Bombed by a B1 - no kiddin'

[Not Guilty]

Got "killed".



Late Saturday nite my cousin and I are struggling along a 4wd desert mountain road near the Mex. border in his Honda (his 97 & my 99 4wd CTDs are in the common state of broke) when with absolutely no warning the car goes to shaking and and we are covered up with a soul shaking roar. After a split second of "what is happening?" a glance out the driver's window revealed the afterburners lit up in a B1 in a near vertical climb screaming away straight up to the stars! WOW!!!!

Never heard him coming. Don't you know that pilot was laughing after that practice run knowing he scared the heck ot of us. What a rush!!! After the initial fright that is! Made me want to stand on the roof of the car and cheer them on. Oo.

Must be sheer terror to really be targeted by the United State Air Force.

 

[snowracer69]

Got "killed".



Must be sheer terror to really be targeted by the United State Air Force.

No, I don't really think so... . I think that normally by the time you would have felt the ground shaking you would have had many a bomb dropped in your lap and you wouldn't have been feeling much of anything.



B1: 2 T-38 engines for APU's and 4 F-16 engines for going fast... what a plane! Lets see, fly at Mach 1. 5 at less than 500 feet of the ground, map of the earth, them boys are nuts!

 

[RustyJC]

The B1s are based at Dyess AFB just west of Abilene and use the sparsely populated areas of West Texas for training. If you're lucky, you can spot them taking off and landing as you're driving along I-20 around Abilene or Tye.



Rusty

 

[Not Guilty]

I live and play right where they practice. I have been horseback on mountaintops and looked DOWN on them! Have been targeted before, but this was the best one and a total surprise.

 

[ndennis]

I have been buzzed by the B-1 before, I must say that they are one of the noisiest(and ground shakingist) airplanes I have ever have had the pleasure to be buzzed by. Any American Armed Forces aircraft can buzz me any time day or night... . only request I have is that they just please go just alittle faster than Mach 1.

N Dennis

 

[ndurbin]

I usto see a few B1s flyin around where I usto live. Dont remeber if they were AF or belonged to the KANG. They usto make runs up in northern kansas to practice their bomb runs. But mostly we had a buncha tanker/cargo aircraft flying around like big elephants. They'd have 2 or 3 flyin' around and around in a big circle.



B1s are pretty awesome tho.

 

[Shrimpy]

Back in the late 60's the military (not sure which branch) would fly from Shreveport Lousiana to the air base around Austin Texas. They were flying practice missions shooting electronic targest in the woods. They used my uncles milking barn and cow lot as a marker point for turning. They would come screaming out of no where, barely above the tree line. Sometimes they would break the sound barrier (this was before it was outlawed in populated areas).



What a rush, working outside doing something and then this TREMENDOUS BBBBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMM. Like Snowracer said, if you were in a war zone, they would have dropped their bombs and been gone before you realized or even heard them.



Jim

 

[PatrickCampbell]

I just get woken up at 3AM by the Boeing Apaches choppers. The plant is right next door.

 

[loncray]

I was at the McDonalds out by the Manassas Airport and got buzzed at very low speed by an Osprey once - it was in hover mode and just kind've sliding thru the sky. I think Boeing has a test facility out here someplace.

 

[Cowboy Medic]

Ellsworth AFB right outside Rapid City, SD has B-1's. I remember growing up and watching the transition from the old 52's to the 1's. If you drive up north of the Hills towards the corners of Wyoming, Montana and South Dakota you can see them doing low level flying. Quite an amazing and agile plane for its size.

 

[banshee]

I was at the McDonalds out by the Manassas Airport and got buzzed at very low speed by an Osprey once - it was in hover mode and just kind've sliding thru the sky. I think Boeing has a test facility out here someplace.

He was flying out of Pax River, MD

 

[ob1kobi]

I was at the McDonalds out by the Manassas Airport and got buzzed at very low speed by an Osprey once - it was in hover mode and just kind've sliding thru the sky. I think Boeing has a test facility out here someplace.

