From my postal history collection, I will share a cover that commemorates a test flight of the United States Air Force B-1 bomber built by Rockwell International. The cover date is February 11, 1975, quite a long time ago, yet this aircraft design, in its updated version, is still flying today. Just last summer, in July of 2017, two USAF B-1 bombers buzzed the North Korean border in response to North Korea's July 4th missile test. You forget how old these aircraft are until you see the cover below and you are reminded that it began when the electronics technology was way different than today. For more reading, check out this link:
"The B-52's are older than almost every pilot flying them."
I would hope that they are older than EVERY pilot now flying them ...
"On Oct. 26, 2012, Boeing marked 50 years since it had delivered its last B-52 Stratofortress to the U.S. Air Force ... Modern engineering analyses showed the B-52’s expected lifespan extending beyond 2040."
The youngest pilot alive when this happened would now be 56. I'd like to be retired from flying big nuclear armed monsters by the time I reached 56 if I were a USAF pilot ... and certainly before 2040!
The B-52 bomber does seem really old, and reminds me of the time I was driving to southwest Iowa back in the 1970s on a 2-lane highway out in the countryside. I came over a hill and was shocked to see a B-52 bomber flying low, like the picture below, with bright headlights on and black smoke rolling out the back. My first thought was that it was going to crash. I pulled over to the shoulder of the road and watched it fly over the highway 200 yards in front of me, flying only several hundred feet off the ground. As it passed, a shockwave of intense noise enveloped me as I got downwind of the jet engines. I watched it fly right over farmhouses and barns until it was out of sight. The bomber was practicing "terrain masking" or "nap-of-the-earth" flight, scaring the daylights out of people and farm animals in Iowa. B-52 bombers made routine flights out of Offutt Air Force Base south of Omaha, Nebraska, the Strategic Air Command headquarters during the Cold War.
