B-52 simulator, with a twist

[Cking]

Hello gang!
I love the odd, forgotten and ignored side of aviation. When I saw this I thought the WIX gang might like it too.

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=378661

I know that somebody hear will know ALL the details.

Rgds Cking

[The Inspector]

Build those for your HO pike!!

[JohnB]

It gives a new meaning to the term motion simulator.

As the caption indicates, the photo shows the one at Fairchild AFB, Washington has had the rail cars as a part of its base museum since the early 80s and I can recall seeing them on the base back in the 60s. I'd assume there are others as well.

You have to remember, back in the old days simulators were high-tech and SAC wanted to be able to move them to various bases.
Most SAC bases had rail lines into them (a few, like Fairchild and Griffiss, were WWII depots or they used them to bring fuel onto the installation) so the rail car idea worked out nicely.

[CrewDawg]

I remember as a young airman 1st class B -52 Crew Chief in the late '80's that senior crew chiefs and engine mechanics would get trained on doing engine runs in the B-52 simulator rail car at Barksdale. So I guess they were still in use at least for training maintainers as late as '88 or '89.

[N3Njeff]

One of our N3N owners has one of these!!! He bought it as govt surplus somewhere in ND if I remember and had it put on the rails and brought to his local yard where it was removed and truck to his place where he had a section of track for it to sit on. Before it was for B-52 sim, it was a WW2 Troop train dining car.

I got plenty of pics of his N when I was there but none of the railcar.

[Tawny]

This is quite fascinating! In its day, this was state of the art technology. This has always intrigued me, how the military seems to always be ahead of the cutting edge. I can only imagine what technology they might have now which is classified and highly guarded. I remember reading an article not that long ago about this company that does forensic science for accident reconstruction, and also takes on numerous military projects. I had read about some of the technology that they were developing, and found it quite impressive. Thank you for sharing this article, this is a shinning example of American ingenuity at its finest!

Last edited by Tawny on Wed Apr 04, 2012 7:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[Avnut]

In "B-52 Stratofortress in Action", No. 23 there is a picture of this rail car unit from when it was still in service. Until I saw the picture (January of this year), I'd never heard about this simulator. After see the picture, I wondered what happened it. Figured it probably had been scrapped. Glad to see one set was preserved. It makes an interesting piece of aviation and rail history.

[Edward Sheetmetalhands]

http://www.kansasaviationmuseum.org/kam ... =&TO&c=163

[jph712]

There is one of those railcar simulators at Aviation Challenge at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, AL (The home of Space Camp). They've got the second car as well that would be offices and whatnot for the crew.

[sdennison]

They must have a similar unit for the B-47's. I remember my Dad wrote an episode for Rod Serling's Twilight Zone about a bomber crew who flew a mock mission. They were seen getting into the simulator for the training mission. Once inside as the mission progressed, it changed to the "reality" of an attack on the aircraft by the "enemy". Guys were getting all shot up, the simulator staff outside were monitoring combat like radio tranmissions. The crew limped the aircraft back to base and landed. When the staff opened up the simulator doors to let the flight crew out, guys were all wounded and shot up, the inside looked like the interior of an aircraft that had been attacked.

Pretty cool concept that could play out today for a movie somehow. Unfortunately, Rod never used the idea. Oh well.