B-52 / KC-135 Alert cartridge start, Elephant Walk, 6 ship MITO takeoff Wurtsmith AFB

1987 Wurtsmith AFB, MI. This is a video I took of an Alert Cartridge Start and MITO take off of 6 aircraft. Every so often the alert aircraft would start engines using cartridges and then move the aircraft to the runway. They would then roll down the runway and re-park in the facility. They looked like a bunch of heavy elephants wedeling down the runway...thus the name elephant walk. I was a B-52 pilot at the time.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Wurtsmith
• AFB
• Air
• Force
• Base
• Strategic
• Command
• SAC
• B-52
• KC-135
• 524th
• 379th
• nuclear
• weapons
• MITO
• cruise
• missile
• B-52G
• B52
• pilot
• aviation
• airplane
• aircraft
• flying
• jet
• Stratofortress
• Military

[Ilicium]

How many engines are cartridge started? Do they cross-bleed air for the others, or are they electric start?

[RustysClips]

@Ilicium One each side on this one.  Then bleed for the others.

[Jacksonkellyfreak]

man the 4th and 5th planes really had no visibility taking off. those old 52s were smoky as hell when they had the water injection going. love the sight and sound of the old turbojets. nothing else will ever compare to the howl.

[RustysClips]

@Jacksonkellyfreak Being 5/6 was a little funky. Co was looking for the plane in front to abort and I was just watching the centerline. Always fun though.

[lucabrasi1337]

I really miss those days... The AF isn't nearly as cool now as it was then.

[RustysClips]

@lucabrasi1337 So funny...that's what we said about the guys before us.

[lucabrasi1337]

@RustysClips I've always said I was born too late. I would loved to have served under the likes of Spaatz, LeMay and Arnold.

[Steinbacker4001]

Our Alert Birds at Ellsworth would cart-start and do the Elephant Walk. We'd pour out along the flight line and watch with bated breath. If they had turned the direction to roll on out and launch, then we'd have figured that Russian nukes were already flying. Then they'd turn to roll back around and we buzz over there to help reposition them. This was part of the nuclear triad that guaranteed we could always hit back hard as hell if someone "wanted to go".

[hosslover01]

My hubby was crew chief on 1036 at Wurtsmith 68-69

[43250sac]

Was eng mech at BEALE ... I really miss the B52s.

[tubelib]

was a tanker crew chief at grissom. there were no bombers and the crew cheif flew off with the plane. miss those days

[Ilicium]

@RustysClips Thanks. Those cartridges look a lot cleaner than the old B-57 starters. Harder to tell what is happening.

[ThreeRinger]

Back in the day (1960's) we had 8 B-52H's and 8 KC-135 on Alert at Wurtsmith. 16 aircraft taking off 15 seconds apart was something to behold. I recall one ORI MITO we had to shut an engine down while rolling down the runway. Being an H model, we just advanced the other 7 throttles took off and flew the whole ORI mission.

[FPVsean]

They kicked up a lot of shit on the full throttling back then eh?!

[oh58]

That was awesome!! I was stationed there at the same time...gave me goose bumps!!