Strategic Air Command Bombing And Navigation Competition (1974)

[music] [music] [music] [music] [music] Heat. Heat. [music] My name is Kelly Burke and I'm the commander of the second bomb wing. Second bomb wing uh has the honor of being the oldest bomb wing in strategic air command and also the distinction of [music] being the largest and we're particularly pleased that we are the host of the 1974 bombing navigation competition. Ours is a big base, an old base and uh we're very pleased to have all of our competitors here and and be part of this big operation. I'm Colonel Prothro, commander of the first combat evaluation group. This impressive array of beautiful trophies that you see lined up before us will soon be gone. We have assembled here 55 competing aircraft, 55 competing air crew and they represent the best not only of strategic air command but the best of the Royal Air Force Strike Command. And this year for the first time we have two selected crews from Tactical Air Command flying F-111 aircraft. On the left, uh, we have one of the Royal Air Force Vulcan aircraft. They've been at Barksdale now for several weeks practicing on the American low-level routes, which are considerably different than the the routes in the United Kingdom. And just a little further down the ramp, we have two F-111s of Tactical Air Command. One of which comes from the wing at Mountain Home and the other from the wing at Canon Air Force Base in New Mexico. We uh outfitted the room, brought down some artifacts and uh other things from the New Mexico Plains area where uh Canon is located. [music] Every wing that comes down here has a booth space reserved for them to more or less show off the area they're from. Well, we from two bases from RF Waterington. They're both about 5 miles either side of Lincoln. Yeah. And we all formed together at RF Washington as one unit, the joint voice detachment 1974. We're invited uh over here to take part in a bombing competition, a navigation competition by the United States Air Force, which is going to be I hope a friendly competition to promote friendliness between both our nations. You know, we're staying in the office bachelor's offices block there, which is really great. You know, a real mudcon. The F-111 is a new generation of of aviation equipment apart from the B-52 and the British Vulcan. It's got a self-contained navigation system and a computer complex that make it a pretty sophisticated airplane. When the B1 comes into the sack inventory, it's going to virtually eliminate the uh technology difference that exists right now between the F-111 generation and the B-52 generation. And then the competition is really going to be up for grabs. It'll be down to probably the sharpest crew. It would be the hallmark of any military organization to emerge as the winner in a competition such as this. But as General Kek said in his opening remarks yesterday, there are are no losers here today. You're all winners. And I congratulate all of you for having been selected to represent your units. I appreciate already the fine spirit of competition, your great display of sportsmanship and it is typical and I want you to keep it up. In closing, I want to wish you all the very, very best of luck and fly safe. Now, let's consider this our 19th strategic air command bombing and navigation competition officially open. Thank you. I'd like to explain a little bit about the philosophy of the bomb comp. Something that doesn't show on the scoreboard and may not show in conversations that you've had. Uh you see here only the crews. This is the tip of the iceberg and uh a few of us are going up to Bllytheville in just an hour. Flville, Arkansas, where we have a weapons loading competition for the uh selected weapons loading crew from each of our bomb wings who are competing up there both on the quality of their equipment, their training, their proficiency, the accuracy of their loading and their loading uh under scored conditions. I would like to tell you that uh these two are superb professionals and it appears that the 93rd bomb wing from Castle Air Force Base 15th Air Force in California is going to be the winner and it's going to be my pleasure to go up there with the other commanders from sack and present that trophy and bring back the winning crew uh for presentation here tomorrow. At this point in time, we're halfway through the competition. Total competition consists of two sorties by each bomber and two sorties by each tanker. And so far, each has flown one. The tactical F11s that we have, of which we have three wings, we have a variety of missions and uh one of our missions is extremely accurate bombing at low level. So this year we were invited to participate in the SAC navigation and bombing competition and we flew our first mission on Saturday night. At the end of that mission we were in third place for bombing five points behind 135 in the box. Oh, we thought we did better than that. Must been all on one side. There's a big wind up there, wasn't it? Yeah, that was uh about 50 knots of wind. Is that all? was pretty good. It was cross. We had some problems on one of the targets, but I think that uh we're going to be able to pull it out Tuesday night. That second low bomb. Uh we're running that baby and we got the final offset. Too late to make the pressure. We knew that was going to be shaky. I wish we' have done better high. We had in the early B-36s one offset unit and this would allow us to aim at a