328 Sentences With "strategic bomber" | Random Sentence Generator

Additionally, work is underway to mount the weapon on a strategic bomber.

Jim Dawkins, the commander of the Eighth Air Force who is responsible for overseeing strategic bomber operations.

In December last year, two Russian strategic bomber aircraft capable of carrying nuclear weapons landed in Venezuela.

And a future warfare will almost certainly see the involvement of the iconic B-52 Stratofortress strategic bomber.

The PLA Air Force also rolled out a new strategic bomber, the H-6N, during the rehearsal on Sunday.

The PLA Air Force's long-range strategic bomber was also on display during the parade, according to Flight Global.

That large strategic bomber prototype had a two-person crew on board when it crashed due to a midair collision.

A short clip brings you inside the cockpit of a B-52 strategic bomber flying a nuclear alert training sortie.

The B-52 bomber, a critical component of the US strategic bomber fleet, is no longer approved to carry nuclear gravity bombs.

Click here to view original GIFOnly 5 countries have been able to create strategic bomber aircraft with the capability of carrying nuclear weapons.

Earlier on Tuesday, A Russian Su-27 jet fighter intercepted a U.S. B-52 strategic bomber on Russia's border over the Baltic Sea.

"Strategic bomber deployments to Europe provide theater familiarization for aircrew members and demonstrate US commitment to allies and partners," US Air Forces Europe said last week.

On May 18 China announced that it had for the first time landed its H-6K strategic bomber on an outpost in the Paracels, Woody Island.

US Air Force B-252H Stratofortress bombers are no longer approved to carry nuclear gravity bombs, according to the latest Air Force strategic bomber guidance document.

For the first time in modern history, cameras were allowed to enter the cockpit of a B-52H Stratofortress strategic bomber flying a nuclear alert training mission.

In December, two Russian strategic bomber aircraft capable of carrying nuclear weapons landed in Venezuela in a show of support for Maduro's socialist government that infuriated Washington.

Russia's Defence Ministry said earlier on Thursday that it had scrambled fighter jets to intercept a U.S. B-52 strategic bomber after it began flying toward Russia's borders.

The Tu-134 UB-L, RF-12041, nicknamed "Black Pearl," that the BAF F-16s intercepted was designed to train Tu-160 and Tu-22M3 strategic bomber aircrews.

"Strategic bomber deployments ensure our ability to project power at a time and place of our choosing and develop strong interoperability with our regional allies and partners," Robinson said.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Two Russian strategic bomber aircraft capable of carrying nuclear weapons have landed in ally Venezuela, a show of support for Venezuela's socialist government that has infuriated Washington.

I expect to see the PLAAF's J-10B multirole fighter jet, as well as the latest Shaanxi KJ-500 airborne early warning and control aircraft and Xian H-6K strategic bomber.

A Chinese H-6 strategic bomber flew around the Spratly Islands at the weekend in a new show of force in the contested South China Sea, a U.S. official said on Tuesday.

The Russian Defense Ministry announced Thursday that it had scrambled two Sukhoi SU-27 fighter jets to intercept a B-85033 strategic bomber that was detected approaching international boundaries, according to Reuters.

The military's post-action report mentions everything from a B-52 strategic bomber and an F-22 Raptor stealth fighter to an M142 truck-mounted rocket launcher being used in the operation.

"The crew of Russia's Sukhoi-27 jet approached the aircraft staying at a safe distance, identified it as a US strategic bomber B-52 and escorted it for some time," the report said.

China's new J-20 stealth fighter conducted its first training mission at sea in May, while its strategic bomber, the H-6, landed for the first time on Woody Island in the Paracels.

"The crew of Russia's Sukhoi-27 jet approached the aircraft staying at a safe distance, identified it as a U.S. strategic bomber B-52 and escorted it for some time," the Defense Ministry said.

China's new H-6N strategic bomber could carry CJ-100 supersonic cruise missiles or the WZ-8 supersonic stealth spy drone, increasing its maximum strike range to 6,000 km (3,23 miles), military sources said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Chinese H-6 strategic bomber flew around the Spratly Islands over the weekend in a new show of force in the contested South China Sea, a U.S. official said on Tuesday.

Earlier this month, Russia scrambled a fighter jet to intercept a nuclear-capable U.S. B-52 strategic bomber it said was flying over the Baltic Sea near its border, according to a Reuters report.

It has budgeted to sharply boost military training and exercises aimed at reassuring European countries concerned about Russia, which seized Ukraine's Crimean peninsula in 2014 and has worried NATO allies with its strategic bomber flights.

MOSCOW, June 6 (Reuters) - A Russian Su-27 jet fighter intercepted a U.S. B-52 strategic bomber on Russia's border over the Baltic Sea on Tuesday, Russian news agencies quoted Russia's Defence Ministry as saying.

The U.S. Air Force deployed a B-1B Lancer strategic bomber for bilateral training missions in Japanese and South Korean airspace on Tuesday, a show of force in response to recent North Korean missile tests.

One of these photographs is worth a closer look as it shows an interesting sensor that equips every aircraft but whose shape and characteristics appear to be pretty peculiar to the Northrop Grumman's strategic bomber.

The B-52H Stratofortress is a long-range heavy bomber that for more than 40 years has been "the backbone of the manned strategic bomber force in the United States," according to the Air Force's website.

According to Thursday's report, China is working on a "stealthy, long-range strategic bomber with a nuclear delivery capability that could be operational within the next 10 years," in addition to the bombers it already operates.

Also on Wednesday, a nuclear-capable B-1B strategic bomber from the United States air base in Guam conducted a mock bombing exercise over the Korean Peninsula with South Korean warplanes, the South Korean military said.

The U.S. intelligence report, according to a source, noted that the hypersonic missile was tested 12 times on a Russian MiG-31 fighter jet, but work is currently underway to mount the missile on a strategic bomber.

In March 2013, he was seen attending a late night meeting convened by Kim to order missile units on "standby" to strike U.S. and South Korean military installations after a U.S. strategic bomber flew over South Korea.

During last week's talks, China for the first time sent a strategic bomber to an island reef in the South China Sea, an area where Beijing has laid claims of sovereignty — claims the United States has challenged.

The U.S. intelligence report, according to a source, noted that the hypersonic missile was tested 12 times on a Russian MiG-31 fighter jet but work is currently underway to mount the missile on a strategic bomber.

This should include a new ballistic missile submarine, a new intercontinental ballistic missile, a new strategic bomber and a new air-launched nuclear cruise missile — the long-range stand-off system, or LRSO — and our dual capable aircraft.

Russia scrambled a fighter jet on Tuesday to intercept a nuclear-capable U.S. B-52 strategic bomber it said was flying over the Baltic Sea near its border, in an incident that had echoes of the Cold War.

The latest update to the US Air Force "Safety Rules for US Strategic Bomber Aircraft" instructional guidance identifies the "removal of B833-7 and B83-1 from B-52H approved weapons configuration" as a change to the previous version.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia scrambled a fighter jet on Tuesday to intercept a nuclear-capable U.S. B-52 strategic bomber it said was flying over the Baltic Sea near its border, in an incident that had echoes of the Cold War.

"The Russian SU-27 crew, having approached at a safe distance, identified the aircraft as an American B-52 strategic bomber and escorted it" until such time as it changed course and flew away from the border area, the ministry said.

The Tupolev TU-295 strategic bomber, nicknamed the White Swan in Russia, is a supersonic Soviet-era aircraft capable of carrying up to 278 short-range nuclear missiles and of flying 2160,2160 km (215,2078 miles) non-stop without re-fuelling.

It is part of the Long-Range Strike Bomber program (LRS-B) and projected to be a long-range, stealth strategic bomber for the United States Air Force capable of delivering conventional and thermonuclear weapons for the next few decades.

CBO includes the cost of the new strategic bomber without explaining that the nuclear related costs for that airplane are, as former OSD official James Miller noted in testimony to Congress, no more than 3 percent of the total costs.

As commander-in-chief, he has also at times donned military uniform himself and been filmed at the controls of a strategic bomber and on the conning tower of a submarine in photo opportunities designed to boost his man of action image.

Market Value Four hundred and fifty million dollars spent for anything short of a next-generation strategic bomber, let alone a beat-up old painting, not only makes no sense relative to current markets in worldly goods; it suggests that money has become worthless.

But here's why Triad survivability is ever more questionable: The number of U.S. strategic bomber bases has been reduced from 45 during the Cold War to just three, and bombers no longer are maintained on alert, making them sitting ducks even for North Korea.

The Air Force has just 20 B-2s in active service, the least of any strategic bomber, but the Spirit also has capabilities the Air Force needs until it gets the B-21 up and running — namely, "its ability to penetrate as well as its nuclear strategic deterrence mission," Nahom said.

Wykes, J. H. "The Evolution of a Strategic Bomber." AIAA, 12–14 May 1981. Retrieved: 8 October 2009. The arguments that led to the cancellation of the B-70 program had led some to question the need for a new strategic bomber of any sort.

A top secret American forces strategic bomber known as "Midnight Eagle" suddenly vanishes in the Japanese Hida Mountains.

Like the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress strategic bomber, the Pelican seems to levitate on or off the ground.

Ventral plan of a Victor K.2 3-view of Victor B.1 3-view of Victor B.2 ;HP.80 :Prototype, two aircraft built. ;Victor B.1 :Strategic bomber aircraft, 50 built. ;Victor B.1A :Strategic bomber aircraft, B.1 updated with Red Steer tail warning radar and ECM suite, 24 converted.

In 1937 the French Service Technique de l'Aeronautique (or Air Ministry) launched a specification to develop a four engined strategic bomber.

Priority was given to producing large numbers of smaller aeroplanes, and plans for a long range four engined strategic bomber were delayed.

The Dyagilevo strategic bomber base is just west of the city, and the Alexandrovo air base is to the southeast, as is Turlatovo Airport.

Engels Air Force Base (, formally Engels-2) is a strategic bomber military airbase in Russia located east of Saratov. Engels is a major bomber operations base, and is Russia's sole operating location for the Tupolev Tu-160 strategic bomber. The base has a runway and about 10 large revetments. It is named after the nearby city of Engels, which is in turn named after the Communist philosopher, Friedrich Engels.

Schubert, Dave. "From Missiles to Medicine: The development of boron hydrides" . Pioneer Magazine, March 2001. Zip fuels appeared to offer sufficient performance improvement to produce a strategic bomber with supersonic speed.

The strategic bomber FB-111A and the EF-111 electronic warfare versions were later developed for the USAF. Production ended in 1976Miller 1982, p. 65. after 563 F-111 aircraft were built.

The squadron was reactivated in 1958 as a Boeing B-47 Stratojet strategic bomber squadron, in response to Strategic Air Command's increased alert commitment. In 1960, it became non- operational, preparing for inactivation.

The characteristic portside-cowl supercharger intake for Daimler-Benz inverted V12s was usually accommodated away from the nacelle's sheetmetal itself for the Heinkel/DB 603 unitized engine package, most often within the airframe's wing panel design. The same Kraftei packaging for the He 219 was also used for powering the four- prototype He 177B strategic bomber series, and with an added turbocharger in each nacelle, the six ordered (two completed) prototypes of Heinkel's He 274 high-altitude strategic bomber project.

In particularly advanced tail gunner arrangements, the tail armament may be operated by remote control from another part of the aircraft, such as the American Boeing B-52 Stratofortress, a strategic bomber first introduced during 1955.

Droop noses have typically been installed on supersonic airlines, such as Concorde and the Tupolev Tu-144, and high speed experimental aircraft, such as the record-breaking Fairey Delta 2 and the Sukhoi T-4 strategic bomber.

Cornelisse 2002, pp. 135–137.Cornelisse 2004, p. 70. BarlingBarling continued in the aviation industry; he retired from the Convair Division of General Dynamics in 1955, having participated in the development of that company's B-36 strategic bomber.

In The Atomic Bomber, the series examines the WS-125, an attempt by the United States Air Force to develop a nuclear-powered strategic bomber which could fly non-stop without refuelling. It was eventually cancelled in 1961 as unfeasible.

The 28th flies the Rockwell B-1B Lancer intercontinental strategic bomber. It is the largest bomb squadron in the Air Force. The squadron's mission is to provide all B-1 initial qualification, requalification, and instructor upgrade training for Global Strike Command.

It was reactivated as part of Strategic Air Command as the 68th Strategic Reconnaissance Squadron, but soon converted to the strategic bomber mission. It continued this mission with Boeing B-47 Stratojet Stratojets and Boeing B-52 Stratofortresses until inactivating 30 years later.

"Ground- Effect Characteristics of the Tu-144 Supersonic Transport Airplane." NASA Dryden Center. Retrieved: 25 January 2011. The Soviet Union also developed a prototype Mach 3 strategic bomber, the Sukhoi T-4, that functioned as the Soviet counterpart to America's North American XB-70 Valkyrie.

Re-equipped with Convair B-36 Peacemaker intercontinental strategic bomber in 1951. Engaged in training operations on a worldwide scale; being upgraded to Boeing B-52 Stratofortress in 1957 standing nuclear alert until being stood down in 1992 at the end of the Cold War.

On 31 August 1980, Tu-144D (77113) suffered an uncontained compressor disc failure in supersonic flight which damaged part of the airframe structure and systems. The crew was able to perform an emergency landing at Engels-2 strategic bomber base.Gordon 2006, p. 60.Bliznyuk, Valentin.

A contemporary U.S. Air Force strategic bomber the Rockwell B-1 Lancer A strategic bomber is a medium- to long-range penetration bomber aircraft designed to drop large amounts of air-to-ground weaponry onto a distant target for the purposes of debilitating the enemy's capacity to wage war. Unlike tactical bombers, penetrators, fighter-bombers, and attack aircraft, which are used in air interdiction operations to attack enemy combatants and military equipment, strategic bombers are designed to fly into enemy territory to destroy strategic targets (e.g., infrastructure, logistics, military installations, factories, and cities). In addition to strategic bombing, strategic bombers can be used for tactical missions.

The Complete Encyclopedia of World Aircraft. New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1997. . The improved F-111E, F-111D, F-111F models were subsequently developed for the USAF. The FB-111A strategic bomber and the EF-111 electronic warfare versions were also later developed for the USAF.

During Douglas tenured as Secretary of The Air Force, SAC's also received a new Strategic Bomber Aircraft the Convair B-58 Hustler, the first Strategic Bomber Aircraft with a capability to fly into Mach 2 speed and also a new Tanker Aircraft the Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker to replace KC-97 Stratofreighter. Additionally the Air Force also received several new Fighter Aircraft such as the Republic F-105 Thunderchief, the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter and the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II during Douglas tenured as Secretary of The Air Force. In April 1959, the secretary of the air force issued implementing instructions to USAF to deploy two Jupiter squadrons to Italy.

The Avro Vulcan was a strategic bomber used during the Cold War to carry conventional and nuclear bombs. For much of the Cold War the primary role of the RAF was the defence of Western Europe against potential attack by the Soviet Union, with many squadrons based in West Germany.

The Avro Vulcan is a British jet-engine strategic bomber operated by the Royal Air Force from 1956 until 1984. Of the 134 production Vulcans built, 19 survive today. None are airworthy, although three (XH558, XL426 and XM655) are in taxiable condition. All but four survivors are located in the United Kingdom.

Chinese military officials want a strategic bomber capable of striking targets beyond the second island chain without aerial refueling, while carrying a payload of at least 10 tons. Aviation researcher Fu Qianshao stated that China's long-range bomber should have a range of at least 12,000 kilometers and 20 tons of payload capacity.

Milch believed that the German industry (in terms of raw materials and production capacity) could only produce 1,000 four-engine heavy bombers per year, but many times that number of twin-engine bombers. In spring of 1937, just when the Luftwaffe's own Technical Office had passed the Ju-89 and Do-19 heavy bomber models as ready for testing, Goering ordered a halt to all work on the four-engine strategic bomber program.Trigg, "The Defeat of the Luftwaffe" 2016, p. 52-56 However, in 1939 the Bomber B program sought to produce a twin-engined strategic bomber that could carry nearly- equivalent bombloads of Allied four-engined heavy bombers, but as an advanced development of the pre-war Schnellbomber concept.

The same day, it relinquished "host wing" responsibilities for Whiteman AFB, transferring that role to Air Combat Command's 509th Bomb Wing, operating the B-2 Spirit strategic bomber. The 351st Missile Wing and its three squadrons of Minuteman II ICBMs were inactivated on 31 July 1995 as a result of planned phaseout of the Minuteman II.

The US- produced B-2 Spirit is a strategic bomber. It has a flying wing configuration and is capable of intercontinental missions A flying wing is a tailless aircraft which has no definite fuselage. Most of the crew, payload and equipment are housed inside the main wing structure.Crane, Dale: Dictionary of Aeronautical Terms, third edition, page 224.

