Video: A350 formation flying

[///AMG]

Thanks, Mike. That's really very heady when one ponders such a scenario and the consequences. I remember once upon a time reading about the several special underground bunkers built for certain individuals/groups from DC who would be scurried away to them, the different communication systems in place and their back-up systems, various ships and their roles, SAC, etc. It was very sobering. I can't imagine how the airmen, the sailors, the ground crews, etc. must have felt and their thoughts when they had their various drills. Damn.

I've always been pretty fascinated with it. Was born in early '83, I guess maybe the coldest part of the cold war, and remember only the last few years when things had thawed. But I've always found the post detente build up to be pretty interesting. When we were in port in Turkey on the way to the mideast and Ukraine flared up, I will say that there was a good drunken night (after rumors of us going there were abound) where I pretty much admitted that I wasn't ever going home and that we would likely start WWIII. Obviously did not happen, and maybe the booze made me overly dramatic in the moment, but it was a weird flash back to that time in my mind. As for the bombers flushing out to their SIOP routes, one can only imagine that they would had have precious minutes to egress to nowhere (maybe bail out in the Indian Ocean?) before our minutemen and peacekeepers started detonating right below them. Scary thought

 

[A Life Aloft]

I've always been pretty fascinated with it. Was born in early '83, I guess maybe the coldest part of the cold war, and remember only the last few years when things had thawed. But I've always found the post detente build up to be pretty interesting. When we were in port in Turkey on the way to the mideast and Ukraine flared up, I will say that there was a good drunken night (after rumors of us going there were abound) where I pretty much admitted that I wasn't ever going home and that we would likely start WWIII. Obviously did not happen, and maybe the booze made me overly dramatic in the moment, but it was a weird flash back to that time in my mind. As for the bombers flushing out to their SIOP routes, one can only imagine that they would had have precious minutes to egress to nowhere (maybe bail out in the Indian Ocean?) before our minutemen and peacekeepers started detonating right below them. Scary thought

Funny you mentioned the thought of a WWIII. I know that feeling/fear/dread, but only as a civilian. So I cannot begin to imagine what a service person would have felt/what they do feel, let alone the constant/ever nagging in the back of one's mind possibility of going on missions where you know may never return home, nor how one faces, copes with and overcomes such a realization. I only know it turned my guts to water. I was working on 9/11. We were diverted to DEN. I was finally able to get a room for myself and another Captain from our carrier to share that night. As we watched the news, the images, the horror, cried for our fellow employees and friends who were lost that day and for all the other souls destroyed in a moment of insanity, called our families, poured ourselves a few stiff drinks......... it was just an unbelievable living nightmare and I was in great apprehension and distress of what it all may have meant and how the US would respond and what would all the consequences be. I thought, this is it. We're going to war. My unshakable nerves, my always constant sense of control, self-assuredness, confidence, and security, collapsed around me like a house of cards that night.

 

[knot4u]

I'm glad the Cold War is over.

 

[ScorpioStinger]

I'm glad the Cold War is over.

Shhhh... (Wispers) It's not over...

 

[knot4u]

Shhhh... (Wispers) It's not over...

I know. Both sides still have enough destructive power pointed at each other to melt each other's continents. And then there's the doomsday device which will light the atmosphere on fire and kill every living creature on the surface of our planet. But these days it seems less tense than it did in the 80's.

 

[SteveC]

...But these days it seems less tense than it did in the 80's.

It seemed to me that the sixties, into the early seventies, was much more on edge. It ramped up again in the early eighties, but didn't seem as close to going over the precipice as the earlier period. Nuclear war felt more like a real possibility in the sixties than the eighties, partially because there was the thought in some corners that a nuclear conflict could actually be "won", so it wasn't as unthinkable as it became later.

Might just be the difference in my perception due to age though.

 

[knot4u]

Agreed. At age 43 the 80's was the time that I became aware and started to think outside of my neighborhood.

 

[MikeD]

I know. Both sides still have enough destructive power pointed at each other to melt each other's continents. And then there's the doomsday device which will light the atmosphere on fire and kill every living creature on the surface of our planet. But these days it seems less tense than it did in the 80's.

Remember, when it comes to ICBMs, when one flies, they all fly.......

As for the bombers flushing out to their SIOP routes, one can only imagine that they would had have precious minutes to egress to nowhere (maybe bail out in the Indian Ocean?) before our minutemen and peacekeepers started detonating right below them. Scary thought

I always have wondered if there was a SIOP "Grand Wizard", in terms of, one person, somewhere, who knew the complete deconfliction strategy for the entire plan. In that, how would I as a B-1/B-52 crew, truly know whether or not as I'm arriving near my assigned target to drop my nuke, that a submarine launched SLBM from 1000s of miles away wasn't going to come down on that same target while I was there or approaching, and take me out maybe before I even dropped my own weapon? Was there any kind of sequence/separation management?

