The B-52 Stratofortress, A Revolutionary Bomber

The B-52 bomber is one of the most important planes America has ever produced. Initially, it was made to serve as an atomic bomber, flying long distances and dropping nuclear weapons. The B-52, however, was so versatile that Boeing modified the B-52 and created many iterations for different missions. The plane is still in service today, with many modern modifications done to it.

The B-52 project had a rough start, however, with early plans showing a straight wing 6 propeller engine plane. However, they eventually scrapped that idea and implemented jet engines. They made 4 twin pods under each wing. Each twin-pod consisted of 2 jet engines, totaling 8 jet engines on the plane. There were a variety of different iterations too, ranging from B-52A to B-52H, a total of 8 different B-52's. The plane broke many new world records too.  It cut the round-the-world speed record in half, and in January 1962, it flew 12,500 miles nonstop from Japan to Spain without refueling. This flight alone broke 11 distance and speed records. Despite being built and initially planned in the 1960s, engineering analyses show that the B-52 will continue to serve in the air force well into the 21st century, beyond 2040 in fact.

Some statistics of the plane: Wingspan is 185 feet with a length of 160 feet, maximum speed at 55000 feet in the air is 0.9 Mach (595 miles-per-hour) with a lower altitude the plane maxes out at 0.5 Mach (375 miles-per-hour). Being a bomber, the plane was not very capable of defending itself if it were attacked. The main weapon is a remote-controlled gun turret in the tail of the plane

But an incident happened on January 23rd, 1961. A B-52 carrying two 3-4 megaton nuclear bombs broke up in the air. What happened on that day could've been fatal to all of North Carolina, estimates show that if the bombs did detonate, it would have a 100% kill zone within 8.5 miles of detonation. The reason why the plane broke up is because of a fuel leak in the wing, losing 37000 pounds of fuel in 3 minutes. the crew ejected, 2 of which died in the crash, 5 safely ejected, and 1 died on the landing of the parachute. Boeing saw this and reasoned that the extra fuel in the wings added stress to the plane which ultimately made it fail and break up mid-flight.

But why did the bombs not detonate? Turns out the bombs almost did except the safety switch was still in the safe position despite the bomb completing the rest of the arming sequence. There would not have been a possibility of the bomb detonating because of the safety arm/switch. The other bomb went 700 miles per hour into a muddy pit and disintegrated. The first bomb was standing straight up with its parachute stuck in a tree while the second bomb was abandoned due to the constant flooding of the pit.



Sources:
https://www.britannica.com/technology/B-52
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1961_Goldsboro_B-52_crash
https://www.boeing.com/history/products/b-52-stratofortress.page