Happy Buffday

 

1. Happy Buffday B-52

   Let’s have a true celebration by dropping 50 on top of some Iranian “Nucular” facilities. Or, “cheat” a little and use some ALCMs.
   (our CiC sez “Nucular” so it must be correct)

   Posted by Rat Patrol       03/22/2006  at  12:16 PM  



2. Big
   Ugly
   Fat
   F@@ker

   ‘Scuse the @’s, but I try to keep it somewhat clean!

   Posted by gb_in_ga       03/22/2006  at  12:38 PM  



3. Boeing’s site says BUFF stands for Big Ugly Flying Fellow - due to my background, I’m thinking it actually stands for Big Ugly Flying F###er ...................
   Many moons ago, while traveling advance party {in CH-53s - LOVE those birds!}, we landed for refueling at some base that had BUFFs - we were told, most emphatically, to stay on “our” side of the line ........................ some airmen put on a show for us - one young man walked toward one of the birds - a Jeep roared up, filled with more young men, who when the Jeep stopped, stood up, leveled their weapons, and ordered the young pedestrian to “HALT!”
   They are truly awesome machines .........................

   Posted by Diamond Mair       03/22/2006  at  12:47 PM  



4. I watched them during the first Gulf War flying way up there. They have one on display at RAF Duxford what a beast. I believe it had such a rough landing that it had to remain along with all the wrinkles in the fuselage!

   Posted by LyndonB       03/22/2006  at  01:34 PM  



5. Me too, watching those monsters take off, I have the same reaction as the Kentucky farm boy first seeing a giraffe: “There ain’t no such animal!”

   But I considered this thought experiment: Get a 3 foot square piece of half-inch plwood. Stand up in the back seat of a convertible going 60 mph, holding the board in front of you; remember this is a THOUGHT experiment. The plane has more than 9 sq. feet of wing surface and is going faster than 60mph.
   ----------------------------
   A USAF friend who was in SAC says that “Peace Is Our Profession” translates at “We won’t fight and you can’t make us”.

   Posted by Oink       03/22/2006  at  01:37 PM  



6. Oink, I served in SAC and I can tell you the motto translates to the SAC emblem below: a mailed fist clutching an olive branch and three lightning bolts. Translation: It’s your choice which one you get. We can hand you a peace offering or we can shove a lightning bolt up your ass. Choose wisely.

   

   Posted by The Skipper       03/22/2006  at  02:11 PM  



7. I was stationed at Blytheville AFB for a decade one year and I’m here to tell ya, those suckers are amazing. I loved watching them take off. The roar and the sheer mass of the thing always made me feel powerful, aggressive and a bit hot (my husband loved it when I’d been hangin’ around the runway). You see a few of them and you know why we’re the greatest country the world has ever known.

   Posted by Punkins       03/22/2006  at  02:24 PM  



8. I always saw them referred to as “BUF”—Big Igly Fu**er”.

   Gues the extra “F” could refer to “Flying” as in Big Ugly flying Fuc**er.

   Posted by MAJ Mike       03/22/2006  at  02:40 PM  



9. Roger, 10-4, Okely Dokely, BUFF stands for Big Ugly Fat F***er.  Friend of mine used to fly them back in the 70’s and 80s, later moved on to B-1Bs, then some test-pilot stuff out at Nellis, and retired before B-2s were well known by the general public. He gave me a T-shirt imprinted with “B-52 PILOTS DO IT IN THE BUFF” I wore it out long ago…

   Posted by Rat Patrol       03/22/2006  at  02:41 PM  



10. PEACE THROUGH SUPERIOR FIREPOWER!!!!!

    The BUFF is the one major currently active USAF aircraft, of which the planes are older than the pilots. Not counting ANG and Reserve “airborne antiques”.

    Posted by Rat Patrol       03/22/2006  at  02:46 PM  



11. Yes, I’m confident it was a sardonic in-joke for SAC consumption only.

    Our outfit claimed “Second To None” which we privately interpreted as “Next To Nothing”.

    Posted by Oink       03/22/2006  at  03:35 PM  



12. There was this one guy at a place I worked at who had a real hygiene problem.  Everyone called him Sgt. Stinky.  He looked like Lurch had bred with the mummy.  One day his workstation computer crashed and I had to reformat, reinstall, etc.  When it asked for the computer name, I put in “BUFF”.  About 3 days later, one of the real IT guys came out and said that this weird computer name had come up on the network but they couldn’t figure out where it was.  He about passed out laughing when I told him.  I don’t think Lurch’s kid ever knew.

    Posted by John C       03/22/2006  at  04:15 PM  



13. For the record, BUFF does stand for BIG UGLY FAT FUCKER, as RP said. We referred to the pilots as “bus drivers”. They didn’t like that for some reason. Probably because their “buses” carried enough nukes to wipe out entire countries. For small change in fare.

    

    Posted by The Skipper       03/22/2006  at  05:45 PM  



14. My Air Force buddy said that in Cold War SAC it was “Rule by Fear”. His words, not mine.

    Example: One of his men bounced a check at the PX.  He himself, not the miscreant, was called in for an ass-chewing, and told to make goddam sure it never happened again!!!

    He understood that flows downstream & he was supposed to put the Fear of God into his subordinate. But that doesn’t always work, and how in the hell was he supposed to control another man’s checkbook?  I recall that in the movie “A Gathering of Eagles” (1963) Strategic Air Command was portrayed as a tough discipline outfit.

    Posted by Oink       03/22/2006  at  06:20 PM  



15. Wife’s uncle used to drive those things. He loved flying it… hated the long missions. Never understood that. We used to sit 200 miles away and tell them when to drop the ordnance over the North. The only thing I’ve ever heard them called is BUFF (BIG UGLY FAT F@@KER). Used to know some of the guys at 2nd BW on Barksdale. They had a lot of names for them (most of them worse than that), but could almost get violent if you talked bad about “their” aircraft.

    Oh, BTW, SAC stands for “Snoopy’s Air Circus”

    Posted by bowshot4       03/23/2006  at  03:44 AM  



16. Bob: I got dead links.
    We had a huge military cargo plane crash at the Evansville IN airport decades ago. Same problem with the pilot & he took several with him.  What a christless mess it was.

    Posted by Oink       03/23/2006  at  08:52 AM  



17. It was my understanding that BUFF stood for Big Ugly Fat F**ker. which is kind of a discription of it but I’m also betting that the name BUFF was different between Wings or Squadrons even. Next time I can get the chance I’ll ask some former SAC guys I know what they have to say about it.

    Posted by Archangel       03/23/2006  at  05:54 PM  



18. Bob: I’ve had the same problem. Using the <a> button below helps, sometimes.  I always test my links—even after hitting ‘preview’. I’ve learned thru the same process as you.

    Posted by Oink       03/23/2006  at  09:03 PM  



19. Used to sit by the runway at Tinker AFB in OKC and watch the B-52’s doing touch and go’s after their depot maintenance. Depot maintenance is an almost complete re-build of an aircraft after about 10,00 flight hours - replace the engines and do major airframe and electronics systems work. Got to climb into one, they are three decks tall inside - AWESOME!!!!! HUGE bomb bays!

    The ‘Buff’ is still flying after all these years and doing it’s designers proud!

    The Hobo

    Posted by Robohobo       03/23/2006  at  10:56 PM  

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