Frank (1999), p. 152 During mid-July the USAAF strategic bomber forces in the Pacific were reorganized. On 16 July, XXI Bomber Command was re-designated the Twentieth Air Force and LeMay appointed its commander. Two days later the United States Strategic Air Forces in the Pacific (USASTAF) was established at Guam under the command of General Carl Spaatz.

The Junkers Ju 90 airliner and transport series descended directly from the Junkers Ju 89, a contender in the Ural bomber programme aimed at producing a long-range strategic bomber. This concept was abandoned by the Reichsluftfahrtministerium (RLM, Reich Aviation Ministry) in April 1937 in favour of smaller, faster bombers. Design was headed by Ernst Zindel. Development was headed by Professor Herbert Wagner.

1983, October 10. When it came to naming "Valkyrie" was used as a tribute to the real world XB-70 Valkyrie, which was an experimental supersonic strategic bomber developed in the United States in the 1960s. Contrary to popular belief, the VF-1 was created entirely by Kawamori and Studio Nue, without any involvement from Harmony Gold USA or Carl Macek.

The Federal regulation governing ADIZ areas also provides for an ADIZ around Guam. Though like Puerto Rico it is an unincorporated United States territory, the island is home to Andersen Air Force Base, which is one of two major U.S. Air Force strategic bomber bases in the Asia Pacific region, the other being Diego Garcia which is actually on British territory.

Adjacent to it lies a huge aircraft engines plant ("16th Zavod"). It produces versions of Tupolev 204 and 214 aircraft. In the past an Ilyushin-62, four-engine Russian mainliner, Tupolev-160 "Black Jack" supersonic strategic bomber and Tu-22M tactic bomber were also produced here. Both these plants and adjacent workers' housing make a whole city district known as "Aviastroitelny" ("Aircraft Builders").

The story is loosely based on a real accident. On 17 January 1966 a US B-52 strategic bomber, carrying four thermonuclear bombs, collided in mid-air with KC-135 tanker plane near Palomares, Spain at 31,000 feet (9,450 metres) altitude. The tanker caught fire and burned, killing all four crew members. The bomber broke apart, killing three of seven crew members aboard.

The squadron also trained in strategic bomber operations.Ravenstein, Combat Wings, p. 271 In December 1965, a few months after the first B-52Bs started leaving the operational inventory, Robert S. McNamara, Secretary of Defense, directed a phaseout program that would further reduce SAC’s bomber force. This program called for the retirement of all B-52Cs, and of several subsequent B-52 models.

Chekurovka is a noteworthy Arctic military airfield in Sakha Republic, Russia located 89 km southwest of Tiksi. It is a remote, large bomber staging base that was either abandoned during construction or commissioned for emergency use. It was probably built around 1960 as a forward deployment base for the Soviet Union's strategic bomber force and abandoned shortly afterward. Its status and condition are unknown.

3 As the strategic bomber threat to the United States diminished, so did the need for the BOMARC missile and the squadron was inactivated on 31 July 1972. The BOMARC missile site was located 19 miles northwest of Kincheloe Air Force Base at . Although geographically separated from the base, it was an off base facility of Kinchloe and received administrative and logistical support from Kinchloe.

Harris wanted to continue his policy of area bombing industrial cities, Spaatz wanted to attack the oil plants. Both believed their strategies would cripple the German war effort. Spaatz threatened to resign if at least one of the strategic bomber forces was not given over to a campaign against oil targets. He argued bombing tactical targets in France was pointless, as rail yards could be easily repaired.

Wewak, New Guinea, March 1944 The Southwest Pacific was not a promising theater of war for the strategic bomber. The bombers of the day did not have the range to reach Japan from Australia, and there were no typical strategic targets in the theater other than a few oil refineries. This set up a doctrinal clash between Kenney, an attack aviator, and Walker, the bomber advocate.

With the right support, organisation and modern equipment, it was able to grow in number and match its enemies in quality. In air defence and ground support operations it performed well, but failed in strategic bomber and naval operations owing to a lack of doctrine.Statiev 2002, p. 1112. Within a few weeks of Barbarossa beginning, it was able to put up 1,061 aircraft, including 400 trainers.

1964 Operation Chrome Dome Map from Sheppard Air Force Base, TX 1966 overview of Operation Chrome Dome related or derivative flights Operation Chrome Dome was a United States Air Force Cold-War era mission from 1960 to 1968 in which B-52 Stratofortress strategic bomber aircraft armed with thermonuclear weapons remained on continuous airborne alert, flying routes to points on the Soviet Union border.

The United States Air Force became an independent service in 1947. As the Cold War began, both the USAF and the Soviet Air Force built up their nuclear-capable strategic bomber forces. Several technological advances were widely introduced during this time: the jet engine; the missile; the helicopter; and inflight refueling. In 1954 the Japan Air Self-Defense Force was founded as a separate service.

In early 2008, Tu-160s bombers took part in an exercise with the Russian Navy in the Atlantic Ocean. Russia also planned that one new Tu-160 would be delivered every one to two years until the active inventory would reach 30 or more aircraft by 2025–2030."Russian Air Force receives new Tu-160 strategic bomber'" RIA Novosti, 10 January 2008. Retrieved 3 August 2009.

50–51 The proposal by the RLM to Germany's military aviation firms for the Amerika Bomber project was issued to Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring in the late spring of 1942, about six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, for the competition to produce such a strategic bomber design, with only Junkers and Messerschmitt each building a few airworthy prototype airframes before the war's end.

A turboprop engine is a turbine engine that drives an aircraft propeller using a reduction gear. Turboprop engines are used on small aircraft such as the general-aviation Cessna 208 Caravan and Embraer EMB 312 Tucano military trainer, medium-sized commuter aircraft such as the Bombardier Dash 8 and large aircraft such as the Airbus A400M transport and the 60-year-old Tupolev Tu-95 strategic bomber.

Ostrov Bolshevik (, ) is an airfield on Bolshevik Island in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia. and is the fourth most northernmost airfield in Russia. It was probably constructed around 1960, and is among several very large trans-polar airfields for Russia's strategic bomber force that were either abandoned during construction or served limited use. Ostrov Bolshevik was created as one of several winter staging bases for the Soviet Union's Tupolev Tu-95 bomber fleet.

Following the war, the British developed a number of subsonic jet aircraft that harnessed data gathered from Lippisch's work. One such aircraft, the Avro 707 research aircraft, made its first flight in 1949.Hygate, Barrie; British Experimental Jet Aircraft, Argus, 1990. British military aircraft such as the Avro Vulcan (a strategic bomber) and Gloster Javelin (an all-weather fighter) were among the first delta-equipped aircraft to enter production.

In execution, Canadian investment in air defence has decreased significantly with the decline of the intercontinental strategic bomber threat. In the 1950s the RCAF contributed fourteen squadrons of CF-100 interceptors and this was reduced to three squadrons of CF-101s by 1970. Some of this is due to improved technology but more is due to the decline of the bomber threat and reductions in Canadian military spending.

South Indian actress Kajal Aggarwal with a modern beehive in 2011. The beehive is a hairstyle in which long hair is piled up in a conical shape on the top of the head and slightly backwards pointing, giving some resemblance to the shape of a traditional beehive. It is also known as the B-52 due to a resemblance to the distinctive nose of the Boeing B-52 Strategic Bomber.

The squadron twice was awarded the Distinguished Unit Citation for its combat actions. Following V-E Day, the squadron moved to Morocco, where it participated in the transportation of military personnel back to the United States until it was inactivated in June 1945. The squadron was reactivated in 1955 as a Boeing B-47 Stratojet strategic bomber squadron. In 1960, it began converting to the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress.

Reactivated in 1987 and re-equipped with the Rockwell B-1B Lancer strategic bomber. Stationed initially at McConnell Air Force Base, Kansas, the squadron moved to Dyess Air Force Base, Texas in 1994 and transferred to the 7th Wing when McConnell was realigned as a tanker base. Currently, the 28th conducts weapons system training for B-1 crews. Each year, it trains more than 200 active duty crewmembers.

It served in combay in the China Burma India Theater, earning a Distinguished Unit Citation. After V-J Day, the squadron returned to the United States and was inactivated at the Port of Embarkation. A few months later, the squadron was reactivated as a Strategic Air Command bomber unit. It served in the strategic bomber role until being inactivated in 1963, when its resources were transferred to another squadron.

Port and transport capacity had also been affected by the logistic requirements of the Allied air force, which was establishing strategic bomber bases around Foggia.Carver (2002), p. 90 The Eighth Army attacked across the Trigno on 2 November. By the next day, the German position had been turned and the Germans commenced a fighting withdrawal to the forward Winter-Line positions they were preparing on the ridges behind the Sangro River.

In the 1970s, Tupolev concentrated its efforts on improving the performance of the Tu-22M bombers, whose variants included maritime versions. It is the presence of these bombers in quantity that brought about the SALT I and SALT II treaties. Also the efficiency and performance of the Tu-154 was improved, culminating in the efficient Tu-154M. In the 1980s the design bureau developed the supersonic Tu-160 strategic bomber.

In January 2018, Vladimir Putin, while visiting the KAPO plant, floated an idea of creating a civilian passenger supersonic transport version of Tu-160.Putin eyes supersonic civilian airliner based on Tu-160 strategic bomber RT, 25 January 2018.Путин предложил сделать на базе Ту-160 гражданский авиалайнер Zvezda TV, 25 January 2018. Experts quoted by the news media were skeptical about the commercial and technological feasibility of such civilian conversion.

The Soviet land, air and naval forces launched a coordinated attack on Finland on June 9, 1944. More than 1,500 Soviet aircraft were concentrated against the Finns in the immediate area. The Soviet strategic bomber command, ADD, also supported the operations. The Finnish Air Force could muster 16 Bf 109s in No. 34 Sqn, 18 Brewsters in No. 26 Sqn and 14 Bf 109s in the No. 24 Sqn.

A Soviet Myasishchev 3MD in 1982 Following World War II, the Soviet Union prioritized developing a long-range strategic bomber capable of delivering atomic weapons. Their first aircraft was the Tupolev Tu-4, a reverse-engineered version of the American B-29 Superfortress. The Tu-4 was only ever a stop-gap solution, as unlike the American strategic bomber force that could operate from bases in allied countries close to the USSR, it lacked the range to reach the continental United States, and experiences in the Korean War demonstrated piston engine bombers were extremely vulnerable to jet fighter interception. With the advancement of Western jet bombers like the B-47 Stratojet and Vickers Valiant, Vladimir Mikhailovich Myasishchev was directed to construct a strategichesky dalny bombardirovshchik (SDB, "strategic long-range bomber") in spring of 1951. The first M-4 (Bison-A) prototype flew on 20 January 1953, and was handed over to state acceptance trials in March 1954, with production beginning later that year.

His role is often a "deus ex machina" one, but he and his wife (called Venus) are still essential to the overall plot. Vulcan is the main character Tatsuya Suou's starting Persona in Persona 2: Innocent Sin. The Avro Vulcan (later Hawker Siddeley Vulcan) was a high-altitude strategic bomber operated by the Royal Air Force from 1956 until 1984. Son of Vulcan is a superhero who appeared in both Charlton and DC Comics.

Once war was declared, the U-boats began operations against British ships that were bringing in supplies from North America and areas of the British Empire. sank the battleship at Scapa Flow in October 1939, with the loss of 786 crew. As a consequence the Admiralty pressed for the RAF to concentrate its efforts on RAF Coastal Command rather than a strategic bomber force. This was debated within the British establishment well into 1941.

France carried out its first test of an atomic bomb in Algeria in 1960 and some operational French nuclear weapons became available in 1964. Then, France executed its first test of the much more powerful hydrogen bomb over its South Pacific Ocean test range in 1968; this first hydrogen bomb was dropped from a strategic bomber. France was the fourth de facto nuclear power after United States, Soviet Union and United Kingdom.

Jeana Lee Yeager (born May 18, 1952) is an American aviator. She co-piloted, along with Dick Rutan, the first non-stop, non-refueled flight around the world in the Rutan Voyager aircraft from December 14 to 23, 1986. The flight took 9 days, 3 minutes, and 44 seconds and covered 24,986 miles (40,211 km), more than doubling the old distance record set by a Boeing B-52 strategic bomber in 1962.

During the Second World War, RAF Spilsby, a bomber airfield designed for Lancaster bombers, was built at Great Steeping. It opened for operations on 20 September 1943. Later used by the United States Air Force as a strategic bomber base until 1958, the airfield was finally demolished in the late 1970s. The runways and perimeter track were torn up, with most of the crushed aggregate being used in the construction of the new Humber Bridge.

In 1923 there were concerns over the French occupation of the Rhineland after Germany had defaulted on the payment of war reparations. Upper Heyford was one of the sites chosen for a new strategic bomber force capable of attacking targets in France. Upper Heyford was intended to be the blueprint for the other bases. Land for the new airfield and technical site was purchased in 1924, and for the domestic site in 1925.

The 23rd Bomb Squadron is a United States Air Force unit, assigned to the 5th Bomb Wing. It is stationed at Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota. The mission of the squadron is to fly the Boeing B-52H Stratofortress strategic bomber. The squadron stands ready to deploy and fly its B-52Hs to enforce national security policy by being ready to deliver overwhelming nuclear or conventional firepower to destroy targets, worldwide, at any time.

Returned without most personnel and equipment to Spokane AFB, Washington in late October and November 1950. Re- equipped with B-36 Peacemaker intercontinental strategic bomber in 1951. Engaged in training operations on a worldwide scale. Deployed in August 1953 to the Far East was to survey suitable bases for B-36 use and to reinforce the Korean armistice of July 1953. 20 B-36D aircraft landed at Kadena AB, for 'Operation Big Stick'.

KG 55 returned to the frontline in January 1944. From here on, with a few exceptions, it was used primarily in the night intruder and air-supply role. I./KG 55 trained after refitting as a night strategic bomber force under the command of IV Fliegerkorps from January to March 1944. From 31 March to 7 April it was utilised to airdrop containers to the 1st Panzer Army, under the command of Hans-Valentin Hube.

Avro Vulcan XH558 taking off at the 2008 Farnborough Airshow One of the first operational aircraft to utilise elevons was the Avro Vulcan, a strategic bomber operated by the Royal Air Force's V-force. The original production variant of the Vulan, designated as the B.1, did not have any elevons present; instead, it used an arrangement of four inboard elevators and four outboard ailerons along its delta wing for flight control.Pilot's Notes pt. 1, ch.

The AGM-86 ALCM is an American subsonic air-launched cruise missile (ALCM) built by Boeing and operated by the United States Air Force. This missile was developed to increase the effectiveness and survivability of the Boeing B-52H Stratofortress strategic bomber. The missile dilutes an enemy's forces and complicates air defense of its territory. The concept started as a long-range drone aircraft that would act as a decoy, distracting Soviet air defenses from the bombers.

As a medium bomber squadron it deployed to stand alert at forward bases in "Reflex" operations. After equipping with Boeing B-52 Stratofortresses stood nuclear alert, but during the Viet Nam War the squadron deployed frequently to perform Operation Arc Light bombing missions. Since 1993, the 20th Bomb Squadron has flown the B-52H Stratofortress long-range strategic bomber, which can perform a variety of missions. Today the squadron is engaged in the Global War on Terrorism.

The RAF Supermarine Spitfire, used extensively during the Battle of Britain The air war in the European theatre commenced in 1939. Pre-war doctrine had held that waves of bombers hitting enemy cities would cause mass panic and the rapid collapse of the enemy. As a result, the Royal Air Force had built up a large strategic bomber force. By way of contrast, Nazi German air force doctrine was almost totally dedicated to supporting the army.

A Boeing B-52 strategic bomber being prepared for EMP testing at Trestle in 1982. ATLAS-I (Air Force Weapons Lab Transmission-Line Aircraft Simulator), better known as Trestle, was the codename for a unique electromagnetic pulse (EMP) generation and testing apparatus built between 1972 and 1980 during the Cold War at Sandia National Laboratories near Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico.Giri, D.V. Ph.D. "The notes of Dr. Carl E. Baum". Retrieved August 8, 2011.

Strategic nuclear weapons generally have significantly larger yields, and typically starting from 100 kilotons up to destructive yields in the low megaton range for use especially in the enemy nations interior far from friendly forces to maximize damage, especially to buried hard targets, like a missile silo or wide area targets like a large bomber or naval base. However, yields can overlap, and many weapons such as the variable yield B61 nuclear bomb which could be used at low power by a fighter-bomber in an interdiction strike or at high yield dropped by a strategic bomber against an enemy submarine pen. The W89 200 kiloton (0.2 MT) warhead armed both the tactical Sea Lance area effect anti- submarine weapon for use far out at sea and the strategic bomber launched SRAM II stand off missile designed for use in the Soviet Union's interior. Indeed, the strategic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki utilized weapons of between 10 and 20 kilotons, but that was because the "Little Boy" and "Fat Man" bombs were the most destructive and indeed only nuclear weapons then available.

