A buddy was telling me a story about working at Bell Helicopter in Amarillo during the time of the Iranian Hostage Crisis and seeing a bunch of B-52's staged there and several plane loads of El Camino's (painted military olive drab) being delivered to the airport. He said they watched 2 El Camino's chase the planes down the runway on takeoff, one off each wing, and after the plane took off they would stop and pick something up and throw it in the bed.

I called bull****, but tried google and saw that they used them for U-2 chase planes, but couldn't find anything on B-52's. Supposedly they were SS versions (for the engine to be able to keep up) but with base interiors and paint.

Anybody heard of this and have any idea what there purpose was? Would be pretty cool to find one that was used for that.

As an aside - this buddy is like Forest Gump in that he has 100 stories where he has been around something having to do with major world events. I always call bull**** but then his stories check out. In this case the B-52's were staged for something to do with the hostage rescue that blew up......

i read an article about the U-2's but I haven't heard the b-52 story and it frankly doesn't make sense.

http://jalopnik.com/5537629/the-140-mph-chase-cars-of-the-us-air-force

Interesting

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Rick Schaefer writes that a U-Tapao Air Base in Thailand between 1972 and 1973, there was a U-2 reconnaissance outfit stationed. "The U-2 used outrigger wheels at the end of each wing while taxiing and taking off. Once the U-2 got enough speed, the wings developed lift, rose and then the outrigger wheels dropped off.

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1968 Elky


1986ish

Bell had two incarnations at Amarillo, from 1968 to 1990, then from 1999 to the present for the V-22 Osprey. So the Iran crisis lines up with the first time.

"SS models" of El Camino's doesn't line up with 1979, though. I guess they may have been late 70s models.

B-52s have outrigger wheels at the end of the wings, but they retract, they don't fall off like U-2s. And even if they did, you don't have to go fast and follow the plane. Just wait at the end of the runway where they fall off.

They chase the U-2s on landing because it's damn near impossible to gage their height above the runway. They put pilots in the chase cars with radios calling out to the pilot how far he lacks to contact the runway.

The biggest Bull***t of the story is staging B-52s at Amarillo. Amarillo had been a SAC base, and it still has one of the longest runways in the U.S. But the base closed 11 years before the hostage crisis. All the infrastructure was gone. The three foot thick concrete apron where they parked the -52s had been covered by the civilian terminal. There would be no place to store/load bombs, no fuel, no start carts, no maintenance.....

Amarillo is still a VERY busy stopover for military aircraft. Long runway, halfway point for transcontinental flights, lots of training bases nearby. I saw a Luftwaffe 767 there a few days ago. I could see a B-52 doing an overnight, but not being staged there. What would be the point? Who would we be planning to bomb from Amarillo? Lubbock?

You do realize that the b2 bomber fleet is based out of missouri

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You do realize that the b2 bomber fleet is based out of missouri

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Whiteman, yes.

I was trying to be humorous, but you made my point. I don't know where all B-52s are based now, though one place is Barksdale, LA. What could possibly be gained in the Iranian Hostage Crisis by moving a few planes to Amarillo? It's not exactly closer to Tehran.


Also, there's a former -52 crewman on the History Board. I'll try to get them to comment.

Maybe there was an Iranian Zimmerman telegraph


Forgot the wonky face

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Maybe there was an Iranian Zimmerman telegraph
Forgot the wonky face

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Wonky. I love it, even if you meant winky.

And it's a good thing I recently visited the WWI Museum in Kansas City, so I knew you were talking about Arthur and Mexico, and not George and Florida.

Former B-52 crewman here. I was on alert when the embassy was seized, I was on alert when the rescue attempt went down, I was on alert when we invaded Grenada, I was on alert a lot.

I think this time your buddy's story is a bunch of hooey never heard of such a thing with B-52s. Having anything drop off the plane during takeoff is not an ideal situation as you are creating potential FOD (Foreign Object and Debris) that can close the runway, not to mention bounce back up and damage the aircraft at a critical point like takeoff.

As bombers if you are going to fly in formation, you typically takeoff in a MITO formation (Minimum interval takeoff) so that you can maintain visual contact. Such a tactic as described would preclude that.

Not saying things didn't happen that I might never have heard about but I've never heard of this one. In one of my next lives in Special Ops I got some pretty detailed briefs on the Iranian Rescue Attempt and no mention of B-52 involvement.

