Lost!

 

1. DANG! Got it again in less than an hour. 32 minutes this time.

   Yep, that is Incirlik below. It’s actually a NATO base nowadays and the Turks are starting to really get on my nerves lately.

   Can any of you guess why they needed a runway that is almost two miles long?

   

   Posted by The Skipper       02/15/2007  at  04:32 PM  



2. Hmmmmmmmm - SR71 or a very heavily loaded B52?  B36?

   Posted by Dr. Jeff       02/15/2007  at  04:39 PM  



3. Crikey, I was thinking Ali As-Salem, Shaikh Isa, or Al-Udeid.  Knew it wasn’t PSAB or Dhahran AB for sure.

   Maybe next time....

   Posted by Grumpy Old Ham       02/15/2007  at  05:01 PM  



4. Hehehehe. You have to go back to when it was built in 1951. The USAF’s heavy bomber was the B-47 which carried 230,000 lb bomb load and required JATO or RATO to get off the ground even at that length of runway. Landings were the same problem even with drogue chutes.

   Then there were the U-2’s which also flew out of Incirlik.

   Both aircraft had to make do with bicycle landing gear which meant takeoffs and landings were an adventure by themselves. Even with “pogos” on the wings (don’t ask).

   Did I mention my dad was an aircraft mechanic for 30 years in the USAF?

   

   Posted by The Skipper       02/15/2007  at  05:02 PM  



5. See, that’s what happens when you get war stories from your dad. The absolute maximum gross weight of the loaded aircraft somehow becomes it’s bombload!

   The B-47 could hold roughly a third of the bombload a B-52 can handle. Call it 10 tons. It flew a bit slower and quite a bit lower than the BUFF too. Still, it was one of the few bombers ever built that looked like a giant fighter plane.

   Overall bombload champ will always be the strange, enormous, slow B-36. It could carry the load of both the B-47 AND the B-52 and fly almost halfway around the world on a tank of gas.

   Posted by Drew458       02/15/2007  at  06:10 PM  



6. Simply amazine!  Those two planes on the parking ramp to the right of the taxiway are KC-135 Air Refueling Tankers, R-models I believe.  I was at Incrilk in 1995 when we reestablished air refueling capability for Operation Provide Comfort.  We were there with with the French who were also flying leased KC-135’s and also the British were there with us too.  When the French 135’s returned early from a sortie and their ground crew wasn’t there, my guys would recover the planes for them.  The French pilots would give us bottles of wine as a thank you...the French drink wine during their missions except for the pilot who was going to land the aircraft couldn’t drink alcohol.

   Posted by BobF       02/15/2007  at  08:21 PM  



7. Skip, you just have to get a GPS and some good maps! You get lost too much!

   Yes, in some ways, BobF, the Frogs are so civilized compared to us. Why would the navigator or the engineer not drink wine, as long as they don’t get looped?

   Ah, for more civilized times.

   Posted by Rickvid in Seattle       02/16/2007  at  02:01 PM  

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