B-47's at Fairford

[von_trippenhopf]

These appeared on the Old Ciren Facebook page, posted by Derek King.
A nice bit of Cold War History!

[jem60]

Oh boy!!!. Good old days. Silver aircraft, constant fumes, blue skies, smoking exhausts..........Ah. nostalgia... Think I need to lie down now. Not as young as I used to be.......but good to be an oldie and to have seen these, eh Paddyboy

[Knife 04]

Absolutely fantastic post - thanks for putting it up

Not quite old enough to remember these but wish I was - must of been great to see these streaming in and out of Brize, Greenham, Upper Heyford and Fairford.

Not an expert but are the first two RB-47s? I am sure Mr Luxton will be able to enlighten us with dates and types for these?

Cheers and all the best

Darren

[paddyboy]

Jem, you said it all

The smell of freedom

Thanks for posting

Paddyboy

[graham luxton]

Absolutely fantastic post - thanks for putting it up

Not quite old enough to remember these but wish I was - must of been great to see these streaming in and out of Brize, Greenham, Upper Heyford and Fairford.

Not an expert but are the first two RB-47s? I am sure Mr Luxton will be able to enlighten us with dates and types for these?

Cheers and all the best

Darren

Agree with Darren its a fantastic post - brings the memories flooding back of the hundreds of B-47's I saw at the above bases and of some very spectacular Stratojet departures when our 10,000ft runways seemed a little on the short side for this type of operation!

Darren - the first two photos are of B-47B's, almost certainly from the Mac Dill based 306BW, which made SAC's first overseas B-47 wing deployment to Fairford July - Sept'53. The base supported an additional four wing rotations in 1954/55 before it closed for reconstruction but none of those operated the B model.

The second pair of photo's represent another era of B-47 ops at Fairford - Reflex Action. These were the days of nuclear ground alert where up to 20 B-47's were positioned at forward bases like Fairford ready to launch an attack on the Soviet Union within 15 minutes of the alert klaxon sounding. Fairford supported this alert mission 1958 - 64.

B-47's would deploy to Fairford from their home bases in the US for specific periods of alert duty which eventually became 3 weeks for each a/c. Immediately after arrival work began to "cock" them for alert which included the fitting of RATO units. This was required because a combat configured B-47E was way too heavy to safely operate from a 10,000ft runway without them. Once their alert was over the RATO was downloaded and the a/c were reconfigured for peacetime flight back to their home bases.
0-20314 and 0-20379 were both assigned to the Forbes based 40BW. This wing only made one Reflex tour to Fairford (in the latter half of '63 - early'64) so I suggest thats when the photo's were taken. The wing maintained an alert force of 9 B-47E's there during that period rotating 3 per week( 3 in on one day and 3 out the next ) so as far as Reflex B-47 movements were concerned you would be lucky to catch them in the air!

The B-47 days were certainly interesting times.

[TeeJay]

Very, very, very interesting post, both the original pic post, and the information from Graham
Thanks for posting guys
All the best
Trev
PS; are those JATO rockets on rear of fuselage? (more clearly seen in last pic)

[IanH]

Superb post and what a fantastic explanation graham....world class. Best wishes, Ian

[graham luxton]

Very, very, very interesting post, both the original pic post, and the information from Graham
Thanks for posting guys
All the best
Trev
PS; are those JATO rockets on rear of fuselage? (more clearly seen in last pic)

Thanks Trev, good that you found it interesting.

Thats them - up to 33 rocket bottles could be attached to the RATO collar providing 33,000lbs of additional thrust.

cheers,
Graham

[von_trippenhopf]

Thanks for the I.D. and the info Graham, the only info the original Facebook poster gave was 1953. I'll fill him in on the rest of the details.
I guess those RATO packs were a one shot wonder, once you lit them you were off, like it or not!

[Ferrari]

Fantastic pictures.

I read somewhere that an RB-47 from Brize Norton was shot down over the Baltic. Does anyone have any info about this?

Cheers,
Ferrari

[von_trippenhopf]

Fantastic pictures.

I read somewhere that an RB-47 from Brize Norton was shot down over the Baltic. Does anyone have any info

At least one RB-47 from Fairford was shot at!
http://www.rb-29.net/html/31HAustinB-47/31harb-47.htm

[Ferrari]

From the excellent book 'Strike Force - Th USAF in Britain since 1948' by Robert Jackson, page 77:

"On 1 July 1960, while the Powers trial was still in progress, an RB-47H of 98 SRW took off from Brize Norton to carry out reconnaissance of the Barents Sea and the Soviet nuclear test site at Novaya Zemlya. The a/c carried a crew of six.

North of Archangelsk, the RB-47H was intercepted by a Mig-19 of the 206th air division and - according to the Russian version - signalled to land in Soviet territory. The crew ignored the signals and the Stratojet was shot down. After ten days the Russians announced they had picked up two survivors, Fl Lts Freeman B. Olmstead and John R McKane. Cpt William A Palm was found dead in his dinghy."

It's a super book, if out of date now (published in 1986).

Cheers,
Ferrari

[TeeJay]

Thanks for that Graham, and the others for posting as this thread gets more interesting, really like finding out more about the cold war goings on.
All the best Guys
Trev

[graham luxton]

From the excellent book 'Strike Force - Th USAF in Britain since 1948' by Robert Jackson, page 77:

"On 1 July 1960, while the Powers trial was still in progress, an RB-47H of 98 SRW took off from Brize Norton to carry out reconnaissance of the Barents Sea and the Soviet nuclear test site at Novaya Zemlya. The a/c carried a crew of six.

North of Archangelsk, the RB-47H was intercepted by a Mig-19 of the 206th air division and - according to the Russian version - signalled to land in Soviet territory. The crew ignored the signals and the Stratojet was shot down. After ten days the Russians announced they had picked up two survivors, Fl Lts Freeman B. Olmstead and John R McKane. Cpt William A Palm was found dead in his dinghy."

It's a super book, if out of date now (published in 1986).

Cheers,
Ferrari

This was RB-47H 53-4281 assigned to the 38/343SRS, 55SRW based at Forbes AFB, Kansas. It had been on TDY at Brize Norton, otherwise known by the 55th as Operating Location - 1 (OL-1) since mid -June'60.

Don't know where RJ got his info from but the 55SRW was the only operator of the RB-47H and there never was a 98thSRW. At the time of the incident the 98th was a Medium Bomb Wing flying B-47E's.

cheers,
Graham

[Knife 04]

Good update Graham and appreciate the info - have this book too and you rely (to some extent) on the info given ......and then!

All the best

Darren