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Wild Blue Yonder 1: 50 Years of Gs & Jets
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Wild Blue Yonder - Episode 1 - 50 Years of Gs and Jets (Digital Ranch) (Spectrum Holobyte)(1-107-40-101)(1994).iso
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00041_Field_41.txt
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1994-08-29
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The Cold Warrior
The 1948 blockade of Berlin by the Soviet Union set off a
chilling Cold War frenzy in Washington. To counter any advantage
of their new-found Communist enemy, Congress appropriated
millions of dollars for peacetime militarization. The B-47 was
high on the priority list of Cold War projects. These long-range
bombers arrived on the scene as General Curtis E. LeMay was
shaping the most formidable fighting force in history -- the
Strategic Air Command (SAC).
Gruff and demanding, LeMay set peacetime training and evaluation
standards at wartime levels, and the crews had to strain to meet
them. The Strategic Air Command welcomed the B-47 with open
arms, equipping four wings (each with 45 aircraft) in 1951.
(SAC's size peaked at 28 wings in 1958.)
SAC demonstrated its strength in December of 1956. More than
1,000 B-47s flew over the Northern Hemisphere, simulating combat
missions that they would execute if a war began. The lesson was
not lost on the Soviet Union. Despite its tremendous investment
in radar systems, antiaircraft guns and interceptors, Russia
would not have been able to repel a B-47 attack. These war games
demonstrated that the B-47 force could reduce the Soviet Union to
rubble in less than a week.
By 1957, the US Air Force began to phase out the B-47. The
Stratojet's structure proved prone to metal fatigue, and the air-
craft was unable to meet the SAC requirement that one-third of
the planes always be ready for takeoff with only 15 minute's
notice. Boeing had also introduced the B-52. Just as in the
previous century, when the power of England's Royal Navy had
created the Pax Britannica, the might of SAC's B-47s had provided
a Pax Americana during the early years of the Cold War. Although
the United States' B-47 fleet was an armed force of unparalleled
power, the planes never dropped a weapon in anger.