The 3rd Air Division was activated again at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam in June 1954 as the headquarters for all SAC units in the Pacific. The division replaced the Far East Air Forces Bomber Command (Provisional) , which was simultaneously discontinued at Yokota Air Base, Japan.Schake, et al., p. 77 In addition to the strategic bomber force, the division exercised operational control over numerous deployed tactical components, and all Strategic Air Command (SAC) operations in the region came under its jurisdiction.

The aircraft involved in the accident was a Tupolev Tu-104A, registered CCCP-42362 to Aeroflot. The Tu-104A was a relatively new aircraft at the time, having been introduced in 1956. It was based on the design of the Soviet strategic bomber, Tupolev Tu-16, but included a wider, pressurized fuselage in order to seat passengers. At the time of the accident, CCCP-42362 had sustained a mere 465 flight hours and had been in service for less than three months.

In 1954, the design bureau headed by Pavel Tsybin started development of a ramjet-powered supersonic strategic bomber, the RS. This design proved impracticable, and a smaller derivative, the 2RS was proposed, which would achieve intercontinental range by being air-launched from a modified Tupolev Tu-95 bomber.Butowski 1998. p. 39–40. This too was unsuccessful, with the aircraft unable to return to base if used on an intercontinental mission, while being incapable of carrying a thermonuclear bomb.Gunston 1995, p. 376.

The aircraft carrier strike group, strategic bomber, ballistic missile submarine, and strategic airlifter are all examples of power projection platforms. Military units designed to be light and mobile, such as airborne forces (paratroopers and air assault forces) and amphibious assault forces, are utilized in power projection. Forward basing is another method of power projection, which, by pre-positioning military units or stockpiles of arms at strategically located military bases outside a country's territory, reduces the time and distance needed to mobilize them.

It passes in favor of conscription; French Canadians are the main, though not the only, objectors. ::The finalized thirty-three page draft for the German Amerika Bomber trans-Atlantic range strategic bomber design competition is submitted to the RLM. :28: The bulk of the British assault troops depart Durban in South Africa for Madagascar; the slower ships, carrying transport and heavy weapons, have departed in great secrecy some days earlier. :29: The "Baedeker raids" continue, focused on Norwich and York.

Soviet Nuclear Plane Possibility Conceded, Ford Eastman, Aviation Week, 19 January 1959, p. 29. These concerns caused continued but temporary funding of the US's own program. The aircraft in the photographs was later revealed to be the conventional Myasishchev M-50 Bounder, a medium-range strategic bomber that performed like the USAFs B-58 Hustler. The design was considered a failure, never entered service, and was revealed to the public on Soviet Aviation Day in 1963 at Monino, putting the issue to rest.

Thus, both the strategic bomber and ICBM "legs" of the nuclear triad are no longer feasible so nuclear deterrence breaks down, and the Soviet Union takes advantage of this to conquer much of Western Europe. The deterrent role is taken over by long-range nuclear-powered cruise missiles. Cold war tensions between the two super states provide the in-between plot direction. There are several sub- plots – the exploration of the new world by both superpowers forms much of the major plot.

A captured Heinkel He 177A in French Armee de l'Air colours in 1945. Goering's first chief of staff, Generalleutnant Walther Wever, was a big advocate of the Ural bomber program, but when he died in a flying accident in 1936, support for the strategic bomber program began to dwindle rapidly under Goering's influence. Under pressure from Goering, Albert Kesselring, Wever's replacement, opted for a medium, all-purpose, twin-engine tactical bomber. Erhard Milch, who strongly supported Goering's conceptions, was instrumental in the Luftwaffe's future.

Wever became the Commander of the Reichsluftfahrtministerium on 1 September 1933. On 1 March 1935, he became Chief of Staff of the Luftwaffe shortly after its creation on 26 February 1935, a post he held until his death. Wever was a supporter of the Strategic bomber and recognised its importance as early as 1934. He supported the aviation companies such as Junkers and Dornier, in their respective projects to produce the Ju 89 and Dornier Do 19 competitors for the Ural Bomber production contract competition.

In 1992 as part of the post Cold War reorganizations of the Air Force, the 116th Wing converted to the Air Force Objective Wing organization and the group was again activated as the 116th Operations Group. After calling Dobbins home for 50 years, the 116th simultaneously converted from the McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle fighters to the Rockwell B-1 Lancer strategic bomber and moved 110 miles south to Robins Air Force Base near Warner Robins, Georgia and the former Strategic Air Command alert facility there.

The Military Air Transport Command had previously been formed in February 1962 from the Groupement d'Unités Aériennes Spécialisées. Also created in 1964 was the Escadron des Fusiliers Commandos de l'Air (EFCA), seemingly grouping all FCA units. The Dassault Mirage IV, the principal French strategic bomber, was designed to strike Soviet positions as part of the French nuclear triad. In 1985, the Air Force had four major flying commands, the Strategic Air Forces Command, the Tactical Air Forces Command, the Military Air Transport Command, and CAFDA (air defence).

Main gate entrance sign 7th Bomb Wing Headquarters Abilene Army Airfield, mid-1940s. Dyess Air Force Base (AFB) is a United States Air Force base located approximately southwest of Abilene, Texas. The host unit at Dyess is the 7th Bomb Wing (7 BW) assigned to the Global Strike Command Eighth Air Force. The 7 BW is one of only two B-1B Lancer strategic bomber wings in the United States Air Force, the other being the 28th Bomb Wing at Ellsworth Air Force Base, South Dakota.

In his endorsement, Denfeld concurred with the sentiments that Bogan expressed. A second hearing convened in October focused upon the proposed reduction in the Navy and the cancellation of the United States and the soundness of the proposed expansion of the strategic bomber forces. They were given added urgency by Truman's announcement on 23 September that the Soviet Union had tested its first nuclear device. Matthews announced that no Navy man would be censored or penalized for the testimony he offered at the hearing.

Aeroflot Flight 811 was a scheduled Soviet domestic passenger flight from Komsomolsk-on-Amur to Blagoveshchensk that collided mid-air on 24 August 1981 with a Tupolev Tu-16K strategic bomber over Zavitinsky District in Amur Oblast, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union (now Russia). The collision between Aeroflot's Antonov An-24RV and Tupolev Tu-16K occurred at an altitude of , killing 37 people on both aircraft. The sole survivor, 20-year-old passenger Larisa Savitskaya from Antonov An-24RV, was rescued on the third day after the accident.

It, too, was based on the fuselage and structural design of the Tu-4, but with four colossal Kuznetsov NK-12 turboprop engines providing a unique combination of jet-like speed and long range. It became the definitive Soviet intercontinental bomber, with intercontinental range and jet-like performance. In many respects the Soviet equivalent of the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress, it served as a strategic bomber and in many alternate roles, including reconnaissance and anti- submarine warfare. Tu-104, the first Soviet jet airliner.

They go on shore and Bond tells Domino the story: Largo killed her brother, a French Air Force pilot assigned to NATO, in order for SPECTRE to steal a Royal Air Force Avro Vulcan strategic bomber with two nuclear bombs. Largo, as a senior SPECTRE operative, plans to create a nuclear holocaust using the weapons. Domino then aids Bond by helping him kill Vargas and spying on the Disco Volante, but Largo captures and tortures her. Domino escapes and kills Largo with a harpoon in the back.

Kh-20 cruise missile was designed by M.I. Gurevich for the Tu-95 strategic bomber. Development began in 1954, drawing on experience with MiG-17 and MiG-19 fighters. Two Tu-95 were converted to Tu-95K missile carriers in 1955. Initial testing of the missile systems was performed using four specially modified MiG-19 fighters designated SM-20/I and SM-20/II for mothership-missile interface and airborne launch testing, and SM-K/I and SM-K/II for guidance system and ground launch testing.

On 7 September 1945 the commanding officer received official orders for inactivation of the field on or before 30 September. B-24 Liberators were obsolete as the postwar Air Force would retain the Boeing B-29 Superfortress as its long-range strategic bomber. Liberal field was placed at that time on a standby status, which meant maintaining it in such condition as would make possible reactivation within thirty days. Consequently, the field's activities for the greater part of September were largely concerned with the process of inactivation.

Tupolev headed the major project of reverse engineering the American Boeing B-29 strategic bomber, which was the world's first nuclear delivery platform. The Soviet Union had repeatedly asked for B-29s in the Lend Lease program of World War II but these requests were unsuccessful. Using three B-29s which landed in Siberia after bombing Japan in 1945, Tupolev succeeded in replicating them down to trivial detail. Moreover, Tupolev got it into volume production, with crews fully trained in time for the 1947 May Day parade.

The Yak-25E (Eksperimentalnyi) was the Yak-25-II specially modified to be towed by a Tupolev Tu-4 strategic bomber. This came in response to a proposal by the headquarters of Long Range Aviation, calling for a method of towing short-range jet fighters, code-named Burlaki (barge hauler).Gunston, 1997 Production aircraft would have used Klimov RD-500 engines. At the same time the Soviets were developing the Yak-25E, the U.S. Air Force was experimenting with a similar system known as Project Tom-Tom.

IISS listed total reserves as 20,000,000 for many years, assuming a Soviet-style callup. The potential reserve personnel of Russia may be as high as 20 million, depending on how the figures are counted. It is mandatory for all male citizens aged 18–27 to be drafted for a year of service in Armed Forces. Russia has the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons in the world, the second-largest fleet of ballistic missile submarines, and the only modern strategic bomber force outside the United States.

The Andersen Air Force Base B‑2 accident was a February 2008 incident when the Spirit of Kansas, a United States Air Force Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit stealth strategic bomber, crashed on the runway shortly after takeoff from Andersen Air Force Base in Guam. The incident marks the first operational loss of a B‑2 bomber. Both crew members successfully ejected, but the aircraft was destroyed. With an estimated loss of US$1.4 billion, it was the most expensive aircraft crash in history.

Brezhnev and Ustinov at the 1979 October Revolution Day Parade on Red Square celebrating the 62nd anniversary of the revolution. Leonid Brezhnev took power after the ousting of Khrushchev, and Ustinov returned to the defence industry. In 1965, Brezhnev made Ustinov a candidate member of the Politburo and secretary of the Central Committee with oversight of the military, the defense industry, and certain security organs. He was also placed in charge of developing the Soviet Union's strategic bomber force and intercontinental ballistic missile system.

Tu-95 Bear, a Soviet Cold War-era strategic bomber and high level bomber. During the Cold War, the United States and Soviet Union used several bomber designs, but the bulk of their offensive forces were in the form of, respectively, the B-52 Stratofortress and Tu-95 Bear. The French equivalent was the Mirage IV, and the UK had its V bombers. The U.S. Strategic Air Command (SAC) ordered massive high level bombing in Operation Rolling Thunder and Operation Menu during the Vietnam War.

It was to be capable of Mach 3 performance and was intended to serve as a long-range interceptor that could destroy attacking Soviet bombers over the poles before they could get near US territory. It was also to serve as the escort fighter for the XB-70 Valkyrie Mach-3 strategic bomber, also to be built by North American. The Air Force expected that the first F-108A would be ready for service by early 1963. An order for no less than 480 F-108s was anticipated.

Bilevel optimization has a number of applications in defense, like strategic offensive and defensive force structure design, strategic bomber force structure, and allocation of tactical aircraft to missions. The offensive entity in this case may be considered a leader and the defensive entity in this case may be considered a follower. If the leader wants to maximize the damage caused to the opponent, then it can only be achieved if the leader takes the reactions of the follower into account. A rational follower will always react optimally to the leaders offensive.

By 1951, the emergence of the Soviet Mig-15 interceptor in the skies of North Korea signaled the end of the propeller-driven B-50 as a first-line strategic bomber. Received Boeing B-47 Stratojet jet bombers in 1955 and despite initial difficulties, the Stratojet became the mainstay of the medium-bombing strength of SAC all throughout the 1950s, deployed frequently to North Africa and England for Operation Reflex exercises. Began sending its B-47s to AMARC at Davis–Monthan in 1959 when the aircraft was deemed no longer capable of penetrating Soviet airspace.

It became part of SAC nuclear deterrent force. SAC B-47s on the flight line The squadron began upgrading to the new B-50 Superfortress, an advanced version of the B-29 in 1949. The B-50 gave the unit the capability to carry heavy loads of conventional weapons faster and farther as well as being designed for atomic bomb missions if necessary. By 1951, the emergence of the Soviet Mig interceptors in the skies of North Korea signaled the end of the propeller- driven B-50 as a first-line strategic bomber.

The concept of dive bombing became so popular among the leadership of the Luftwaffe that it became almost obligatory in new aircraft designs. Later bomber models like the Junkers Ju 88 and the Dornier Do 217 were equipped for dive bombing. The Heinkel He 177 strategic bomber was initially supposed to have dive bombing capabilities, a requirement that contributed to the failure of the design, with the requirement not rescinded until September 1942 by Göring. Once the Stuka became too vulnerable to fighter opposition on all fronts, work was done to develop a replacement.

The 65th Air Army DA was an air army of the Soviet Air Forces. The army was formed in November 1942 from the Air Force of the Karelian Front as the 7th Air Army and provided air support for the front until the end of World War II. Postwar, it was transferred to Khabarovsk and became the 3rd Air Army DA (Long-range aviation), controlling Soviet strategic bomber forces for the rest of its existence. In 1949 it was renumbered the 65th Air Army DA. The army was disbanded in mid-1953.

He is a proponent of Roosevelt's "big stick diplomacy," and views the strategic bomber as a means to carry on this tradition in the 21st century, and thus maintain the United States' status as a dominant superpower. Hendrix has collaborated with Robert C. O'Brien, the current United States National Security Advisor. His work has appeared in a number of media outlets, including the National Review, Foreign Policy, the National Interest, Fox News, the New York Observer, the Japan Times, Politico, as well as a number of national defense blogs.

Several Soviet military aircraft are on static display at the end of a large dispersal runway . On display are: Antonov AN-26 (61 Blue) transport; Tupolev Tu-95 bomber; Tupolev Tu-22M3 (80 Blue) bomber; Tupolev Tu-22KD bomber (63 Red); Tupolev Tu-16 (25 Blue) bomber; Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 fighter; Sukhoi Su-24 attack aircraft. Also, a Tupolev Tu-160 (20 Red), supersonic, variable-sweep wing heavy strategic bomber inherited from the former Soviet Union is on display. It is the only known example of this aircraft on public display.

The US-produced B-2 Spirit, a strategic bomber capable of intercontinental missions, has a flying wing configuration A flying wing is a tailless aircraft which has no definite fuselage, with most of the crew, payload and equipment being housed inside the main wing structure.Crane, Dale: Dictionary of Aeronautical Terms, third edition. Aviation Supplies & Academics, 1997. The flying wing configuration was studied extensively in the 1930s and 1940s, notably by Jack Northrop and Cheston L. Eshelman in the United States, and Alexander Lippisch and the Horten brothers in Germany.

The Soviet Union introduced its first aircraft fitted with drogue parachutes during the mid 1930s; use of the technology expanded during and after the Second World War. A large number of jet-powered aircraft have been furnished with drogue parachutes, including the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress strategic bomber and the Eurofighter Typhoon multirole aircraft; they were also commonly used within manned space vehicle recovery programmes, including Project Mercury and Project Gemini. The drogue parachute has also been extensively used upon ejection seats as a means of stabilisation and deceleration.

It was propelled by a Klimov RD-500K turbojet engine, reverse-engineered from the Rolls-Royce Derwent engine. Guidance was provided by an inertial navigation system (INS) in the midcourse phase, and by a semi-active radar in the terminal phase which directed the missile to its target. A 600 kg high explosive (HE) armour- piercing warhead was carried. The AS-1 is believed to have entered service in 1955, initially being deployed on the Tu-4 and later on the Tu-16KS 'Badger-B' strategic bomber, on two under-wing pylons.

The ministers argued that the Warsaw Pact had "developed a large and growing capability in nuclear systems that directly threaten Western Europe": "theater" nuclear systems (i.e., tactical nuclear weapons). In describing this "aggravated" situation, the ministers made direct reference to the SS-20 featuring "significant improvements over previous systems in providing greater accuracy, more mobility, and greater range, as well as having multiple warheads". The ministers also attributed the altered situation to the deployment of the Soviet Tupolev Tu-22M strategic bomber, which they believed had "much greater performance" than its predecessors.