easily uh easily identifiable radar return on a rather cluttered scope. But this was where a return that we could positively identify. And then by setting in offset values in terms of azimouth and distance in feet uh we were able then to bomb a target that may not even appear on the radar scope. We've had a novel circumstance in this year's competition which uh is a tribute to uh uh to the two wings uh involved. We've got a tie for best B-52. Okay. Okay. Pick which you want. All right. We've already and we'll have a fly off. Going to take Tails and I'm going to take That's great. That's a good indicator. [laughter] That's a good indicator. Okay. Okay. Okay. A mission flown in accordance with the timing in Giant Voice 3, positions five and six. We can't tie these trophies, and I couldn't let these two magnificent air forces argue all year over who had the best. So, we're going to solve it the sack way. uh out on the bomb runs and in the nav legs. The giant Voice 74 competitive force was made up of 20 B-52s, two FB11s, four RAF Valkcans, 27 KC135s, and two F-111s. Each of the bomber and tanker crews flew two missions. The initial being launched from their home base and recovering at Barksdale. First bomber missions were flown on a high altitude simulated bomb run, followed by a navigation exercise, then a lowaltitude simulated bomb run. The second bomber competition was basically the same with the mission being flown in reverse. Tanker missions included a precision radar navigation exercise, a basic celestial navigation leg, and an orbit exercise. Standby tone radar. Everything was real except the actual dropping of bombs. They release bomb away. Scoring was accomplished by ground positioned radar units of Sachs First Combat Evaluation Group. The accuracy was transposed to a point representation which determined the final winners and place standings. We beat off one FB1 total out of 300. Uh we see that if you look at the board here, we have the FB11 which is our newest airplane with our advanced most advanced technology and radar bombing system and it is leading the pack right now and it's going to be a hard act to to overcome. [cheering] [applause] You've got to take your hats off to the tactical air command. They've done a fantastic job. This is the first time that they've competed and they competed using our rules. [applause] [cheering] That was a very difficult target. Uh it was one that we expected people to have trouble with, but if you look at the scores, you'll see that they weren't very far behind. Four to two. Yeah. Yeah, but look, you know, the same target. Obviously, we wanted to beat them. And it looks like we have and of course we all breathe a sigh of relief because it would have been very embarrassing to have a sack bombing navigation competition won by a fighter bomber. We expected the FB11 to to to turn up to put on the show that it did. We expected this. Uh, we're glad that it happened to be perfectly honest with you because it is our newest equipment. It is our best equipment. [cheering] I hope that this will symbolize the appreciation of every member of Strategic Air Command and particularly those of us here in this room today as we say thanks to our wonderful and respected colleagues intact. [applause] The best single B-52 mission flown during the competition. The winning crew is the 68th Bombwing, Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, North Carolina. Crew E18. So, I guess you'd say that the competition does a lot of things. It uh it instills this this competitive spirit in the crews. It makes you want to be the best. The William Jr. linebacker memorial trophy is a new award presented for the first time this year in memory. It's a boost to them. It's an honor to be selected. It's an honor to compete to be selected. It's something that crews buy for and it's something that they work toward all year long. Crew attaining the most points in high altitude bombing. The winner of the linebacker trophy is the 92nd Bombwing. Fairchild Air Force Base commander is Colonel Lou Buckman through E13. Commanded by Captain Zapalo. The Saunders Trophy. Yes, it costs money. Relatively, it doesn't cost much and the payoff is higher than any other comparable expense I know we have in strategic air command. Crew R 113 commanded by Captain Riley, winner of the Matrophy. And we've certainly enjoyed having them them with us and and getting to know the RAF. We've had symposium and study groups with them and hopefully uh for us all to emerge with better techniques, concepts and procedures and that too is one of the aims of the competition. Grand prize to be awarded at this competition is the coveted Fairchild trophy. The winner is a 380th bomb [music] wing Platsburg Air Force Base, New York. Bomber crew S23 commanded by Major Allen and tanker crew S 104 commanded by Captain Masilco. [music] Wing commander Colonel Earl Olaf air commander Major [music] Allen. You know, we're all winners in this thing. Some individual crews may not agree with that. Uh, probably I'd like to have won all of those navigator, but our [music] countries, our alliance, our commands all win from this kind of competition, wholesome, vigorous, exciting, uh, and productive. Many of the capabilities present in our equipment today resulted from recommendations following bombing competitions in the past. So yes, I'm satisfied. I'm satisfied that it's been a great competition among true professionals and the results show it. [music]