B-52 - Abbotsford 2007 #7

Ask, and ye shall receive.

ZW







"Bob" wrote in message
news
On Fri, 10 Aug 2007 17:09:07 GMT, "Zomby Woof"
wrote:

Great pics. Lousy looking airplane.
I guess in times of war they have eliminated the paint budget!

About the only visible change to the plane since I last worked on them
in 1982 is a large bulge, antenna?, on the sides between the rear
wheels and tail. I didn't see a pic of that area.

Dept. of misc information.
Back in 1982 the bulge at the very top of the nose dome was an antenna
fed by a large and long in length pressurized waveguide from a
transmitter that sat up in an area just behind the crew door. That
is/was a a fairly large compartment below the main floor that housed
some ECM transmitters. Heavy 225+ lbs boxs taken out and put in by two
people.

Use to be a fiberglass dome behind the steps that you would drop to
get access. Around 1980 they changed it so the transmitters were
accessed from outside the same area by small doors on the left side.
About half of the upper part of the nose dome was filled with ECM
transmitters and antennas you can't see. The bottom part of the nose
dome has the large bomb/nav antenna inside.

The brown squares on the aircraft front and rear near antenna domes
are radar absorbent material to cut down reflections to/from the
antennas of ECM systems.

The large bulge on the upper part of the tail was put in around 1980
for an ECM system. Before that access to anything on the upper part
of the tail for maintenace on the flightline was usually done by
cherry picker, but because of the weight of the system they built a
huge maintenance stand for ECM to work back there. We got the stand
in shortly before I retired in 1982 and I climbed up about 3/4 of the
way to check the stand out. That was far enough up for me!

The two larger radomes at the very rear were for the gun radar.
All the other smaller antennas were ECM...

No cameras on the flightline so I don't have one picture.
During open house too many people and anyway why would anyone go and
look at an airplane they work on every day? Oh, well....

You're welcome.

The stip along the fuselage...is that a reinforcement band of some kind?

Also...maybe becuase other planes parked around were taller and wider, the
BUFF just didn't look that big...the distance between the main sets of
wheels looked so short...

ZW



"Bob" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 10 Aug 2007 19:42:43 GMT, "Zomby Woof"
wrote:

Ask, and ye shall receive.

Thanks much. Closer to the wheels than I thought.
Wonder what system it is?
ECM blade antenna this side, and on the other near the tire another
ECM antenna.

The reinforcement plate running along there was added around 1980 when
they moved a couple of the transmitters to outside access.

One of the access doors for the area behind the wheels is just forward
of that radome or whatever it is. Climb up on the wheel, walk along
the edge, open door and crawl in. I slipped coming out that door one
time and did a free fall almost to the ground. My hands caught the
other side of the wheel well lip and gently swung to the ground. I
stood up, but was shaking so bad I had to sit down..

There is another door on the bottom back further. They usually keep a
spare parachute up in there. Before they moved the heavy transmitters
to outside access on the other side from the pic we had to take them
up through this hatch and over the parachute. A real pain in the
back..
Oh, how I miss those -20F roaring blizzard days....

Thanks for the memories...