Previously dedicated to carrying nuclear weapons, in 1964 the U.S. Air Force began to train strategic bomber crews to deliver conventional munitions flying the B-52F. The B-52Fs were deployed to Andersen Air Force Base in Guam and U-Tapao Royal Thai Navy Airfield in Thailand. To add conventional bomb capacity, Project Big Belly modified all B-52Ds to enable them to carry 30 tons of conventional bombs. By the middle of April 1966, all B-52Fs were redeployed back to the US and were replaced by the Big Belly modified B-52D.

By 1951, the emergence of the Soviet Mig-21 interceptor in the skies of North Korea signaled the end of the propeller-driven B-50 as a first-line strategic bomber. Received B-47 Stratojet jet bombers in 1955 and despite initial difficulties, the Stratojet became the mainstay of the medium-bombing strength of SAC all throughout the 1950s, deployed frequently to North Africa and England for REFLEX exercises. Began sending its B-47s to AMARC at Davis-Monthan in 1959 when the aircraft was deemed no longer capable of penetrating Soviet airspace.

Meanwhile, the "K" Department was formed in the Design Bureau, with the task of designing unmanned aircraft such as the Tu-139 and the Tu-143 unmanned reconnaissance aircraft. Tu-144 supersonic airliner In the 1960s A. N. Tupolev's son, A. A. Tupolev, became active with management of the agency. His role included the development of the world's first supersonic airliner, the Tu-144, the popular Tu-154 airliner and the Tupolev Tu-22M strategic bomber. All these developments enabled the Soviet Union to achieve strategic military and civil aviation parity with the West.

Siege artillery (also siege guns or siege cannons) are heavy guns designed to bombard fortifications, cities, and other fixed targets. They are distinct from field artillery and are a class of siege weapon capable of firing heavy cannonballs or shells that required enormous transport and logistical support to operate. They lacked mobility and thus were rarely useful in more mobile warfare situations, generally having been superseded by heavy howitzers (towed and self-propelled artillery), strategic bomber aircraft, surface-to-surface missiles, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and multiple rocket launchers in modern warfare.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld following a test flight on a brand new Strategic Bomber aircraft Rockwell B-1 Lancer, April 1976. In August 1974, after Nixon resigned as president in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal, Rumsfeld was called back to Washington to serve as transition chairman for the new president, Gerald Ford. He had been Ford's confidant since their days in the House, before Ford was House minority leader. As the new president became settled in, Ford appointed Rumsfeld White House Chief of Staff, where he served from 1974 to 1975.

The Convair B-58 Hustler was a high speed strategic bomber, capable of attaining routinely Mach 2 at altitude. It incorporated a large delta wing with a leading-edge sweep of 60° and was powered by an arrangement of four General Electric J79-GE-1 turbojet engines. Although its sizable wing generated relatively low wing loading, it proved to be surprisingly well suited for low-altitude, high-speed flight. To protect against the heat generated while cruising at Mach 2, the crew compartment, the wheel wells and electronics bay were pressurized and air conditioned.

The Tu-116, like the Tu-114, was based on the Tu-95 strategic bomber. Both airliners were developed in parallel with the Tu-116 taking priority due to the numerous visits of General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev to both Western and Eastern countries during the so-called Khrushchev Thaw. The aircraft's mission was to transport the head of state together with his security detail and entourage. Concurrent development of the Tu-114 and Tu-116 was justified by Khrushchev's visit to the United States, at which time the Tu-114 might not have been ready.

The B-36 Peacemaker strategic bomber was at one point intended to function as an airborne aircraft carrier for up to four McDonnell F-85 Goblin parasite fighters. Operational F-85-carrying B-36s were to have been capable of refueling and rearming their fighters in flight, while deploying and recovering them on a trapeze-like structure similar to that of the Akron and the Macon. No B-36 was ever equipped to carry the F-85, however, and the two prototypes only flew from a single modified B-29.

Construction of a prototype started in 1946, but in 1948 work was halted due to a shortage of ASh-7 engines which were needed for the Tupolev Tu-4 strategic bomber, which had been given priority on the personal directive of Joseph Stalin. There were several projected variants of the T-117 with alternative powerplants, including the Shvetsov ASh-82FN, the experimental Shvetsov ASh-2 four-row radial and the Klimov VK-2 turboprop, but this did not save the project. The uncompleted T-117 prototype never had engines fitted and was scrapped.

After Apollo, Healey was assigned to the Rockwell B-1 Lancer program; a supersonic strategic bomber designed to replace the aging B-52. B-1 Lancer "Bone" The B-1A mockup review had occurred in late October 1971 and there had been 297 requests for alterations. Under Healey's management, the first of four prototype B-1A models (s/n 74-0158) flew on December 23, 1974. Due to the politics of the era and programs competing for funding, it would be more than a decade before the first production B-1B aircraft would fly.

In July 1958, he began a five-year period in various jobs at Headquarters Strategic Air Command, Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska. In July 1963, he was posted to the 7th Air Division in England as a command post controller and B-47 Stratojet strategic bomber pilot. Two years later, he joined the Sixteenth Air Force, stationed in Spain as chief of the Control Division. In June 1967, he returned to the United States and served in various roles at the United States Air Force Military Personnel Center, Randolph Air Force Base, Texas.

The United States kept up to date with its strategic bomber leg of the triad following the Cold War as well. B-52G variants were phased out in favor of B-52H classes. In 2001, 94 B-52H bombers, each capable of carrying 20 cruise missiles, were active along with 21 B-2 bombers each capable of carrying 16 bombs. B-1 Lancer bombers were phased out of the triad and reoriented for different missions in an effort to honor the delivery systems limitations set by the START Treaties.

GAM-87 Skybolt An air-launched ballistic missile or ALBM is a ballistic missile launched from an aircraft. An ALBM allows the launch aircraft to stand off at long distances from its target, keeping it well outside the range of defensive weapons like anti-aircraft missiles and interceptor aircraft. Once launched, the missile is essentially immune to interception. This combination of features allowed a strategic bomber to present a credible deterrent second- strike option in an era when improving anti-aircraft defences appeared to be rendering conventional bombers obsolete.

Nalty (1997), p.188. A strategic bomber requirement of 7,500 aircraft, which included the intercontinental B-36 (then still in the design phase), was far too large for American industry to achieve to be practical, and an interim plan to attack Germany with 3,800 bombers was included in AWPD/1. AWPD/1 was approved by Marshall and Secretary of War Henry Stimson in September 1941.Nalty (1997), p.190. Although war began before the plan could be presented to Roosevelt, it became the foundation for establishing aircraft production and training requirements used during the war, and the concept of a strategic bomber offensive against Germany became policy of the U.S. government,Bowman (1997), pp.19–20. in accordance with United States strategic policy stated in Rainbow 5, as the only means available to the United States to take the war to Germany. In August 1942 Roosevelt called for a revision of proposed air requirements. AWPD/42 was presented on 6 September 1942, and although never accepted by the U.S. Navy, its revised estimates (which more than doubled production requirements to nearly 150,000 aircraft of all types, including those of the Navy and exports to allies) guided the Roosevelt Administration in 1943. The estimate was later reduced to 127,000, of which 80,000 were combat aircraft.

Bombers of the West. New York: Charles Scribner's and Sons; 1973. p105 These were considered marginal for a strategic bomber role and work began almost immediately on a replacement. In May 1956 a requirement for what became the Dassault Mirage IV bomber was drawn up; this bomber was designed to carry nuclear gravity bombs over targets in the Eastern bloc at supersonic speeds and was declared operational in October 1964. In May 1964, Genéral Marie, FAS commander, was replaced by Général Philippe Maurin, former commander of the Tactical Air Forces (FATAC) and French Air Force chief of staff in 1967.

The air defense mission, relegated to a secondary status in the postwar years, received much more attention as Cold War tensions heightened. Following the explosion of a Soviet nuclear weapon in August 1949, the Air Force issued requirements for an operational air defense system by 1952. The perceived threat of an airborne atomic attack by the Soviet Union with its Tu-4 copy of the B-29 or Tu-95 strategic bomber led to the separation of Air Defense Command from ConAC, and its reestablishment as an Air Force major command, effective 1 January 1951 to counter the perceived Soviet threat.

5 December 2007. Putin in the cockpit of a Tupolev Tu-160 strategic bomber before the flight, August 2005. While from the early 2000s (decade) Russia started pumping more money into its military and defence industry, it was only in 2008 that the full-scale Russian military reform began, aimed to modernize Russian Armed Forces and made them significantly more effective. The reform was largely carried by Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov during Medvedev's presidency, under supervision of both Putin, as the Head of Government, and Medvedev, as the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Armed Forces.

The 28th Bomb Wing is a United States Air Force unit assigned to the Eighth Air Force (8 AF) of the Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC) and is stationed at Ellsworth Air Force Base, South Dakota. The wing is also the "host unit" at Ellsworth AFB. The wing is one of only two B-1B Lancer strategic bomber wings in the United States Air Force, the other being the 7th Bomb Wing at Dyess Air Force Base, Texas. Active for over 60 years, the 28th was a component wing of Strategic Air Command's deterrent force throughout the Cold War.

In the United Kingdom, later models of the Handley Page Victor, a strategic bomber operated by the Royal Air Force, was also furnished with the feature, which was sometimes referred to as "speed pods". However, modern jet aircraft harness supercritical airfoils, which decrease wave drag significantly. Further optimization can be achieved through careful design of wing body fairings, engine nacelles, flap track fairings, and wingtip fuel tanks. Due to the prevalence of supercritical airfoils, other design features with the sole purpose of minimising wave drag (such as the anti-shock bodies on the Convair 990) are rare in modern aircraft.

On 23 March 1970 the No.603 Research Institute was tasked with developing a strategic bomber to be designated H-8, to reduce costs and development time the Xian H-6 airframe was used as a baseline. The first working sample was expected to be completed in 1973, and production was expected to be as early as in 1974. However, the development of the H-8 paced slowly and came to a halt as major development resource was transferred to Shanghai Y-10. In September 1971, the H-8 project was canceled, whilst the H-6I was continued on as a substitute.

Began upgrading to the new Boeing B-50 Superfortress, an advanced version of the B-29 in 1949. The B-50 gave the unit the capability to carry heavy loads of conventional weapons faster and farther as well as being designed for atomic bomb missions if necessary. Squadron deployed to SAC airfields in England, and also to Andersen Air Force Base, Guam on long-term deployments in the 1950s. By 1951, the emergence of the Soviet Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 interceptor in the skies of North Korea signaled the end of the propeller-driven B-50 as a first-line strategic bomber.

Boeing X-45 at the National Museum of the United States Air Force Joint Unmanned Combat Air Systems, or J-UCAS, was the name for the joint U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force unmanned combat air vehicle procurement project. The two vehicles involved in the project were the Boeing X-45 and Northrop Grumman X-47. J-UCAS was managed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. In the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review, it was stated that the J-UCAS program would be terminated and instead a new long-range strategic bomber program, "Next-Generation Bomber", for the Air Force has been launched.

The main character is Jack Thompson, a member of a US air force strategic bomber squadron during World War II. During a mission above Germany his plane gets attacked by German fighters and catches fire. Somehow, a portal opens up as the plane is going down, and it enters what is presumably a parallel universe or an alternate timeline. Jack finds himself descending not upon the German countryside, but on a strange, unfamiliar jungle landscape. Meanwhile, on the ground, we see a tied up young woman, struggling to get loose as a gigantic carnivorous dinosaur approaches.

A total of 847 Tu-4s had been built when production ended in the Soviet Union in 1952, some going to China during the later 1950s. Many experimental variants were built and the valuable experience launched the Soviet strategic bomber program. Tu-4s were withdrawn in the 1960s, being replaced by more advanced aircraft including the Tupolev Tu-16 jet bomber (starting in 1954) and the Tupolev Tu-95 turboprop bomber (starting in 1956). By the beginning of the 1960s, the only Tu-4s still operated by the Soviets were used for transport or airborne laboratory purposes.

A B-36J Peacemaker in flight The development of the Convair B-36 strategic bomber began in 1941 with the XB-36, which was intended to meet the strategic needs of the US Army Air Forces, and later of the United States Air Force with its Strategic Air Command. In 1948, the B-36 become a mainstay of the American nuclear deterrent. It underwent a number of design changes before being withdrawn from service in 1959. It was also well suited to high altitude very long range reconnaissance missions, and several alterations were made with this mission profile in mind.

The squadron was reactivated at Davis-Monthan Field, Arizona as a Strategic Air Command bomber squadron. It continued in the strategic bomber role until 1970, flying a variety of strategic bombers, including the supersonic Convair B-58 Hustler. In 1962, a crew from the 65th won the Mackay Trophy and the Bendix Trophy for setting a trio of transcontinental speed records in a round trip from Los Angeles to New York and back during Operation Heat Rise. From 1986 to 1991, as the 65th Strategic Squadron, it controlled bombers and tankers deployed at Anderson Air Force Base, Guam.

Throughout his career Dellums led campaigns against an array of military projects, arguing that the funds would be better spent on peaceful purposes, especially in American cities. Programs he opposed included the Pershing II and MX missiles, and the B-2 bomber (popularly known as the "stealth bomber"). Because of his commitment to the closing of unneeded military bases, Dellums did not oppose the closing of the former Naval Air Station Alameda in his own district. The B-2 Stealth Bomber is a long-range strategic bomber, that features stealth technology that makes it far less visible to radar.

Japanese capitulation in August canceled plans for deployment, instead became Continental Air Command (later Strategic Air Command) B-29 squadron. Began upgrading to the new B-50 Superfortress, an advanced version of the B-29 in 1950. The B-50 gave the unit the capability to carry heavy loads of conventional weapons faster and farther as well as being designed for atomic bomb missions if necessary. By 1951, the emergence of the Soviet Mig-15 interceptor in the skies of North Korea signaled the end of the propeller- driven B-50 as a first-line strategic bomber.

Reactivated under Strategic Air Command in December 1948 at Carswell Air Force Base, Texas; received the new Convair B-36B Peacemaker intercontinental strategic bomber. Upgraded to the jet-assisted B-36D in 1950, then the B-36J-III Featherweight in 1954; Trained in heavy bombardment operations and participated in many SAC exercises and deployments. In 1958 moved to Altus Air Force Base, Oklahoma and re-equipped with new Boeing B-52E Stratofortresses and continued operations as well as standing nuclear alert. Remained at Altus on alert status until B-52Es were phased out of SAC service and consigned to storage in 1968.

The P.108 was unique in the history of Italian aviation, as it was the only four-engine strategic bomber used by the Regia Aeronautica during World War II. It was a development of the earlier underpowered and wooden-structured P.50-II which was unable to take off at its designed maximum weight. The designer of the aircraft was Giovanni Casiraghi, an experienced engineer who had worked in the US from 1927 to 1936. On the basis of his experience he designed a radically new aeroplane. The P.108 was an all-metal low wing bomber with a retractable under-carriage.

First, the 340th Bombardment Squadron, a subordinate unit, started flying RB-50Gs on electronic reconnaissance missions. The 340th went to RAF Upper Heyford, England and Japan on intelligence gathering missions and operated in this capacity for over a year. Meanwhile, the other bombardment squadrons in the 97th started replacing the propeller-driven B-50s with new Boeing B-47E Stratojet swept-wing medium bombers, capable of flying at high subsonic speeds and primarily designed for penetrating the airspace of the Soviet Union in 1954. The last B-50 assigned to the strategic bomber forces left the 97th wing on 20 October 1955.

The 2007 edition of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) Military Balance listed pilots of tactical aviation flying 20–25 hours a year, 61st Air Army pilots (former Military Transport Aviation), 60 hours a year, and Army Aviation under VVS control 55 hours a year.Routledge/IISS, IISS Military Balance 2007, p.200 In 2007 the Russian Air Force resumed the Soviet-era practice of deploying its strategic bomber aircraft on long-range patrols. This ended a 15-year unilateral suspension due to fuel costs and other economic difficulties after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

A crash program to develop a missile suitable for carrying such warheads began as Polaris, launching its first shot less than four years later, in February 1960. As the Polaris missile was fired underwater from a moving platform, it was essentially invulnerable to counterattack. This led the Navy to suggest, starting around 1959, that they be given the entire nuclear deterrent role. This led to new infighting between the Navy and the U.S. Air Force, the latter responding by developing the counterforce concept that argued for the strategic bomber and ICBM as key elements in flexible response.

To avoid a potentially cumbersome chain of command and overlapping effort Mountbatten gave orders in December for the two air forces to be integrated under the name Eastern Air Command. The US Fourteenth Air Force, which was based in China and the US Twentieth Air Force – strategic bomber units based in India – were never controlled by SEAC but their operations were coordinated with SEAC. At sea, the command structure was relatively simple, since the Royal Navy was providing almost all naval forces in the area. Admiral Sir James Somerville, Commander-in-Chief, Eastern Fleet, became the naval commander under Mountbatten.

