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Leading the Charge

Take a guy named "Tibbets" put him in a bomber and face him towards Asia and what do you get?

Thats easy, Second thoughts.

From Stars and Stripes:

"Tibbets is the grandson of Brig. Gen. Paul Tibbets, who piloted Enola Gay, the B-29 bomber used to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima during World War II in 1945.

Tibbets also flies bombers, but his subsonic, low-observable stealth machine is considerably more high-tech than his grandfather’s.

“The B-2 has proven through time that it’s the best bomber in the world,” said Tibbets, who commands the 393rd Bomb Squadron, part of the 509th Bomb Wing based at Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo. “We kick down the door.”

Once upon a time I stood under the wing of a B-24 at the Reno Air Races with about a dozen pilots of various acclaim. We were all awaiting the arrival of the B-2. While we stood there on the ramp, everyone began to opine as to the value of the B-2. "Too damned expensive", "A white elephant", " silly damn thing" was the general concensus of the pilot community that had gathered for the shade of the big aircraft on the ramp. You cant impress pilots. They just dont care. If they are on the ground, their only interest is getting back in the air. Pilots may be impressed from time to time, but they never let on in public. They dont communicate or emote to non-pilots. Sitting in a crowd of pilots is like participating in a festival of monosyllabity and grunts.

And then we saw it. Immediately everyone reached for their binoculars as appeared low over the ridgeline behind the airport. Jaws dropped , but not a sound was uttered as the spectre flew by nearly silent in exactly the way that big jet bombers dont, but ghosts do. It was not like any sort of airplane that we had ever seen before, it was just a thin grey line moving back and forth through the sky with almost no sound. Nearly slient, nearly invisible, and it doesnt show up on radar. Wow.

After it left the area, everyone on the ramp clapped in ovation for the clearly amazing show that we had just seen had changed the concensus of opinion "I dont know how many we bought, but we need to buy twice as many right now. That is one damn scary aircraft." Its amazing what a 10 minute flyby can do to change someones mind.

The lesson being taught wasnt lost on the old time pilots who stood with me on the ramp at Reno. It wasnt how the aircraft would perform in a future war that mattered the most. It was how a weapon of such clearly superior strengths could stop a war from happening in the first place that really mattered.

Posted @ June 28, 2006 09:34 AM | Current Affairs

Comments

Cool

Posted by: Jay Ostrander at July 1, 2006 09:25 PM

I was on a horseback recon of some Kern County land on the hills west of Edwards AFB when I first saw the B-2, accompanied by some fighter jets. It was huge and cool and silent.

Just the kind of thing you load up in Missouri, go bomb Baghdad, and fly home.

Some people believe our actions over the past few years in the GWOT has made the USA more subject to terrorism, rather than less.

I say "we'll see about that. Go ahead. Try something."

Posted by: Jerry K. at July 2, 2006 03:55 PM