BQ78 - I was most interested in the auto side of the story. Did you see El Camino's used as chase vehicles in your experience? I saw some info that said the air force purchased the El Caminos to replace stationwagons (fords I think with big block v-8's). There was a quirk in their purchasing rules that had a max $ limit on cars (stationwagons considered cars under their rules) vs trucks (El Camino classified as truck) - so they could get the El Camino's easier. Also said Ford had quit putting the big v-8's in the station wagons but could still get them in the El Caminos.

Thanks for the info.

On a history board thread, BQ78 mentions the El Caminos for U-2s would have been AF Blue, not Olive Drab. And there is little doubt they used them for U-2s, but no one saw them used for B-52s.

NM mmisread the post

For the U-2, weren't they picking up the wheels for the wings? The fuel-laden wings drooped and the wheels were needed to take off, but not land once the fuel was pretty much gone.

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What would be the point? Who would we be planning to bomb from Amarillo? Lubbock?

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Really? Looking at them I would have figured someone must have bombed them at some point.

I never saw El Caminos used as chase cars personally. But I did see many El Caminos. My assessment of the Air Force purchase of trucks and sedans in the 80s was more of a corporate welfare thing. There were all sorts of varieties of sedans and pickup trucks in the inventory and one year they might be Fords and the next year Chevys. I drove a lot of 6 pack International Harvester pickups on alert since they were in financial trouble at the time.

Coming out of the alert area one day I got an International 6 pack to hit 100 MPH in less than 1/3 of a mile (sharp turn at the end of the road). My pilot said I couldn't do it and I liked the challenge . Brakes were good on it too Pilot's flight suit needed changing

In the Jalopnik link, they talk about a 2005 Motor Trend article where they talked about using California Highway Patrol cars.

I read a similar article but I thought it was in Car and Driver. It would have been from the early 2000s (2000-2003) when I was flying around the US for work all the time. I used to read Car and Driver cover-to-cover back then.

What I remember from that article was that the Air Force had blue painted Mustangs. And, from memory, they were 5.0 LX rather than 5.0 GT because the LX was cheaper. But I do remember that they needed a car that could go 140 mph to chase the U2s.

It could be hazy memory from 10-15 years ago, but that's what I think I read back then.

So, I asked my classmate (B-52 driver in a past life) about this. His reply

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It looks like a mix of stories. The U-2 had outrigger wheels that fell off after the wings generated lift. A "chase" truck followed each plane on takeoff roll to pick up the outrigger wheels.

The B-52 had tip gear, but those gears retracted along with the main gear once the aircraft was airborne during takeoff. Usually we were well clear of the runway when the pilot called for gear up because as the gear doors and wheels moved, they generated greater drag and if done too close to the runway could cause the aircraft to settle onto the runway. Not the preferred option.

During the Cold War, B-52s routinely deployed to what we called "dispersal bases" and Amarillo was one of those bases, but I suspect you have better info than me on Buffs at Amarillo Airport. I did fly a T-37 into Amarillo once on a training mission. By the time we were ready to leave, the wind shifted and was blowing so hard that we actually took off from the closed runway. As I recall, it was long enough and the tower didn't care if we didn't. Fortunately the weeds weren't too high.

I don't know how I survived those early days as a pilot.

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GWOT veteran that worked specifically on H model Buffs (aircraft hydraulics) here. From that time frame it could have been G or even D models.

These days Buffs are stationed at Barksdale and Minot. The only thing I can think they might have been used for on the Buffs would be picking up the drag chutes that are released after landing and prior to taxiing in, I did a lot of that. But you wouldn't need a chase car, we just used a regular bread van. And as already said, Buffs have tip protection gear that retracted. Absolutely nothing should fall off on take off.

I don't know much about U-2s other than this video
U-2 Chase Cars - "Chasing The Dragon Lady":

Not really related other than it's the view at 70,000ft from a U2.

Alternative Rock / Post-punk bands.

There is a video on youtube of a pretty nasty sounding corvette chasing a U-2 and the driver is communicating with the pilot as to how high his landing gear is off the runway. According to the comments section, another U-2 pilot would drive the car and guide the aircraft pilot down due to poor visibility.

I've rode in a U-2 chase car. The one I rode in was a mustang. That was 1999 at Osan AB.

There is a video on YouTube where they are using a 2000s gto as a chase car. I've read articles where they mentioned el caminos and 5.0 mustangs as chase cars in the u2 program.