The Air Ministry published Specification B.12/36, for a high- speed, long-range four-engined strategic bomber aircraft, that would be capable of being designed and constructed at speed. The bomb load was to be a maximum of 14,000 lb (6,350 kg) carried to a range of 2,000 miles (3218 km) or a lesser payload of 8,000 lb (3,629 kg) to 3,000 miles (4,800 km) (very demanding for the era). It was to have a crew of six and was to have a normal all-up weight of 48,000 lb, while a maximum overload weight of 65,000 lb was also envisioned.

Since the USSR was expected to have nuclear weapons sooner or later, the appearance of the Soviet Tu-4 was a shock to U.S. military planners, since it meant that the U.S. mainland might soon be vulnerable to a potential Soviet nuclear attack from the air. Until jet interceptors could be developed and put into service, the Twin Mustangs already built were seen as an interim solution to SAC's fighter escort mission for its strategic bomber force and also as an all-weather air defense interceptor. Early attempts to develop jet-powered all-weather fighters ran into a series of snags and delays.

Tupolev's copy of the B-29 was designated Tu-4, with many subsequent Tu aircraft having the number 4 in their designations. The Tu-4 was initially designated B-4 because Tupolev refused to have his name attached to an aircraft his bureau did not design. By the time of his rehabilitation on 9 April 1955, Tupolev had designed and was about to start testing his unique turboprop strategic bomber, the Tu-95. In the following years, Tupolev overcame competition from Vladimir Myasishchev and his M-4 series of jet- powered strategic bombers, introducing the Tu-16 design.

With sufficient British bombs becoming available, operational issues and the concept of an independent nuclear deterrent came to the fore. The Air Council decided on 7 July 1960 that Project E weapons would be phased out by December 1962, by which time it was anticipated that there would be sufficient British megaton weapons to equip the entire strategic bomber force. Project E weapons were replaced by British Yellow Sun bombs at RAF Honington on 1 July 1961 and Waddington on 30 March 1962. Problems encountered in the development of Red Beard meant that the replacement of kiloton weapons took longer.

The McDonnell ADM-20 Quail was a subsonic, jet powered, air-launched decoy cruise missile built by McDonnell Aircraft Corporation. The Quail was designed to be launched by the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress strategic bomber and its original United States Air Force designation was GAM-72 (GAM standing for Guided Aircraft Missile).NASA list of Space Related Acronyms Quail contained electronics and radar reflectors intended to make it indistinguishable from a B-52 approaching at low altitude. This would force the Soviet defenses to split up their missiles and interceptors among many targets, reducing the chance that a bomber would be targeted.

At first, the plans had assumed an eastern limit at the "A-A line", a notional boundary running along the Volga river between the two cities of Archangelsk and Astrakhan. Since it was expected well-ahead of the operation that the Soviet Union would in all likelihood not be totally defeated by military means despite being reduced to a rump state, aerial bombardments were to be carried out — despite the near- total lack of a strategic bomber design in the Luftwaffe's arsenal with which to perform such raids — against the remaining enemy industrial centers further to the east.

This option was rejected with the formation of NATO and the decision to permanently station troops in Europe. In the summer of 1951 Project Vista started, in which project analysts such as Robert F. Christy looked at how to defend Western Europe from a Soviet invasion. The emerging development of tactical nuclear weapons were looked upon as a means to give Western forces a qualitative advantage over the Soviet numerical supremacy in conventional weapons.Project Vista, Caltech, and the dilemmas of Lee DuBridge Several scares about the increasing ability of the Soviet Union's strategic bomber forces surfaced during the 1950s.

Requesting an explanation, Romania's foreign ministry stated that "the threat of using a Russian strategic bomber plane by a Russian deputy prime minister is a very grave statement under the current regional context." Rogozin has also stated that Russia's defence sector has "many other ways of travelling the world besides tourist visas" and "tanks don't need visas". In October 2014, Denmark's Defence Intelligence Service stated that in June of the same year Russian military jets "equipped with live missiles" had simulated an attack on the island of Bornholm as 90,000 people visited for the annual Folkemødet meeting.

B-52G-130BW 59-2601, at Langley AFB, Hampton, Virginia, USA The Boeing B-52 Stratofortress is a long-range, subsonic, jet-powered, strategic bomber operated by the United States Air Force (USAF) since 1955. The B-52A first flew in 1954, and the B model entered service in 1955. A total of 744 B-52s were built with the last, a B-52H, delivered in October 1962. It served in the Strategic Air Command, the Air Combat Command, and the B-52H continues to serve in the Air Force Global Strike Command and the Air Force Reserve Command.

Operation Frantic, originally known as Operation Baseball, was intended to permanently establish three heavy bomber groups in Soviet territory, but only a small contingent, about 1,300 men, was eventually detached to the American bases in the USSR. During the four months of major operations, 24 targets in German-held territory, some never before within effective range of the American strategic bomber forces, were attacked. While the shuttle bombing technique complicated German air defenses, in practice most targets were already coming in reach of US bomber streams from Italy and England. Soviet vetoing of some targets prevented more effective use of the bases.Staff.

Made up of former members of the 55th Air Refueling Squadron from Forbes Air Force Base, Kansas. Inactivated in 1963 when Strategic Air Command's medium strategic bomber forces began to be drawn down in favor of ICBMs. In 1985 the 98th was consolidated with the two 398th Bombardment Squadrons.Department of the Air Force/MPM Letter 662q, 19 September 85, Subject: Reconstitution, Redesignation, and Consolidation of Selected Air Force Tactical Squadrons It was redesignated the 98th Air Refueling Squadron, Heavy on 19 September 1986 and then renamed the 98th Air Refueling Squadron on 1 April 1994 at Fairchild Air Force Base, Washington, flying KC-135T Stratotanker aircraft.

From this point forward, the 441 BS would rely on the Air Force Reserve's tenant 940th Air Refueling Group at Mather for local KC-135 support, or KC-135 and KC-10 support from other units in the western United States. As a result of the START I treaty with the Soviet Union and the associated mandated reductions in strategic bombers on both sides, the 441 BS with its B-52Gs was inactivated at Mather AFB on 30 September 1989. It was the first B-52G squadron to inactivate under the gradual drawdown of the B-52G fleet pursuant to START reductions of the entire USAF strategic bomber force.

Thus, Stewart's character was not too far from the life he was actually living. Stewart's military service and lifelong interest in aviation greatly influenced the making of the film. He pushed for an authentic but sympathetic portrayal of the Strategic Air Command, which led Paramount to put together a strong cast of Hollywood veterans and production people including June Allyson, Frank Lovejoy, director Anthony Mann, and the top stunt pilot of the day, Paul Mantz. The film accurately portrays (from the perspective of the 1951 starting point of the script) the duties and responsibilities of an Air Force strategic bomber pilot, and the demands such service places on family life.

Apapelgino was used primarily to meet the administrative needs of the Pevek Airport, as well as for housing the airport's workers. In the 1950s, the airfield was developed as a part of the Soviet Air Forces' plan to create a ring of air bases around the Arctic for the use of its strategic bomber fleet during the Cold War. During the Cold War, this airfield formed a network of forward staging bases inside the Arctic Circle, the need for which was dictated by geography and weather. The northern parts of the Soviet Union closest to the United States are in the Arctic, with hostile weather conditions.

Maltin, Leonard, Buena Vista Home Entertainment, 2004, DVD Victory Through Air Power was one of Walt Disney's most ambitious wartime propaganda films.James Algar, Clyde Geronimi, Jack Kinney, H.C. Potter, Walt Disney Pictures, Victory Through Air Power, 1943, Film Walt Disney himself was impressed by a 1942 book entitled Victory Through Air Power written by Alexander P. de Seversky. This Russian-born, naturalized citizen, who had founded his own aircraft company was convinced that the only way to win the war was the use of a long range strategic bomber force. Disney thought it his patriotic duty to spread the word of this new strategic plan involving tactical long-range bombing.

During the Cold War, the squadron was equipped with new weapons systems as they became available, performing strategic bombardment training with the Boeing B-50 Superfortress, an advanced version of the B-29 in 1950. The B-50 gave the unit the capability to carry heavy loads of conventional weapons faster and farther as well as being designed for atomic bomb missions if necessary. By 1951, the emergence of the Soviet Mig-15 interceptor in the skies over North Korea signaled the end of the propeller-driven B-50 as a first-line strategic bomber. The squadron received Boeing B-47 Stratojet jet bombers in 1954.

In 1950, as a result of the beginning of the Cold War, the airfield was transferred to the United States Air Force for strategic bomber operations. A runway was constructed for long-range bomber operations. The runway was completed in 1953, and served as a forward airbase for the first Convair B-36 Peacemaker aircraft from Carswell Air Force Base, Texas. The airfield later received B-47s which were maintained at a heightened state of alert because of increased tensions with the Soviet Union. Due to the long runway Fairford was chosen in 1969 as the British test centre for the Concorde aircraft until 1977.

The Polaris SLBM could ostensibly fill the role of the Minuteman, and was perceived as significantly less vulnerable to attack. During Minuteman's early development, the Air Force maintained the policy that the manned strategic bomber was the primary weapon of nuclear war. Blind bombing accuracy on the order of was expected, and the weapons were sized to ensure even the hardest targets would be destroyed as long as the weapon fell within this range. The USAF had enough bombers to attack every military and industrial target in the USSR and was confident that its bombers would survive in sufficient numbers that such a strike would utterly destroy the country.

The squadron began upgrading to the Boeing B-50 Superfortress, an advanced version of the B-29 in 1950. The B-50 gave the unit the capability to carry heavy loads of conventional weapons faster and farther as well as being designed for atomic bomb missions if necessary. The squadron deployed to SAC airfields in England, and also to Andersen Air Force Base, Guam on long-term deployments in the 1950s. By 1951, the emergence of the Soviet Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 interceptor in the skies of North Korea signaled the end of the propeller-driven B-50 as a first-line strategic bomber.

In October 1947, Sweeney was assigned to the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force, and the following year was named director of plans for the Strategic Air Command with headquarters at Omaha, Nebraska. In April 1953, he was assigned to command the Fifteenth Air Force at March Air Force Base, California. In June 1954, while commander of this strategic bomber force, he led a trio of Stratojets in history's first non- stop flight of jet bombers across the Pacific Ocean. For six years, from August 1955 until September 1961, Sweeney commanded the Eighth Air Force at Westover Air Force Base, Massachusetts.

During the cold war period, the US Strategic Air Command (SAC) created several strategic fighter squadrons, organised into strategic fighter wings, primarily for escort fighter and fighter- reconnaissance duties. The wings were initially equipped with the Republic F-84F Thunderstreak and the one strategic fighter reconnaissance wing with the RF-84F. However any fighter which could be developed soon enough and with sufficient endurance to accompany the Boeing B-47 Stratojet strategic bomber would be as big as its charge. With the advent of the more capable Boeing B-52 Stratofortress, in the first half of 1957 the strategic fighter wings were either disbanded or transferred to Tactical Air Command (TAC).

Firebombing in Braunschweig, Germany, 15 October 1944 Charred remains of Japanese civilians after a bombing of Tokyo Early in World War II many British cities were firebombed. Two particularly notable raids were the Coventry Blitz on 14 November 1940, and the blitz on London on the night of 29 December/30 December 1940, which was the most destructive raid on London during the war with much of the destruction caused by fires started by incendiary bombs. During the Coventry Blitz the Germans pioneered several innovations which were to influence all future strategic bomber raids during the war.Taylor, Fredrick; Dresden Tuesday 13 February 1945, Pub Bloomsbury (First Pub 2004, Paper Back 2005). .

Before World War II, the United States Army Air Corps concluded that the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, which would be the Americans' primary strategic bomber during the war, would be inadequate for the Pacific Theater, which required a bomber that could carry a larger payload more than 3,000 miles. The length of the wing span of a Boeing B-29 Superfortress based at Davis-Monthan Field is vividly illustrated here with the cloud-topped Santa Catalina Mountains as a contrasting background. YB-29 Superfortresses in flight. Wichita plant in February 1945. In response, Boeing began work on pressurized long-range bombers in 1938.

After D-Day (6 June 1944), with the resumption of the strategic bomber campaign over Germany, Harris remained wedded to area bombardment. The historian Frederick Taylor argues that, because Harris lacked the necessary security clearance to know about Ultra, he had been given some information gleaned from Enigma but not informed of the source. According to Taylor, this directly affected Harris's attitude concerning the effectiveness of the post-D-Day 1944 directives (orders) to target oil installations, as Harris did not know the Allied High Command was using high-level German sources to assess exactly how much Allied operations were impairing the German war effort.

B-58A in flight On 1 August 1960, the B-58 was declared operational, nine months after the delivery of the first aircraft to the Air Force. One month later, a single B-58 participated in the annual SAC Combat Competition at Bergstrom; it proved itself to be superior to competing Boeing B-47 Stratojets and Boeing B-52 Stratofortresses, securing first place in both high-level and low-level radar bombing exercises. Crews were typically chosen from other strategic bomber squadrons. Due to some characteristics of delta-winged aircraft, new pilots used the Convair F-102 Delta Dagger as a conversion trainer, before moving to the TB-58A trainer.

The Russian Tupolev Tu-160 strategic bomber named after Yarygin Yarygin was killed in a car crash in 1997, crashing his car into a roadside-parked heavy truck.Иван Ярыгин. Yarygin Wrestling Museum Earlier in 1990, an annual wrestling tournament in his honor has been initiated in Krasnoyarsk, the city where he lived since 1966; in 1998 a sports venue in Krasnoyarsk has been renamed into the Ivan Yarygin Sports Palace, and in March 2002 his monument was opened in the city. His other monuments were installed in Moscow in 1998, in Stavropol Krai (near the place of his death) in 2012, and in Abakan in 2013.

The Treasury immediately inquired as to whether this meant that the British megaton bomb programme could be terminated. The answer was no; the operational restrictions imposed by Project E "effectively handed the US government a veto over the use of half of Britain's nuclear deterrent". With sufficient British bombs on hand, operational issues, and the concept of an independent nuclear deterrent came to the fore. The Air Council decided on 7 July 1960 that Project E weapons would be phased out by December 1962, by which time it was anticipated that there would be sufficient British megaton weapons to equip the entire strategic bomber force.

Oschersleben became a district capital in 1816 and was connected to the railway system in 1843. In the years prior to World War II Oschersleben expanded due to the AGO Flugzeugwerke aircraft factory that was founded there in 1916 and once again needed numerous workers. This military aircraft factory operated under the differing name of "Apparatebau GmbH Oschersleben" during the years of the Third Reich, to retain the AGO acronym. By 1941, AGO was acting as a prime subcontractor for the production of Kurt Tank's Focke-Wulf Fw 190 fighter, which made it a prime target for Western Allied strategic bomber forces, which attacked the town ten times.

As insurgents arrived into the area, the Ranger team was spotted and fired upon. In response, the RRD's attached JTAC called in an orbiting B-1B strategic bomber to 'pummel' the insurgents, an estimated 100 were killed in the airstrikes but Haqqani was not among them. Nerkh district in Wardak province, Afghanistan, 19 November 2009. In 2007, a CIA source reported seeing Bin Laden in Tora Bora, a significant proportion of the ISR assets available in the theatre converged on the area, the initial plan based around a small helicopter assault force soon expanded to include Green Beret ODAs and a Ranger element to provide a cordon for the SEALs.

In congressional hearings and other public arenas, the Navy reacted angrily to Johnson's action by openly questioning the ability of the Air Force's latest strategic bomber, the Convair B-36, to penetrate Soviet airspace. The Air Force countered with data supporting the B-36, and minimized the importance of a naval role for surface ships in future major conflicts. Subsequently, declassified material proved the USAF to be technically correct in its immediate assessment of the capabilities of the B-36 at the time of the Revolt of the Admirals. At the time, it was indeed virtually invulnerable to interception due to the great height at which it flew.

Over the following decade, three railroads were built through the city. The success of the wholesale and milling industries drove Salina's growth into the early 1900s such that, at one point, it was the third-largest producer in the state and the sixth-largest in the United States. In 1943, the U.S. Army established Smoky Hill Army Airfield southwest of the city. The installation served as a base for strategic bomber units throughout World War II. Renamed Smoky Hill Air Force Base in 1948, the base closed the following year only to be reopened in 1951 as Schilling Air Force Base, part of Strategic Air Command.

B-29 was the long range U.S. strategic bomber used to carpet bomb Japan. It was the largest aircraft to have a significant operational role in the war, and remains the only aircraft in history to have ever used a nuclear weapon in combat. The air warfare of World War II was a major component in all theaters of the war and, together with anti-aircraft warfare, consumed a large fraction of the industrial output of the major powers. Germany and Japan depended on air forces that were closely integrated with land and naval forces; the Axis powers downplayed the advantage of fleets of strategic bombers, and were late in appreciating the need to defend against Allied strategic bombing.

