B-36 FTW.

My father flew KC-135s for much of his flying career with the USAF and pulled many alerts in his time, ready to be a TOAD should the order come. (That's Take Off And Die,  offload every drop of fuel you have to a B-52 if that's what has to be done, and take his chances on a dead stick landing or jump out and trust the parachute.)



Later he moved to RC-135s,  which meant no alert requirements as the job was electronic reconnaisance rather than dumping ordnance.



SAC was the epitome of the "tight ship", and I would go so far as to say that it was quite possibly the single most highly militaristic,

hard-assed, no nonsense, mission-oriented organization that has ever been.    When your only job is to deliver canned sunshine, anywhere in the world, RIGHT NOW, on target and on time,  and you have one chance to succeed as your base will probably be gone before you get back to it, there's no room for slackers.    



From the moment the alert sounds,  in a REAL war situation,  some bases had 15 minutes to live.  Any plane that isn't off and heading out to hand out the retribution by the time the first nuke hits the base is the ultimate loser.   SAC bases trained very hard to ensure that they'd be able to get every last loaded bird off the ground before the strike hits,  and this meant that slackers ended up in a different part of the USAF.





The Russians feared and respected ALL of our armed services, but they were TERRIFIED of SAC.  And well they should have been.  There was

never a division of any armed service that could and would hit harder or faster.





Despite our technological advances since SAC disappeared,  I don't think we have any command that is the equal of it for the same mission.





CJ

Yeah thats the one. Had them both on a jacket i wore when i was in high school. I wonder what happened to that....

Dang - that does bring back some memories - I was working in SAC HQ back in the 80's -
and one of the crew indicated he was from where I went to school.  

I went back after SAC had been disbanded. .. Odd to see a big old dildo out in front of building 500.

That missile was put up after the Navy took over Command and Control of the underground - or at least was in control of that area when i went back.

brad

added - I sent the video clip to my dad, who is a WWII vet - he told me I did know one of the air plane jockies from Superior Wisconsin.  He had wet thru AFROTC with the guy.

Small world

Tag

I'll post some interesting stuff for you all soon

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Interesting,  the guards at the beginning of the flick were all carrying crossdraw.

What is the average age of a bomber crewman today?
It seemed odd that none of those guys were under 30 and one was almost 40.