From: skunk-works-digest-owner@harbor.ecn.purdue.edu To: skunk-works-digest@harbor.ecn.purdue.edu Subject: Skunk Works Digest V3 #36 Reply-To: skunk-works-digest@harbor.ecn.purdue.edu Errors-To: skunk-works-digest-owner@harbor.ecn.purdue.edu Precedence: bulk Skunk Works Digest Thursday, 6 May 1993 Volume 03 : Number 036 In this issue: Aurora in the UK B-52 nuclear mission Re: B-52 nuclear mission See the end of the digest for information on subscribing to the skunk-works or skunk-works-digest mailing lists and on how to retrieve back issues. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: seb@tadtec.co.uk Date: Wed, 5 May 93 15:05:33 BST Subject: Aurora in the UK I've come across more murmurs on this subject which I'm trying to track down. Rumour has it that an Aurora had to divert to RAF Valley in Wales when it couldn't make it into Macharanish during Desert Storm. Anyone know the runway lengths of those two stations, especially compared with any other bases (although fairly remote locations may be an important factor. I'll have to look up exactly where Valley is - it's a long time since I went past it)? The other interesting item is that there may be a *picture* of the beast involved. I will do what I can to see if I can lay my hands on a copy, if it does exist. Failing that, I'll try & get an eye-witness report, with as much detail as posible. Steve Even *I* disclaim all responsiblility & knowledge of what I'm doing. ------------------------------ From: tslage78@Calvin.EDU (Thomas Slager) Date: Wed, 5 May 93 14:20:54 EDT Subject: B-52 nuclear mission I realize that this isn't skunky, but you guys seem to know everything... I was watching a show on public TV last night called Frontline and they were talking about the transition from military to civilian production that many companies have to make now that the Cold War is over. As an image to portray this, they were panning across the dead hulks of a number of B-52s put out to pasture in Arizona. As they panned over one, you could clearly see about 60 little bombs under the cockpit signifying the number of combat missions. Number 57 was red. THis does mean nuclear right? What wouB-52 have to do to earn this as credit for a combat mission? I don't remember the U.S dropping any in combat since 1945. Any Ideas? tom - -- Little pieces of me keep breaking off, | tslage78@ursa.calvin.edu It hurts--but I am getting lighter..... | ------------------------------ From: Geoff.Miller@Corp.Sun.COM (Geoff Miller) Date: Wed, 5 May 93 15:40:31 PDT Subject: Re: B-52 nuclear mission Well, two things come to mind. First, the red bomb might indicate that the plane participated in an atmospheric nuclear test before the Test Ban Treaty went into effect in 1963. On the other had, if that's the case and the plane went on to be used in Vietnam, it's curious that the red bomb was one of the later ones to be painted on. Second, and more likely, the red bomb might represent a mission during which the plane was damaged, or maybe shot down a MiG. - --Geoff ------------------------------ End of Skunk Works Digest V3 #36 ******************************** To subscribe to skunk-works-digest, send the command: subscribe skunk-works-digest in the body of a message to "listserv@harbor.ecn.purdue.edu". If you want to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from, such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the "subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-skunk-works": subscribe skunk-works-digest local-skunk-works@your.domain.net To unsubscribe, send mail to the same address, with the command: unsubscribe skunk-works-digest in the body. Administrative requests, problems, and other non-list mail can be sent to either "skunk-works-digest-owner@harbor.ecn.purdue.edu" or, if you don't like to type a lot, "prm@ecn.purdue.edu". A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "skunk-works-digest" in the commands above with "skunk-works". Back issues are available for anonymous FTP from harbor.ecn.purdue.edu, in /pub/skunk-works/digest/vNN.nMMM (where "NN" is the volume number, and "MMM" is the issue number).