Once the Axis forces had been defeated in Tunisia, the Allied strategic bomber force commenced attacks on the principal airfields of Sardinia, Sicily and southern Italy, industrial targets in southern Italy and the ports of Naples, Messina, Palermo and Cagliari (in Sardinia). The attacks were spread to maintain uncertainty as to the next Allied move, and to pin down Axis aircraft and keep them away from Sicily. Bombing of northern Italy (by aircraft based in the UK) and Greece (by aircraft based in the Middle East) was increased. From 3 July, bombing concentrated on Sicilian airfields and Axis communications with Italy, although beach defences were left alone, to preserve surprise as to where the landings would occur.

It was used in the Antonov An-22 aircraft, A-90 Orlyonok Ekranoplane and the Tupolev Tu-95 strategic bomber among others. The later models produced around 15,000 kW. In 1954, he began work on a two-flow jet engine with afterburner, called the Kuznetsov NK-6, which was never completed. In 1957, he received the Order of Hero of Socialist Labor for his contributions. From 1959 onwards, he was also involved in the development of engines for the projected Soviet N1 moon rocket. The primary engines for the development rockets were Kuznetsov NK-15 and Kuznetsov NK-15V (later developed into Kuznetsov NK-33 and Kuznetsov NK-43). Ultimately, these designs were successful but arrived too late.

Squadron Leader P. R. Burchall summed up the results by noting that "a feeling of defencelessness and dismay, or at all events of uneasiness, has seized the public." In November, Churchill gave a speech on "The threat of Nazi Germany" in which he pointed out that the Royal Navy could not protect Britain from an enemy who attacked by air. Through the early 1930s, a debate raged within British military and political circles about strategic air power. Baldwin's famous speech led many to believe the only way to prevent the bombing of British cities was to make a strategic bomber force so large it could, as Baldwin put it, "kill more women and children more quickly than the enemy.".

Initially, the Force de Frappe had an airbase component of the Strategic Air Forces Command (Commandement des Forces Aeriennes Strategique (CFAS)) of the French Air Force, established in 1955 and operating 40 Sud Aviation Vautour IIB bombers. They were considered marginal for a strategic bomber role, and work began almost immediately on a replacement resulting in the Mirage III. In May 1956, a requirement for what became the Dassault Mirage IV bomber was drawn up; the bomber was designed to carry AN-11 nuclear gravity bombs over targets in the Eastern bloc at supersonic speeds and was declared operational in October 1964. It has since been modernized and converted to carry its successor, the AN-22 bomb.

B-29 painted to look like The Great Artiste of the 393rd Bombardment Squadron of the 509th Bomb Group at Walker AFB New Mexico. The 393rd Bomb Squadron, sometimes written as 393d Bomb Squadron, is part of the 509th Bomb Wing at Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri. It operates Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit nuclear-capable strategic bomber aircraft. Constituted in 1944 as the 393rd Bombardment Squadron, the unit was the only United States Army Air Forces squadron trained for nuclear warfare during World War II. It is the only unit to have used nuclear weapons in combat, when its aircraft dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 and Nagasaki, Japan on 9 August 1945.

An aerodynamic prototype of the Il-38 first flew on 28 September 1961,Lake 2005, p.31. with the first production aircraft following in September 1967. Production continued until 1972, when the longer-range and more versatile Tupolev Tu-142 derivative of the Tupolev Tu-95 strategic bomber had entered service.Lake 2005, p.32. The airframe is based on the Il-18, with the wings moved forward 3 m (9.84 ft).Gordon 2004, p.92. Unlike the Il-18, only the forward fuselage of the Il-38 is pressurized. The tail contains a MAD, while under the forward fuselage a Berkut ("Golden Eagle") search radar (named "Wet Eye" by NATO) is housed in a bulged radome.

The JCS designated Admiral Chester W. Nimitz as Commander in Chief, Pacific Ocean Areas (CINCPOA), with operational control over all units (air, land, and sea) in that area. The theater included most of the Pacific Ocean and its islands, but mainland Asia was excluded from the POA, as were the Philippines, Australia, the Netherlands East Indies, the Territory of New Guinea (including the Bismarck Archipelago) and the western part of the Solomon Islands. US strategic bomber forces in the theatre were under the direct control of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff. All land forces in Alaska and Canada remained under the control of the US Army's Western Defense Command (see Aleutian Islands Campaign).

During the Cold War, the squadron was equipped with new weapons systems as they became available, performing strategic bombardment training with the B-50 Superfortress, an advanced version of the B-29 in 1950. The B-50 gave the unit the capability to carry heavy loads of conventional weapons faster and farther as well as being designed for atomic bomb missions if necessary. By 1951, the emergence of the Soviet Mig-15 interceptor in the skies of North Korea signaled the end of the propeller-driven B-50 as a first-line strategic bomber. Received Boeing B-47 Stratojet jet bombers in 1954, and in 1955 began receiving early model of the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress.

On 25 June 1950, the armed forces of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) invaded South Korea. On 27 June, the United Nations Security Council voted to assist the South Koreans in resisting the invasion. Although Eighth Air Force's strategic bomber force was not committed to combat in Korea, the Eighth deployed the 27th Fighter Escort Wing for combat action in Korea and earned numerous honors and awards for their combat record during the Korean War. On 21 January 1951, Lt. Col. William Bertram, commander of the 523rd Fighter-Escort Squadron, shot down the first MiG-15 for the wing and became the first F-84 pilot with a confirmed MiG kill.

Under control of the FEAF Bomber Command (Provisional) until 20 October, the squadron bombed factories, refineries, iron works, hydroelectric plants, airfields, bridges, tunnels, troop concentrations, barracks, marshalling yards, road junctions, rail lines, supply dumps, docks, vehicles and other strategic and interdiction targets. Released from combat by General MacArthur on 20 October 1950. Many of the still operational B-29s remained with Far East Air Forces to serve on with the 19th BG and 307th BG at Kadena AB, Okinawa; and the 98th BG at Yokota, Japan. Returned without most personnel and equipment to Spokane AFB, Washington in late October and November 1950. Re-equipped with B-36 Peacemaker intercontinental strategic bomber in 1951.

VIII Bomber Command was the UK-based strategic bomber arm of the Eighth Air Force and contributed a substantial part of Operation Pointblank, the day-night bombing campaign by the RAF and USAAF to eliminate the Luftwaffe in preparation for the invasion of Europe. Two aircraft, the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, and the Consolidated B-24 Liberator, were the mainstays of this command. The B-17 was more highly regarded, but the Liberator had a greater range and a larger bomb load. VIII Bomber Command, known as "Pinetree", began strategic operations in Europe on 17 August 1942, with daylight missions on the precept that daylight attacks were more accurate than night attacks.

Grumman A-6 Intruder (A2F-1) attack aircraft displaying its weapons array, 1962 US Navy Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet multirole combat aircraft illustrating its array of weapons-type capabilities; All Hands magazine of the US Navy 1997 B-52H Stratofortress subsonic strategic bomber displaying its weapons array, 2006 Aircraft ordnance or ordnance (in the context of military aviation) is weapons (e.g. bombs, missiles, rockets and gun ammunition) used by aircraft. The term is often used when describing the weight of air-to-ground weaponry that can be carried by an aircraft or the weight that has been dropped. Aircraft ordnance also includes air-to-air, anti-ship and anti-submarine weapons.

Project "Pye Wacket", officially known as the Lenticular Defense Missile (LDM) Program and by the project number WS-740A, was instituted in 1958 in response to a US Air Force request for a Defensive Anti-Missile System (DAMS) to protect the proposed B-70 Valkyrie strategic bomber from high-speed, high-altitude surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) and interceptor aircraft.Parsch 2005 The extreme speed and operating altitude of the Valkyrie was considered sufficient protection against Soviet interceptors of the time.Rees 1960, p.125. However it was anticipated that future aircraft and missile developments would reduce the B-70's margin of superiority, especially following the SA-2 Guideline SAM being displayed during the 1957 May Day parade.

With the end of the war in Europe in May 1945, Dyersburg AAB was out of a job. The B-29 Superfortress was the strategic bomber used in the Pacific, and replacement heavy bomber crews were no longer needed. Those B-24 Liberator squadrons still operating in India and Burma, along with the B-24s used by Fifth and Seventh Air Forces in the Pacific could be supported by a limited number of trainees at Dyersburg (Note: B-17s were withdrawn from the Pacific in 1943 to support the European Theater, and never used to any great degree in the CBI). Training was drastically curtailed, and was completely stopped by the end of August with the Japanese surrender.

Three 44 Squadron Avro Lancaster B.Is in 1942 The Avro Lancaster was a British four-engined strategic bomber that was used as the RAF's principal heavy bomber during the latter half of the Second World War. The typical aircraft was powered by an arrangement of four wing-mounted Rolls- Royce Merlin piston engines, each of which drove a 13 ft diameter de Havilland Hydromatic three-bladed propeller. While not optimal, the Lancaster was capable of flying the return journey home on only two operational engines, along with very limited distances on a single running engine. Aviation authors Brian Goulding and M. Garbett have claimed that experienced Lancaster pilots were often able to out-manoeuver Luftwaffe fighters.

At one extreme, a stealth aircraft like the Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit strategic bomber can attack a target without needing the large numbers of escort fighter aircraft, electronic-warfare aircraft, Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses, and other supporting aircraft that would be needed were conventional bombers used against the same target. Precision-guided munitions (PGM) give an immense multiplication. The Thanh Hoa Bridge in North Vietnam had been only mildly damaged by approximately 800 sorties by aircraft armed with conventional Unguided bombs, but had one of its spans destroyed by a 12-plane mission, of which 8 carried laser-guided bombs. Two small subsequent missions, again with laser-guided bombs, completed the destruction of this target.

Aviation Week describes Blackstar as a two-stage-to-orbit system, the first stage of which is a delta-winged supersonic jet (which Aviation Week referred to as the SR-3). Its description of SR-3 is similar to the North American B-70 Valkyrie Mach 3 strategic bomber, and to patents filed in the 1980s by Boeing. The SR-3 would carry a second, smaller airframe, codenamed the XOV (eXperimental Orbital Vehicle) underneath, between its two laterally separated engine-banks, each containing 2 or 3 engines. This rocket- powered spaceplane, with similarities to the X-20 Dyna-Soar project, would be released by its mothership at an altitude of around 100,000 feet.

Four U.S. Air Force Rockwell B-1B Lancer from the 128th Bomb Squadron, 19 April 2002 In 1992 as part of the post Cold War reorganizations of the Air Force, the 116th converted to the Air Force Objective organization and the 128th was assigned to the reactivated 116th Operations Group. In 1992 Tactical Air Command was inactivated and the 116th was assigned to the new Air Combat Command (ACC). After calling Dobbins home for 50 years, the 116th was presented with a new challenge in 1996. The wing simultaneously converted from the F-15 Eagle fighters to the Rockwell B-1 Lancer strategic bomber and moved 110 miles south to Robins Air Force Base near Warner Robins, Georgia.

The P-61C was a high-performance variant designed to rectify some of the combat deficiencies encountered with the A and B variants. Work on the P-61C proceeded quite slowly at Northrop because of the higher priority of the Northrop XB-35 flying wing strategic bomber project. In fact, much of the work on the P-61C was farmed out to Goodyear, which had been a subcontractor for production of Black Widow components. It was not until early 1945 that the first production P-61C-1-NO rolled off the production lines. As promised, the performance was substantially improved in spite of a 2,000 lb (907 kg) increase in empty weight.

The project was shut down due to excessive costs. Some other types of weapons outlined and developed during the 1950—60s were designed as carriers for nuclear weapons – among them, the Saab A36, a strategic bomber, Bandkanon 1, a 155 mm artillery piece, and Robot 08, an anti-ship missile. These claims have been circulating since the times when the defense studies were still classified. There were certainly first drafts concerning the physical shape of Swedish nuclear weapon when the Saab A36 was under development, but the project A36 was soon abandoned in favor of the Saab AJ 37 Viggen when the first detailed military (rather than merely physical or technical) studies were conducted in 1961–62.

It served in the Korean War, where it earned a Presidential Unit Citation. It served as a strategic bomber organization until inactivated in 1945. The wing was again activated as the 307th Strategic Wing in 1970 at U-Tapao Royal Thai Navy Airfield, Thailand. It managed deployed Strategic Air Command tankers and bombers participating in combat operations in Southeast Asia until it was inactivated on 30 September 1975. With the divestiture of A-10 Thunderbolt II aircraft from AFRC's composite 917th Wing (917 WG) at Barksdale AFB and reassignment to an AFRC fighter wing, the 917 WG was inactivated and its B-52 Stratofortress aircraft transferred to the reactivated 307th Bomb Wing on 8 January 2011.

Local politicians railed against the government's decisions, from the closure itself to a lack of foresight beforehand. Representative Henry S. Reusscharged "From the beginning, a rank amateur would have been hard-pressed to select a more incongruous location for a strategic bomber base -- in the middle of the most congested air traffic corridors in the nation, and in the heart of an already vital target area for any enemy." Compounding matters, the Air Force refused to finish air base construction projects like the completion of roads, utilities and the power plant. Were these items completed, the property would have more appeal to private investors with an eye on salvaging the base for industrial or commercial friendly proposals.

Aerial view of Tokyo following the war The key development for the bombing of Japan was the B-29 Superfortress strategic bomber, which had an operational range of and was capable of attacking at high altitude above , where enemy defenses were very weak. Almost 90% of the bombs dropped on the home islands of Japan were delivered by this type of bomber. Once Allied ground forces had captured islands sufficiently close to Japan, airfields were built on those islands (particularly Saipan and Tinian) and B-29s could reach Japan for bombing missions. The initial raids were carried out by the Twentieth Air Force operating out of mainland China in Operation Matterhorn under XX Bomber Command, but these could not reach Tokyo.

The Soviet World War II-era four-engine strategic bomber Petlyakov Pe-8 was built with Charomskiy ACh-30 diesel engines; but just after the war's end, both its diesels, and gasoline-fueled Mikulin inline V12 engines for surviving Pe-8 airframes were replaced with Shvetsov-designed radial gasoline engines because of efficiency concerns. The Yermolaev Yer-2 long-range medium bomber was also built with Charomskiy diesel engines. Other manufacturers also experimented with diesel engines in this period, such as the French Bloch (later Dassault Aviation), whose MB203 bomber prototype used Clerget diesels of radial design. The Royal Aircraft Establishment developed an experimental compression ignition (diesel) version of the Rolls-Royce Condor in 1932, flying it in a Hawker Horsley for test purposes.

One of the Dornier Do 19 prototypes in flight Wever, the chief of staff of the newly formed Luftwaffe in 1933, realized the importance that strategic bombing would play in a war. In a war with the Soviet Union he expected that German forces would not attempt to move very far east of Moscow, which would leave much of Joseph Stalin's recently relocated industry out of reach of existing bombers. Wever proposed using a strategic bomber to reduce these factories, ending the Soviet ability to fight even without the need for ground forces to advance. Under the Ural bomber program, he began secret talks with two of Germany's leading aircraft manufacturers, Dornier and Junkers, requesting designs for a long-range bomber.

Quail was designed in the mid-1950s when the normal attack profile for a strategic bomber was to fly as high and fast as possible in order to reduce the time the defenders had to respond to the aircraft before it flew out of range. This was effective against interceptor aircraft but of little use against surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), whose attack times were measured in seconds. This led to the adoption of low-level attacks, where the bombers would fly below the radar horizon so they could not be seen on ground-based radars. Quail, originally designed for the high- altitude mission, was modified with the addition of a barometric altimeter to allow it to fly at lower altitudes.

During the Cold War prior to the 1970s and 1980s, the primary heavy strategic bomber of the United States Air Force was the B-52 Stratofortress. However, the development of more sophisticated Airborne Early Warning and Control (AWACS) technology rendered the B-52 more vulnerable to attacks from the ground and enemy fighters. The Air Force saw a need for a bomber that could go faster, was more maneuverable, and could still deliver a substantial payload to its target. This led to the development of the B-1A Lancer in the early to mid 1970s. The B-1A program was cancelled in 1977 but was later brought back by President Reagan in 1981 under its new and current designation, the B-1B.

The squadron moved into the jet age when it received new, swept wing Boeing B-47 Stratojets in 1955 which were designed to carry nuclear weapons and to penetrate Soviet air defenses with its high operational ceiling and near supersonic speed. The squadron flew the B-47 for about a decade when by the mid-1960s it had become obsolescent and vulnerable to new Soviet air defenses. The squadron began to send its Stratojets to the Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Center at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona for retirement in 1965, and the unit inactivated in 1966. The squadron reactivated as a General Dynamics FB-111A Aardvark strategic bomber squadron in 1970 when aircraft became part of SAC's nuclear deterrent force.

