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B-36 Essay

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The first plane that I chose to use for my final exam is the Boeing B-52 bomber. The B-52 saw action in the Cold War, Vietnam War, and the Gulf. This bomber began entering service in the mid-1950s, and by 1959 had replaced the remarkable but obsolete B-36 as the backbone of Strategic Air Command's (SAC) heavy bomber force. Its principal mission was nuclear deterrence through retaliation. This plane was designed to go to very high altitudes but was later redesigned for lower altitudes because of the surface-to-air-missiles (Sams) that were a major threat. During its service in the cold war these bombers would fly around the borders of the soviet union in case of a nuclear war breakout. They also performed many airborne patrols under code names such as head start, chrome dome, hard head etc. However their primary focus …show more content…

This stands for Surface-To-Air-Missiles. They missles caused a major problem for B-52 bombers that were initially intended to fly higher altitudes. They had to be redesigned\ed and would fly lower altitudes to avoid these missiles.
The B-52's electronic countermeasures help it protect itself against a full range of air defense threat systems by using a combination of electronic detection, jamming and infrared countermeasures. The B-52 can also detect and counter missiles engaging the aircraft from the rear. These systems are undergoing continuous improvement in order to enable them to continue to counter emerging threat systems. All B-52s can be equipped with two electro-optical viewing sensors, a forward-looking infrared and advanced targeting pods to augment targeting, battle assessment, and flight safety, thus further improving its combat ability. B-52s are currently upgrading from the Litening Advanced Targeting Pod to the Sniper Advanced Targeting Pod.
I found all of the B-52’s specifics on the site linked below so I copied and pasted the link to give credit for the below

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