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-Short Attention Span Theater-
B-52 re-engineers itself in flight
2017-01-06
Title courtesy of M. Murcek, who submitted the same story.
An engine dropped out of a B-52 bomber during a training flight on Wednesday, the Air Force has confirmed.
Righty-tighty, lefty-loosey...
A B-52 bomber on a training flight near Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota lost one of eight Pratt & Whitney TF33-P-3/103 turbofan engines mid-flight.
Don't you just hate when that happens?
The crew declared an in-flight emergency when the pilot discovered that an engine departed the aircraft and were able to land the aircraft safely without any injury to the five personnel on board.
It departed, did it? Did it leave its tray table in the upright and locked position? Did it remember to check the seat back for personal items? Was it careful upon opening the hatch of the overhead luggage storage compartment in case contents inside had shifted?
An Air Force helicopter sent to recover the wreckage “located possible engine debris” in an unpopulated area about 25 nautical miles northeast of the base, Air Force officials added.
BOMBS AWAYYYYY!!!
Officials said that there was no threat to public safety and that an investigation has been started.
Wing commander, master crew chief, and ground operations chiefs all going to be losing their jobs...
'We lost an engine'...gains an entirely new meaning.
Posted by:Steve White

#10  Beavis, you are gonna owe a lot of folks keyboards for that link......
Posted by: USN, Ret   2017-01-06 15:40  

#9  A military pilot called for a priority landing because his single-engine jet fighter was running “a bit peaked.” Air Traffic Control told the fighter pilot that he was number two, behind a B-52 that had one engine shut down. “Ah,” the fighter pilot remarked, “The dreaded seven-engine approach.”
Posted by: Beavis   2017-01-06 12:33  

#8  Root cause analysis will probably point to the crew chief not completing the transgender awareness course.
Posted by: Tzsenator   2017-01-06 12:06  

#7  BOMBS away Engines away!!
Posted by: DarthVader   2017-01-06 09:04  

#6  My first thought when I read the articles was "It could not be for very long, but if the engine was running when it dropped loose, it had to keep running for a second or four even minus fuel, air, hydraulic and electrical connections." Like something out of a Bruce Willis Die Hard movie...
Posted by: M. Murcek   2017-01-06 08:36  

#5  Old craft. Made by Boeing who had just a few years earlier turned out the B-17. Kill some time on google pics to see what shape some of those aircraft looked like after a spin over Germany. You ask yourself, how in the hell did that fly home.

Actually, you need all the engines to get the bird aloft. Once aloft you can still operate on less thrust unless you get a critical.

B-52, the closest thing the zoomies have to a M2. Something that does it job so well, its really hard to come up with a replacement (that doesn't cost 18 trillion dollars).
Posted by: Procopius2k   2017-01-06 08:03  

#4  Officials said that there was no threat to public safety...

This was true after the engine stopped bouncing...
Posted by: BrerRabbit   2017-01-06 07:55  

#3  Officials said that there was no threat to public safety and that an investigation has been started.

Wing commander, master crew chief, and ground operations chiefs all going to be losing their jobs...



Sadly, the best case scenario here is some incredible fudge-up on the part of the maintainers - if Miss Buffy has developed some sort of structural problem, that will be it for the fleet.....

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski   2017-01-06 05:00  

#2  An extra part. Sorta like when you take the CD player apart and can't find homes for all those little pieces but it still seems to work.
Posted by: gorb   2017-01-06 01:34  

#1  Wonder how close it 'landed' to the pipeline protesters camp?
Posted by: Skidmark   2017-01-06 01:11  

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