The JSPG also drafted a longer- range war plan based on Broiler called Bushwacker, for a war starting on 1 January 1952, and one codenamed Charioteer, for one in 1955 that assumed that Western Europe had already been overrun and a strategic air campaign was called for. The planners had no political guidance as to what the ultimate objective of the war would be, so it was assumed that it would be to drive the Soviet Union back to its 1939 borders. A B-29 Superfortress. These bombers were the mainstay of the strategic bomber force in the late 1940s. The same scenario as Pincher was envisaged, and the Joint Intelligence Staff's assessment of Soviet Union's capabilities remained substantial: it could mobilize as many as 245 divisions.

This UAV (4.6 km) and simulator a strategic bomber aircraft (186 km), tactical missile (range of the system to the point of interception 34 km and a height of 17.7 km) and also against pinpoint missile. Although none of the S-300 versions have fired a missile in a conflict, it is considered a very capable SAM system that poses a significant hazard even to the most advanced aircraft or other airborne targets. In April 2005, NATO had a combat exercise in France and Germany called Trial Hammer 05 to practice Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses missions. Participating countries were pleased that the Slovak Air Force brought an S-300PMU along, providing a unique opportunity for NATO to become familiar with the system.

Following victory in the Second World War, the RAF underwent significant re-organisation, as technological advances in air warfare saw the arrival of jet fighters and bombers. During the early stages of the Cold War, one of the first major operations undertaken by the Royal Air Force was in 1948 and the Berlin Airlift, codenamed Operation Plainfire. Between 26 June and the lifting of the Russian blockade of the city on 2 May, the RAF provided 17% of the total supplies delivered during the event, using Avro Yorks, Douglas Dakotas flying to Gatow Airport and Short Sunderlands flying to Lake Havel. The Handley Page Victor bomber was a strategic bomber of the RAF's V bomber force used to carry both conventional and nuclear bombs.

This commonality would have also significantly reduced the costs of software integration. In February 2003, during a session with the House Committee on Armed Services, Air Force Secretary James Roche said that he envisioned a force of 150 FB-22s would equip the service. In 2004, Lockheed Martin officially presented the FB-22 to the Air Force to meet its requirement for a potential strategic bomber as an interim solution to become operational by 2018. Because of the work already done on the F-22, the cost of developing the FB-22 was estimated to be as low as 25% of developing a new bomber, with development expected to be US$5–7 billion (2002 dollars), including the airframe cost of US$1 billion (2003 dollars).

A Rockwell B-1B strategic bomber is readied for testing at Trestle in 1989. Note the elevated Marx generator to the right, the aircraft platform in the center, the sensor towers to the sides of the platform and the resistive termination tower at the rear. The electromagnetic pulse was produced by a pair of Marx generators built by Maxwell Laboratories of San Diego, California. The generators were mounted on pedestals constructed of wood in the same manner as the main test platform, one on each side of a large wedge shaped steel structure which acted as a ground plane for the horizontally polarized pulse. Each Marx generator consisted of a stack of 50 trays, each containing two large capacitors and a plasma switch.

Four U.S. Air Force Rockwell B-1B Lancer from the 128th Bomb Squadron, 19 April 2002 In 1992 as part of the post Cold-War reorganizations of the Air Force, the 116th converted to the Air Force Objective organization and the 128th was assigned to the new 116th Operations Group. In 1992 Tactical Air Command was inactivated and the 116th was assigned to the new Air Combat Command (ACC). After calling Dobbins AFB home for 50 years, the 116th was presented with a new challenge in 1996. The wing simultaneously converted from the F-15 Eagle fighters to the Rockwell B-1B Lancer strategic bomber and moved 110 miles south to Robins Air Force Base east og Warner Robins, Georgia.

Before World War II, American airplane manufacturer Boeing had responded to a government solicitation for a large strategic bomber. Its proposal, the B-17 Flying Fortress, was considered "too big" by some members of Congress when additional financing was requested for the project. Fearing the project would be canceled and hoping to salvage something from the design effort, Boeing President Claire Egtvedt, who was aware that fledgling airline companies Trans World Airlines and Pan American World Airways were seeking the ability to operate their airliners above most of the frequent low-level turbulence on their routes, proposed that those airlines underwrite the cost of creating a pressurized airliner from components of the B-17. The Model 307 airliner would utilize the B-17's wings and tail.

On 14 September and the following night Tedder ordered every available aircraft to support the Fifth Army, including the strategic bomber force. Over 1,000 tons of bombs were dropped during the daylight hours.Molony, p. 314. Hampshire Regiment manning a 3-inch mortar at Salerno, 15 September 1943. On 15 September both the 16th Panzer and 29th Panzergrenadier Divisions went on the defensive, marking the end to the thrust towards Paestum.Molony, p. 316. Further north the Schmalz group of the Hermann Göering Division achieved surprise, attacking the 128th (Hampshire) Brigade (comprising three battalions, the 2nd, 1/4th and 5th, of the Hampshire Regiment), of the British 46th Division, on the high ground east of Salerno. The armoured column following up was intercepted and driven back, leaving the German infantry exposed.

As a result, high-speed medium-bombers such as the Heinkel He 111, Dornier Do 17, and Junkers Ju 88 were developed, with much initial success. While some large strategic bomber programs were initiated, most notable the Ural Bomber project, which morphed into the He 117 Program, without a proponent of strategic bombing in the upper echelons of the Luftwaffe, the programs saw little progress, and would ultimately be developed too late into the war to have any meaningful effect. Walther Wever funeral On 3 June 1936 Wever flew from Berlin to Dresden, to give a lecture at the Luftkriegsschule Klotzsche to a gathering of Luftwaffe cadets. When he received the news of the death of World War I German hero Karl Litzmann, he immediately set off for Berlin.

The H-6K, first flying on January 5, 2007, entered service in October 2009 during the celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the People's Republic of China, and is claimed to make China the fourth country with a strategic bomber after US, Russia and the United Kingdom. With a reinforced structure making use of composite materials, enlarged engine inlets for Russian Soloviev D-30 turbofan engines giving a claimed combat radius of , a glass cockpit with large size LCD multi-function display, and a reworked nose section eliminating the glazed navigator's station in favour of a more powerful radar, the H-6K is a significantly more modern aircraft than earlier versions. Six underwing hardpoints for CJ-10A cruise missiles are added. The rear 23 mm guns and gunner position are replaced by electronic components.

In the case of an aircraft attacking a larger target like a factory, the high-angle attacks of the Stuka would not be needed, but a shallower angle, sometimes known as "glide bombing" would be enough. Glide bombing would increase the accuracy to the point that a single aircraft would have a reasonable chance of hitting a factory, instead of having a fleet of aircraft drop a huge number of bombs in hopes that some would hit the target. Udet and others in the Luftwaffe began to see the Bomber not as the strategic bomber that Wever argued for, but what was essentially a long-range Stuka. The mock- up aircraft was completed in November 1937, and on 5 November 1937 it was allocated the official RLM airframe type number "8-177".

After World War II it was equipped with Avro Lincoln bombers, an update of the Lancaster. Based at RAF Upwood, the Lincoln was for several years the front line cold war bomber aircraft. It was used in the Malayan emergency, the Middle East, the Trucial States (the Emirates) and then Aden. The squadron disbanded on 2 January 1956 before reforming with the Vickers Valiant at RAF Honington in Suffolk in December that year, flying them in the Strategic Bomber role until disbanding in 1962. 7 Squadron was eventually reformed in 1970, this time as a target squadron flying the English Electric Canberra until January 1982.Ashworth 1989, pp. 41–42. The squadron quickly reformed in the Support Helicopter role, receiving Chinooks HC.1s in September 1982.Ashworth 1989, p. 42.

It had been alleged by Canadian historian Holger Herwig that both in November 1940 and May 1941, leading into and through to the period in which Japan began planning the naval attack that would bring the United States into the war, that Hitler had stated that he had a desire to "deploy long-range bombers against American cities from the Azores." Due to their location, Hitler seemed to think that a Luftwaffe airbase located on the Portuguese Azores islands were Germany's "only possibility of carrying out aerial attacks from a land base against the United States", in a period about a year before the May 1942 emergence of the Amerika Bomber trans-oceanic range strategic bomber design competition.Duffy, James P. Target America: "Hitler's Plan to Attack the United States". The Lyons Press, 2006. .

Within minutes, F-16Cs arrived and engaged the Fedayeen vehicles, another Fedayeen convoy attempted to outflank ODA 525 but ran into the guns of ODA 524, after 4 hours of constant and punishing airstrikes on the encircling Fedayeen, eight GMVs of ODA 521 and 525 managed to extract the exposed reconnaissance team under the cover of a B-1B strategic bomber, the vehicles withdrew to ODB 520s staging area south of Ar Rutbah. Over 100 Fedayeen fighters were killed and four armed technicals were destroyed. To the west ODA 523 reinforced ODA 524, but ran into a pair of armed technicals on the highway, both were destroyed by the GMVs, the Green Berets ceased fire when a civilian station wagon full of Iraqi children drove into the middle of the firefight.

The sheer size of the Soviet Union dictated that a bombing mission would be a 12-hour affair there and back from bases in Europe or Alaska, most of it over Soviet territory. Also the weather, which was bad enough in Western Europe, would make bombing missions impossible over the Soviet Union between October and May. With no long-range jet fighters yet available to perform escort missions for the strategic bomber force, the mission of the 27th FEW was to fly these long- range missions with their F-82Es. The F-82E had a range of over , which meant that with external fuel tanks it could fly from London to Moscow, loiter for 30 minutes over the target, and return, the only American fighter which could do so.

Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Office of Air Force History, 1984. . The 301st Bombardment Wing at MacDill Air Force Base, Florida received some B-50As reassigned from Davis–Monthan in early 1951, but used them for non-operational training pending the delivery of B-47A Stratojets in June 1951. The B-50 was built as an interim strategic bomber to be replaced by the B-47 Stratojet, but delays to the Stratojet forced the B-50 to soldier on until well into the 1950s. A strategic reconnaissance version of the B-50B, the RB-50 was developed in 1949 to replace the aging RB-29s used by SAC in its intelligence gathering operations against the Soviet Union. Three different configurations were produced, which were later redesignated RB-50E, RB-50F, and RB-50G respectively.

The radar was a landmark in aviation since it was the first time a PESA radar (previously found only on ground-based systems and the B-1 strategic bomber) had been installed in a jet fighter. The Zaslon radar was publicly unveiled at the 1991 Paris Airshow with its associated MiG-31 interceptor, the Russians even removing the radome of the fighter to allow the Zaslon's revolutionary antenna to be seen. Also at Paris was the US F-117 Nighthawk (revolutionary for its use of stealth technology) which the Russians suggested should take to the air with the MiG-31 to see if the Zaslon could detect the F-117. Unfortunately no such contest was ever conducted though Russian experts were confident that Zaslon would have been able to detect the F-117 during flight.

From the perspective of others, however, the proposed airborne units had a key weakness: they required exactly the same resources as the new strategic bomber capability, another high priority, and would also compete with the badly stretched strategic air lift capability, essential to Churchill's strategy in the Far East.Slessor, John "Some Reflections on Airborne Forces" Army Quarterly, 1948, p161. It took the continued reintervention of Churchill to ensure that sufficient aircraft were devoted to the airborne project to make it viable. Britain's first airborne assault took place on February 10, 1941 when, what was then known as II Special Air Service (some 37 men of 500 trained in No. 2 Commando plus three Italian interpreters), parachuted into Italy to blow up an aqueduct in a daring raid named Operation Colossus.

The post-war U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey studies supported the overall notion of strategic bombing, but underlined many of its shortcomings as well. Attempts to create pioneering examples of "smart bombs" resulted in the Azon ordnance, deployed in the European Theater and CBI Theater from B-24s. The only operational strategic bomber with the Luftwaffe in World War II was the troubled Heinkel He 177. Following the untimely death of the top German advocate for strategic bombing, General Walther Wever in early June 1936, the focus of Nazi Germany's Luftwaffe bomber forces, the so- named Kampfgeschwader (bomber wings) became the battlefield support of the German Army as part of the general Blitzkrieg form of warfare, carried out with both medium bombers such as the Heinkel He 111, and Schnellbombers such as the Junkers Ju 88A.

While on station in the Aegean Sea under the guise of a hydrographic survey mission, the crew of Royal Navy electronic intelligence vessel HMS Ariadne witnesses two disasters at once, a mysterious strategic bomber crashing into the sea and a large pleasure yacht on fire and sinking. The plane turns out to have been loaded with nuclear weapons, and the survivors rescued from the yacht (who include a wealthy Greek tycoon) appear somehow connected with the plane's destruction. With potential saboteurs aboard, Commander Talbot and the crew of the Ariadne must raise the one activated weapon before it can explode, setting off the others by sympathetic detonation and causing the nearby volcano of Santorini to explode in a tremendous eruption which would bring on a devastating tsunami and possibly a worldwide nuclear winter.

The mutual-security cooperation of the two countries and their central Asian neighbours is facilitated by the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) which was founded in 2001 in Shanghai by the leaders of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. The announcement made during the SCO summit that Russia resumes on a permanent basis the long-distance patrol flights of its strategic bombers (suspended in 1992)Russia restores Soviet-era strategic bomber patrols, 17 August 2007, RIA Novosti, Russia. in the light of joint Russian-Chinese military exercises, first-ever in history held on Russian territory, SCO Scares NATO , 8 August 2007, KM.ru made some experts believe that Putin is inclined to set up an anti-NATO bloc or the Asian version of OPEC. Russia Over Three Oceans , 20 August 2007, "Chas", Latvia.

The He 111 was now being asked to perform in the role of the strategic bomber. Despite the fact that it lacked the load-carrying capacity of later heavy bombers, the He 111 still carried enough destructive power to cause severe damage to strategic targets; the de Havilland Mosquito factory near Bristol was devastated by Kampfgeschwader 53 on 30 August. A month later, the Woolston Supermarine Spitfire factory was destroyed largely by He 111s of Kampfgeschwader 55 on 26 September, forcing the factory's closure and dispersal, though the disruption to production was, at that time, not as serious as it would have been in July/August 1940.Mackay 2003, p. 85. He 111s were fitted with the Knickebein and used it for blind- bombing during the Blitz, leading to the Battle of the Beams.

Emblem of the 9th Reconnaissance Wing 9th SRW Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird In the early 1970s SAC began to consolidate its B-52 assets as the age of the manned bomber was reduced with the advent of Intercontinental Strategic Ballistic Missiles. In addition, by 1966 the cost of the Vietnam War was forcing a review of the Defense Budget and by consolidating the strategic bomber force, also retiring older Stratofortresses, a significant cost reduction could be achieved. On 15 October 1964, the Department of Defense announced that Beale would be the home of the new, supersonic reconnaissance aircraft, the SR-71 Blackbird. The provisional 4200th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing (4200 SRW) activated on 1 January 1965 in preparation for the realignment, and the new wing received its first aircraft, a T-38 Talon, on 8 July 1965.

F-111K cutaway diagram The F-111K was to be based around the airframe of the original F-111A version built for the U.S. Air Force, but was to feature a number of alterations and adaptations. Structurally, the aircraft would be similar to F-111A with the heavy duty undercarriage from the strategic bomber version. This allowed for a greater gross weight to be designed into the aircraft. The other major design change from the F-111A was in its avionics, with the design calling for the Mark II package developed for the F-111D version, which featured a new inertial navigation and attack system, incorporating the Rockwell International AN/APQ-130 attack radar, an IBM on- board computer, the Marconi AN/APN-189 doppler navigation radar and the Sperry Corporation AN/APQ-128 terrain following radar.

Dyagilevo (also given as Dyagilevo, Ryazan Dyagilevo) is an air base in Ryazan Oblast, Russia located 3 km west of Ryazan. It has served as a training center for Russia's strategic bomber force. In 1955 it was one of only 6 Soviet bases capable of handling the Myasishchev M-4 bomber. In 1967 it had 7 Tupolev Tu-22s used for training. In 1973 it received 2 Tu-22M0 aircraft. It was also home to 43 TsBPiPLS (43rd Center for Combat Application and Training of Air Crew) which included the Tu-22M, Tu-95MS, and Tu-134UBL trainer. In 1985 the 49 TBAP (49th Heavy Bomber Aviation Regiment) arrived at Dyagilevo, flying Tu-22M and Tu-95 aircraft and eventually converting into an ITBAP (training regiment). The 49th Regiment was part of the 43rd Centre, and eventually disbanded in 1997.

