Tail less B52 landing video

Michel Lemieux · **Posted:** Mon Jan 12, 2015 11:31 pm

Tail less B52 landing video

Been discussed before......but that video was new to me.

Stick and rudder makes me think that rudder is optional.........

A real tribute to gone past engineering!!!!!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJuEAQbxWRo

DH82EH · **Posted:** Tue Jan 13, 2015 8:50 am

I seem to recall that lowering the gear contributed hugely to their directional stability.
Final approach was probably twenty miles long!

Andy

lucky52 · **Posted:** Tue Jan 13, 2015 9:26 pm

Did they recover the verticle stabilizer?

Matt Gunsch · **Posted:** Tue Jan 13, 2015 11:22 pm

There was also a B-36 that lost it's rudder in flight, I believe it was taking part in a overflight of the Air Force Academy opening ceremony.

Stephan Wilkinson · **Joined:** Wed Jun 01, 2011 11:23 am **Posts:** 699

Quote:

Stick and rudder makes me think that rudder is optional.........

It is. I once flew a Bonanza (conventional tail, not a vee) from HPN to RDG with the rudder lock in place, as the result of two pilots hurriedly sharing the preflight and neither of us getting that done. Made very little difference.

Of course what we're talking about with this B-52 is not just the rudder but the vertical stabilizer. I've never flown without one of those...

p51 · **Posted:** Wed Jan 14, 2015 5:50 pm

Wasn't there a B-24 or B-25 that landed with almost as much missing after a WW2 mission? I'm pretty sure I read that somewhere and something about the pilot being told afterward that it wasn't supposed to still be flying like that. I also recall he'd done a buzz job not knowing how much was missing from the back end...

daviemax · **Posted:** Thu Jan 15, 2015 6:46 am

QB-17 target drone Falcon missile attack sequence, 18 Jul 1956. Drone flies on after losing vertical stabilizer and rudder; identity and specific fate of this aircraft is still TBD.

maxum96 · **Posted:** Thu Jan 15, 2015 2:56 pm

daviemax wrote:

QB-17 target drone Falcon missile attack sequence, 18 Jul 1956. Drone flies on after losing vertical stabilizer and rudder; identity and specific fate of this aircraft is still TBD.

Flew on with the tail blown off for maybe a second or two before it went out of control.

Watching the video of the B-52, it's no wonder that Boeings have had the reputation they've had starting with the B-17.

daviemax · **Posted:** Thu Jan 15, 2015 5:13 pm

Flew on with the tail blown off for maybe a second or two before it went out of control.

You could well be correct about the loss of control but it does appear the horizontal stabilizers are still attached. Some QB's survived major damage and were successfully landed (or crash-landed). A goal is to correlate the serial number to the photo, so the record card and other sources can be matched. Then we might learn more of the specific fate of the aircraft.

maxum96 · **Posted:** Thu Jan 15, 2015 7:49 pm

daviemax wrote:

Flew on with the tail blown off for maybe a second or two before it went out of control.

You could well be correct about the loss of control but it does appear the horizontal stabilizers are still attached. Some QB's survived major damage and were successfully landed (or crash-landed). A goal is to correlate the serial number to the photo, so the record card and other sources can be matched. Then we might learn more of the specific fate of the aircraft.

After looking at the pictures again, I see that perhaps you're right about the horizontal stabs still being there. In that case I could see the QB still going for a while as the fuselage would act someone as a vertical stab

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Tail less B52 landing video

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