I have huge respect for pilots. I fly a metric ton during the year and as of this moment I have logged about 118,000 miles in the air since January. These are the men and woman who make the decisions who keep me safe going from place to place and I know it is not an easy job. This being said, I have to imagine and I frankly hope that flying a modern airliner is a whole lot less complicated than flying a 1950s era B-52. Before you climb up my back, understand that I know the B-52 is one of the, if not the baddest warplane of all time. This thing has been a hugely strategic part of American air defense for way more than half a century and its future remains bright even in 2018.
This video is about the right way to approach a takeoff in one of these beastly planes which were doubly so in 1956. The way the pilots were tasked with taking care of things was crazy. That’s not being negative, that is a realization of just how much stuff they needed to be accustomed to and paying attention to as they tried to get this massive machine off the ground.
If you don’t get mildly freaked out by the shots of all the gauges, you are either a former B-52 pilot or a super hero. Seriously. This is wild.
