are Air Force men who think it should have been put out to pasture long ago in the Arizona desert, along with the retired squadrons of B-29s and B-50s. Some of them are hoping for a variant of the expensive but supersonic B-1 bomber, especially in view of the new Administration's defense policy.

Takeoff was from Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota. It was perilously near the wind-chill factor of 65DEG F below --the point at which ground crews are excused from outdoor maintenance. Seven BUFFS and three KC-135 tankers were scheduled to roar aloft at 7 a.m., just as 390 other Strategic Air Command planes took the air, in less than ten minutes, from 69 other bases in the continental U.S. and Guam. The mission: a simulated launch in the face of a Soviet missile attack, part of a readiness exercise called Global Shield. It was the biggest mass launch in SAC'S 35-year history.

One BUFF and one tanker aborted on the ground, victims of a balky generator and an engine "trouble" light that would not go out. A second B-52 had to quit formation; its right front-landing gear would not retract, so it could not keep up. Officially, the Air Force has high confidence in these old planes and the young men who fly them. Despite the much vaunted Soviet air defense network, they believe the B-52s can get through, take out their targets, and perhaps even return to base.

Or what's left of it. "The advantage is with the offense," insists Brigadier General John A. Shaud, commander of SAC'S 57th Air Division. The crews are not so sure.

Do you think you could get through to your target? a B-52 electronic warfare officer is asked. "Not really," he says. "If the Soviet equipment works the way it's supposed to, a lot of us don't want to go to war," says another.

But apocalyptic speculation has been left behind in the rush of business, the minute-by-minute need to cope with a 448,000-lb., $15 million aircraft. And things soon go better for NOR-08. Kyme manages to work out most of the bugs in the navigational gear. "See how this airplane heals itself?" Kyme says cheerily on the intercom. Someone else chimes in, "Well, the urinal works."

By 10 o'clock, in fact, the plane is orbiting 24,000 ft. over Lake Thabaska in Canada. The sky is clear and bright, and every man concentrates on getting to the final target. Meanwhile, the two men known as "defense"--the electronic warfare officer and the gunner--are preparing to elude Soviet SAMS and MiGs. The e.w. officer is leaning toward the bank of transmitters, designed to jam enemy radar as NOR-08 makes her approach. One transmitter is down, but no problem. The other 15 are working.

At 10:18, NOR-08 breaks out of orbit and streaks south at 320 knots toward a low-level run over two tiny, almost featureless snow-covered lakes in a desolate Canadian wilderness dotted with thousands just like it. At 10:38, the plane settles to 3,700 ft. Ten minutes later, the navigator calls out: "You're cleared t.a.," meaning the pilot can take it down to 500 ft. At that height he must rely on his own skills, and t.a. (for terrain-avoidance radar), to save the ship from a possible 380-knot collision with trees and hills.

It is like roaring down a pot-holed washboard road in an old car with bad shocks, this surging, bucking run to the target. The pine trees seem so close, you could reach down and grab a handful of needles as they blur beneath the nose. The bomb bay doors come open. Together, Schlaht and the navigators aim the plane over the first lake. "Bomb away." It is spoken without drama, a simple statement of fact. There is no bomb, of course. Only a pair of cameras, that record the exact point of impact, had a bomb been released. It's a bit like blasting those enemy spaceships on an Atari TV game. The crew of NOR-08 is sure they have "shacked" the lake, putting the imaginary bomb within the 3,000-ft. radius considered satisfactory shooting for nuclear crews. As to the second lake, they're not so sure. Later, strike photos show the first attack was on target, the second 30 seconds too soon, a nuclear near miss that put a theoretical bomb into a whole other lake.

In what the crew calls "the real world," meaning World War III, targets would be more identifiable. Crews would have studied them for months in advance. At 12:54 p.m. the Minot runway is in sight. Six hours after it began, the mission is ended. In the real world it might have taken 18 hours just to reach the target.

--By Don Sider

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.