If this ever happens again, run like hell cause they aren't exactly known for staying in the skies to well :-laf

 

[me4osu]

Happened to me South of Ft. Stockton. I was gathering vibration data on a running 1500 hp gas compressor when a B-1 went screaming overhead. I thought something had ruptured on-site while I was there all alone on an H2S site. Kinda spooked me to say the least.

 

[JoshPeters]

Back in 94 I was in Boy Scouts on my way to Philmont Scout Ranch. We stopped at Ellisworth AFB in South Dakota to sleep for the night. When we got there they asked the leaders what time we needed to be up. 6:30 was the reply, just before daybreak. Well about 6:15 they decided to do touch and go's. I do have to say that was the COOLIST wakeup call I've ever gotten!



Josh

 

[AggieJustin]

I can just imagine what the B1 sounded like going overhead. We had a F-117A flyover at our county fair this year. Never heard it coming in, but boy did you ever hear (and feel) it when it left. He made a couple of high-speed passes overhead and one rolling back and forth to give us a good look. I had watched them do touch and go's at Holloman AFB when I was at White Sands, but this definitely took the cake.



The Apaches are pretty cool too. They come and do practice drills at the airport in Giddings occasionally. I was sitting at the end of the runway one day with a tractor and baler, when one snuck up behind me. I'm glad he didn't have an itchy trigger finger.

 

[SOOT]

ever been to an Air Force football game? Falcon Stadium literally gets rocked b4 every game. Anything from skydivers to a formation of F-15's pulling vertical with afterburners on :--) ... now that's how you get the crowd to get going for the kickoff! Oo.



They REALLY turn on the show when they host Army and Navy.

 

[NPloysa]

ever been to an Air Force football game? Falcon Stadium literally gets rocked b4 every game. Anything from skydivers to a formation of F-15's pulling vertical with afterburners on :--) ... now that's how you get the crowd to get going for the kickoff! Oo.



They REALLY turn on the show when they host Army and Navy.

That is the only reason I would go to a live college football game! I have been down there a few times while the game was going on but not to an actual game. I will have to go sometime though.



Closest I have ever been buzzed was by an Ag Tractor spraying the corn field behind my house in Iowa

 

[BStoecker]

One of my buddies from high school may have been the one that buzzed you. After he graduated, he ended up in the Air Force. For some reason they accepted him into one of the pilot schools. After scoring a 99%+ on his ASVAB, then graduating top of his class in the AF, he was offered just about any airplane he wanted. He ended up flying B1's out of Texas. The night before we bombed Afghanistan, he called our other buddy in Florida to let him know he would be out of touch and out of the country for a few weeks. The next day he was dropping bombs. Amazing how far he has gone. He was a total slacker and class clown in high school...



The coolest thing I remember was driving down the interstate near Youngstown, OH and seeing the stealth fighter flying low level over the interstate. This was before the AF admitted that it officially existed. I was 16, had just gotten my license and about wrecked while trying to watch it.

 

[Jakebud]

I must admit that I loved reading the posts in this thread. I am an active duty pilot in the AF, and had the honor of flying the B-1B for nine years. I was at McConnell AFB in Wichita, KS from 88 to mid 92, and then at Ellsworth AFB, SD, to the end of 96. Flying the Bone, as all crewmembers know and love it, was beyond tremendous. There was nothing like turning on the automatic terrain following (ATF) at night, and never seeing the ground, while screaming along at 540 knots ground speed. Oh yes, on occasion you couldn't see the ground, but the ATF didn't care!



A bit of trivia, but the Bone's General Electric F-101-GE-102 engines are not F-16 engines, they were designed for the airplane. The F-110 engine in many F-16s is a derivative of the F-101.



Drop me a note at -- email address removed -- if you want to know more about the most beautiful airplane ever built!



Sweep and Smoke!



SPIKE

 

[Andy Perreault]

I must admit that I loved reading the posts in this thread. I am an active duty pilot in the AF, and had the honor of flying the B-1B for nine years.



SPIKE

Spike, my dad installed the wiring harnesses on those planes!

Andy