Who knows...........

 

[Hacker15e]

Was there any kind of sequence/separation management?

Interestingly enough, yes, and to an unespectedly detailed level from what I saw. Best not to get into too much detail in this forum, but at least as it was 20 years ago, there was actually a pretty large planning cell whose daily grind was constant wargaming of the different options, looking for and documenting those types of things as changes were made to the OPLAN.

 

[MikeD]

Interestingly enough, yes, and to an unespectedly detailed level from what I saw. Best not to get into too much detail in this forum, but at least as it was 20 years ago, there was actually a pretty large planning cell whose daily grind was constant wargaming of the different options, looking for and documenting those types of things as changes were made to the OPLAN.

Yeah, I was just wondering in general, as SIOP related stuff was far outside of the scope of things I did in the A-10 I figured something or someone knew, whether a cell or whether a WOPR-type computer. lol.

 

[///AMG]

lol WOPR. Ally Sheedy was still hot in that one though.

I will take Hacker's word for it, but were I to guess, I would have said there would be no deconfliction.....maybe litter A gets shot down, thus we must need a flight of ICBM's detonating at the same time to cover the gap. I guess maybe I should have more faith in the planners who never had any skin to lose in the affair (other than life on earth itself)

 

[Hacker15e]

maybe litter A gets shot down, thus we must need a flight of ICBM's detonating at the same time to cover the gap.

Don't you think that maybe targets had multiple strikes from multiple delivery systems planned in the case of such an occurrence? Mission planners aren't just off the turnip truck -- they know that well planned out contingencies make or break the overall plan.

 

[PeanuckleCRJ]

I hope we get to deliver our A350s in a similar manner. Sign me up!

 

[///AMG]

Don't you think that maybe targets had multiple strikes from multiple delivery systems planned in the case of such an occurrence? Mission planners aren't just off the turnip truck -- they know that well planned out contingencies make or break the overall plan.

Yeah, such was my point. Though I guess I figured those multiple strikes would take place at the same time for redundancy. Then again, I know there was significant thought given to fratricide so maybe things were a little more reasonably spaced

 

[MikeD]

Yeah, such was my point. Though I guess I figured those multiple strikes would take place at the same time for redundancy. Then again, I know there was significant thought given to fratricide so maybe things were a little more reasonably spaced

Thoughts/plans for fratricide and collateral damage concerns, when talking theater-level nuclear warfare, seems kind of odd though when I think about it.

 

[swisspilot]

Was probably an automated formation anyway.



What does it matter when you're subsidized?

:stir::stir:

The Usual myth, of course the Airbus group receives support from various EU governments, but those subsidies are paid back with a royalty system. Boeing receives subsidies from the Department of Defense, plus a lot of other government cash to develop new technologies on the military side and for his participation in the space program....of course some of that money in some ways also benefits his civilian side.

I don't have the actual number but the royalties, every year exceed what each country member invests into Airbus.

If there is someone to blame that's Boeing, because they actually agreed that Airbus may receive such financing back in the '90s.

The government participation laws in Europe are actually lower then in the US, for example participation in development costs of a new project are set at around 30%, some countries actually only fork out about 4%.

How much did Japan put into the 787 development?

 

[mechan9]

lol WOPR. Ally Sheedy was still hot in that one though.

And to think Matthew Broderick could have tapped that when she started to get all flirty with him in his own bedroom but computers nerds gonna computer nerd.

 

[Sol Rosenburg]

And to think Matthew Broderick could have tapped that when she started to get all flirty with him in his own bedroom but computers nerds gonna computer nerd.

but wit dat modem in your own bedroom how could you concentrate on anything else

 

[Vertigo]

They should've done a SAC-style minimum interval takeoff. Back in the days when water burned......

"Spin up the missiles in the bullpen; flush the bombers."

That's how they should depart them at every major airport!! LOL

 

[Bob Ridpath]

It seemed to me that the sixties, into the early seventies, was much more on edge. It ramped up again in the early eighties, but didn't seem as close to going over the precipice as the earlier period. Nuclear war felt more like a real possibility in the sixties than the eighties, partially because there was the thought in some corners that a nuclear conflict could actually be "won", so it wasn't as unthinkable as it became later.

Might just be the difference in my perception due to age though.

We had a stocked and ready bomb shelter in the basement living thirty miles northeast of Boston and about thirty miles southwest of Pease AFB. There was a Nike battery in Topsfield, just four miles or so distant. Our shelter wasn't one of the cool ones like my piano teacher had installed but we fullly expected to use it one day, and we practiced. We lived with "duck and cover" drills in school, knew how to find public Civil Defense shelters and listened for the weekly test of the air raid siren that would be sounded in case of nuclear attack. The Doomsday Clock was ticking and there were regular reports about how close it was to Midnite.

The 1960s were, indeed, a very different time.