From 1 April to 1 October 1968 and 26 March to c. 21 March 1968, more than one-half of the wing was deployed to Andersen AFB, Guam to support SAC operations in Southeast Asia. FB-111A dropping Mark 82 practice bombs during a training mission over Nomans Land On 1 December 1969 was wing redesignated as the 509th Bombardment Wing, Medium and began receiving the FB-111A strategic bomber in December 1970. The FB-111A was the all-weather strategic bombing version of the Tactical Air Command F-111 which was equipped to carry the AGM-69 SRAM that carried a nuclear warhead with an explosive yield of 200 kilotons. The 509th would operate the aircraft for two decades. Won the SAC Bombing and Navigation competition and the Fairchild trophy in 1979, 1981, 1982, and 1983.

The Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighter escorts had not been equipped to carry enough fuel to guard the bombers on both the outbound and return journeys, and the longer-range Bf 110s could be outmaneuvered by the short-range British fighters. (A bizarre feature of the war was how long it took to conceive of the Drop tank.) The air defense was well organized and equipped with effective radar that survived the bombing. As a result, German bombers were shot down in large numbers, and were unable to inflict enough damage on cities and military-industrial targets to force Britain out of the war in 1940 or to prepare for the planned invasion. Nazi Germany put into production only one large, long-range strategic bomber (the Heinkel He 177 Greif, with many delays and problems), while the America Bomber concept resulted only in prototypes.

Wind tunnel model of the Victory Bomber at the Brooklands Museum The British "Victory Bomber" was a Second World War design proposal by British inventor and aircraft designer Barnes Wallis while at Vickers-Armstrongs for a large strategic bomber. This aircraft was to have performed what Wallis referred to as "anti-civil engineering" bombing missions and was to have carried his projected "earthquake bomb" to strategic targets in Germany. The Victory Bomber was considered extremely ambitious: the Royal Air Force (RAF) at that time not yet having introduced four-engine heavy bombers, and to give the necessary performance, the Victory Bomber was to have six engines and was highly specialised to its role. The project was studied in detail, the bomber proceeding to wind tunnel testing while the earthquake bomb to equip it was tested on representative models.

The "V bombers" were the Royal Air Force (RAF) aircraft during the 1950s and 1960s that comprised the United Kingdom's strategic nuclear strike force known officially as the V force or Bomber Command Main Force. The three models of strategic bomber, known collectively as the V class, were the Vickers Valiant, which first flew in 1951 and entered service in 1955; the Avro Vulcan, which first flew in 1952 and entered service in 1956; and the Handley Page Victor, which first flew in 1952 and entered service in 1957. The V Bomber force reached its peak in June 1964 with 50 Valiants, 70 Vulcans and 39 Victors in service. When it became clear that the Soviet Union's surface-to-air missiles like the S-75 Dvina could bring down high-flying aircraft, the V bomber force changed to low-level attack methods.

A3D-1 at Naval Air Station Jacksonville, Florida in the 1950s During World War II, the United States Navy (USN) began to explore the concept of operating jet- powered aircraft from its aircraft carriers. Success encouraged further development of the concept; early in the post-war years, officials within the USN began to investigate the use of jet power as a potential means of operating larger carrier-based aircraft that would be capable of performing the strategic bombing mission. The USN had a growing awareness that it could operate in a broader role that had been previously possible, and that the strategic bomber fleet operated by the United States Air Force (USAF) was unable to reach large parts of the world, a limitation that was not present upon its aircraft carrier fleet and their air wings.Gunston and Gilchrist 1993, p. 128.

Unfortunately for its pilots and military passengers, by the outbreak of World War II, the Ju 52 was a thoroughly obsolete military design and unlike many other famous Luftwaffe aircraft, the Tante Ju was cumbersome, slow, and therefore vulnerable to attack. This resulted in many losses, namely at Crete and Stalingrad. The abortive Amerika Bomber design competition for a trans-Atlantic range strategic bomber saw the Junkers firm build two prototypes of its six-engined Junkers Ju 390, basically a stretch of the four-engined Ju 290 transport — competing against the trio of Me 264 four-engined prototypes as the only fully airworthy competitors for the contract, which had included designs from Focke-Wulf and Heinkel that were never built, with the competition ended in July 1944 due to the developing need for interceptors to defend the Reich.

Israeli Air Force F-15I Ra'am The F-15I is operated by the Israeli Defense Force/Air Force No 69 Squadron, succeeding the F-4 Phantom II. It is used akin to a strategic bomber due to its long range, high munition capacity and advanced systems. After the Gulf War in 1991, in which Israeli towns were attacked by SCUD missiles based in Iraq, the Israeli government decided a long range strike aircraft was needed, issuing a Request for Information (RFI). In response, Lockheed Martin offered a version of the F-16 Fighting Falcon, while McDonnell Douglas offered both the F/A-18 Hornet and the F-15E. On 27 January 1994, the Israeli government announced their intention to buy 21 modified F-15Es, designated F-15I. On 12 May 1994, the US Government authorized the purchase of up to 25 F-15Is by Israel.

In the United States, this led to the introduction of the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment to computerize this task, while in the UK it led to enormously powerful radars to improve detection time The introduction of the first useful surface-to-air missiles in the 1950s obviated the need for fast reaction time interceptors as the missile could launch almost instantly. Air forces increasingly turned to much larger interceptor designs, with enough fuel for longer endurance, leaving the point- defense role to the missiles. This led to the abandonment of a number of short-range designs like the Avro Arrow and Convair F-102 in favor of much larger and longed-ranged designs like the North American F-108 and MiG-25. Only the USSR seriously continued interceptor design after the 1960s, as only the USAF continued to make use of a powerful strategic bomber force.

Gr. 21 never had a major effect on the combat box formations of Fortresses. The Luftwaffe also fitted heavy-calibre Bordkanone-series 37, 50 and even cannon as anti-bomber weapons on twin-engine aircraft such as the special Ju 88P fighters, as well as one model of the Me 410 Hornisse but these measures did not have much effect on the American strategic bomber offensive. The Me 262, however, had moderate success against the B-17 late in the war. With its usual nose-mounted armament of four MK 108 cannons, and with some examples later equipped with the R4M rocket, launched from underwing racks, it could fire from outside the range of the bombers' defensive guns and bring an aircraft down with one hit, as both the MK 108's shells and the R4M's warheads were filled with the "shattering" force of the strongly brisant Hexogen military explosive.

RAAF Canberra Mk.20 of No. 2 Squadron during a strike out of Phan Rang Air Base, Vietnam, March 1970 The Menzies government first publicly discussed the need for replacing the English Electric Canberra in 1954, only a year after the RAAF began receiving the bomber.Weisbrod 1969, p. 7. The non- supersonic Canberra lacked radar and electronic countermeasures, all disadvantages based on Korean War experience. The RAAF believed that it needed a new strategic bomber to fulfill the nation's obligations to the Commonwealth Strategic Reserve in Malaysia, ANZUS, and SEATO. Air Staff Requirement 36 that year mandated an all-weather attack aircraft by 1959 capable of delivering a variety of bombs and missiles. A study recommended one of the British V bombers, but Prime Minister Robert Menzies' Minister of Defence Frederick Shedden decided in 1956 that at £1 million each they were too expensive.Lax 2010, pp. 9–10, 13–14.

Development of the XNBL-1 (Experimental Night Bomber, Long Range) Barling Bomber is generally attributed (the press called it "Mitchell's Folly") to William "Billy" Mitchell, a U.S.Army Air Service General and most vocal advocate of strategic airpower, who in 1919 discovered Walter H. Barling, who had previously worked for the Royal Aircraft Factory. Mitchell asked Barling to design a bomber capable of carrying enough bombs to sink a battleship. Mitchell's goal was to demonstrate the effectiveness of airpower by sinking a battleship from the air, and needed a large, strategic bomber in order to accomplish this feat. Mitchell projected the cost of two prototype bombers at $375,000. On 15 May 1920, the Army Engineering Division sought bids for the construction of a bomber based on Barling's sketches, with the requirement that it be capable of carrying a bomb load, to an altitude of at a speed of no less than .

Bombers listed below were used in the main or represented a shift in long-range bomber design (Maximum bomb load). In practice, bomb loads carried are dependent on factors such as the distance to target and the individual type, size or weight of bombs used. Nomenclature for size classification of aircraft types used in strategic bombing varies, particularly since the time of World War II due to sequential technological advancements and changes in aerial warfare strategy and tactics. The B-29, for example was a benchmark aircraft of the heavy bomber type at end of World War II due to its size, range and load carrying ability; as the Cold War began, it became an intercontinental range strategic bomber with the development of new techniques, such as aerial refueling (which also greatly extended the range of other medium- to long-range bombers, fighter-bombers and attack aircraft).

During the winter months, when thick ice prevented navigation on the lakes, the trio were employed elsewhere, sometimes on charter to other lines. Manchester Progress, 5,620 grt, opened a regular mid-summer service to Churchill, Manitoba, on Hudson Bay in 1954, during the short ice-free season, bringing back grain shipped to the port by rail from the Canadian Prairies. Captain F. Struss, survivor of sinkings in both wars, retired in March 1954 after forty years service, the last ML Commodore who had gained his master's ticket in sail. That same year the Great Lakes service was extended to Chicago, and ML's pre-1914 service to the southern US ports of Charleston, Savannah, and Jacksonville was resumed. A USAF RB-36 "Peacemaker" ten-engined strategic bomber suffered engine fires on 5 August 1954, while en route from Travis AFB California to RAF Lakenheath Suffolk.

The primary user of the F-94 were the squadrons of Air Defense Command (ADC), eventually equipping 26 squadrons of interceptors. The first F-94As were assigned to the 325th Fighter-All Weather Group at McChord AFB and Moses Lake AFB, Washington. Baugher Lockheed F-94A It replaced the propeller-driven F-82F Twin Mustangs that were in use by its 317th, 318th, and 319th squadrons. The F-82s had been pressed into interceptor service in 1949 after the Soviet Union displayed the Tupolev Tu-4 strategic bomber, a reversed-engineered version of the B-29 Superfortress, some of which had landed and were impounded in the Soviet Far East during World War II. The F-82Fs proved to be an excellent day/night all- weather interceptor, with long range, but it lacked any logistics support which resulted in a chronic shortage of parts.

In March 1953, all of the Convair company was bought by the General Dynamics Corporation, a conglomerate of military and high-technology companies, and it became officially the Convair Division within General Dynamics. After the beginning of the Jet Age of military fighters and bombers, Convair was a pioneer of the delta-winged aircraft design, along with the French Dassault aircraft company, which designed and built the Mirage fighter planes. One of Convair's most famous products was the ten-engined Convair B-36 strategic bomber, burning four turbojets and turning six pusher propellers driven by Pratt & Whitney R-4360 Wasp Major radial piston engines. The Convair B-36 was the largest landbased piston engined bomber in the world. The Atlas missile, the F-102 Delta Dagger and F-106 Delta Dart delta-winged interceptors, and the delta-winged B-58 Hustler supersonic intercontinental nuclear bomber were all Convair products.

The flying wing design most closely resembles a so-called infinite flat plate (as vertical control surfaces dramatically increase RCS), the perfect stealth shape, as it would lack angles to reflect back radar waves (initially, the shape of the Northrop ATB concept was flatter; it gradually increased in volume according to specific military requirements). Without vertical surfaces to reflect radar laterally, side aspect radar cross section is also reduced. Radars operating at a lower frequency band (S or L band) are able to detect and track certain stealth aircraft that have multiple control surfaces, like canards or vertical stabilizers, where the frequency wavelength can exceed a certain threshold and cause a resonant effect. Illustration of the B-2's basic radar reflection angles RCS reduction as a result of shape had already been observed on the Royal Air Force's Avro Vulcan strategic bomber,Dawson 1957, p. 3.

In the 1950s Alakurtti was being monitored by the US intelligence community for development into a strategic bomber base capable of reaching the US, SOVIET CAPABILITIES FOR ATTACK ON THE US THROUGH 1957, CIA-RDP79R01012A003400040001-1, Central Intelligence Agency, Washington, DC, February 24, 1954. but Soviet Long Range Aviation began developing nearby Olenya air base instead. The airfield then took on an air defense role in the 1950s, hosting a fighter division of the 22nd Air Army,SOVIET AIR DEFENSE INSTALLATIONS OF ADVANCED DESIGN LOCATED AT KRASNO-VODSK, MURMASHI AND ORSK IN THE USSR, CIA-RDP78T05439A000400390047-8, Central Intelligence Agency, Washington, DC, October 2, 1959. subordinate to an air defense center at Severomorsk. As Alakurtti is only 50 km (30 miles) from the border with Finland, a significant Army presence has existed since the Cold War era. The 85th Separate Helicopter Squadron of the 6th Army Air Force and Air Defense operated Mi-8 and Mi-24 helicopters.

Machulishchy (also given as Machulishche) is an air base in Minsk Region, Belarus located 13 km (8 miles) south of Minsk. It has served as a strategic bomber base for the Soviet Union. It also served as a Soviet Air Defence Forces interceptor base.FLOGGER G AT PVO AIRFIELDS, USSR, CIA- RDP80T01355A000100800001-9, Central Intelligence Agency, Washington, DC, August 1, 1980. The primary operator was the 121st Guards Heavy Bomber Aviation Regiment. Machulishchy was one of nine major operating locations for the Tupolev Tu-22 Blinder in the mid-1960s.PROBABLE ASM ASSOCIATED CONSTRUCTION ACTIVITY, SELECTED SOVIET AIRFIELDS, CIA- RDP78T05161A001000010061-1, Central Intelligence Agency, Washington, DC, October 1, 1966. In August 1960, six Tu-22 aircraft from Machulishchy deployed to Olenya air base in the arctic region under naval control, indicating the regiment had a dual Navy-Air Force mission serving an anti-surface warfare role.(UNTITLED), CIA-RDP89B00569R000600020011-5, Central Intelligence Agency, Washington, DC, July 6, 1962.

An anti-ICBM defensive ABM system was first considered by the US Army in 1955 under the name Nike II. This was essentially an upgraded version of their Nike B surface-to-air missile (SAM) along with dramatically improved radars and computers able to detect the incoming reentry vehicles (RVs) and develop tracking information while still leaving enough time for the interceptor missile to climb to its altitude. Zeus had limited traffic handling capabilities, designed to deal with a small number of attacking missiles arriving over a period of as long as an hour. It was calculated that an attack of only four missiles arriving within one minute would allow one of the warheads to pass by while the system was busy attacking others, making it relatively easy to attack the Zeus base. However, in an era when ICBMs cost about the same as a strategic bomber, such an attack would cost an enormous amount.

This aircraft was too complex and difficult to develop without support from the Air ministry and other larger concerns, such as Fiat. None was forthcoming, and while Piaggio was still struggling to fine-tune and produce the P.108B, there were many other requests for the 'C' model airliner, the P.108T military transport, and the 'A' anti-ship versions. Finally, there was also the new strategic bomber, the P.108bis or P.133 to be developed as the "final solution" for Italian bombers, and other projects, such as the P.126, P.127, P.130 to be considered. Following the P.108Bs' last missions, a few P.108T transports continued to be used until the end of the war, mainly on the Eastern Front when Germany needed to evacuate their encircled troops, even carrying over 100 troops at a time (maximum load was 12 tonnes/13 tons, the total payload was around 14 tonnes/15 tons).

The 193 AOW is based at the Harrisburg Air National Guard Base (former Olmstead AFB) at Harrisburg International Airport in Middletown, Pennsylvania. The U.S. Navy's EC-130Q Hercules TACAMO ("Take Charge and Move Out") aircraft was a land-based naval aviation platform that served as a SIOP strategic communications link aircraft for the U.S. Navy's Fleet Ballistic Missile (FBM) submarine force and as a backup communications link for the USAF manned strategic bomber and intercontinental ballistic missile forces. To ensure survivability, TACAMO operated as a solo platform, well away from and not interacting with other major naval forces such as sea-based aircraft carrier strike groups and their carrier air wings or land-based maritime patrol aircraft Operated by Fleet Air Reconnaissance Squadron THREE (VQ-3) and Fleet Air Reconnaissance Squadron FOUR (VQ-4), the EC-130Q was eventually replaced by the U.S. Navy's current TACAMO platform, the Boeing 707-based E-6 Mercury.

West German F-104G with a ZELL-Verfahren rocket booster and a B-43 nuclear bomb at Gatow, Germany. Carrier aircraft included most USAF, USN and USMC fighters, bombers and attack aircraft, including the A-3 Skywarrior, A-4 Skyhawk, A-5 Vigilante, A-6 Intruder, A-7 Corsair II, B-47 Stratojet, B-52 Stratofortress, B-58A Hustler, F-100 Super Sabre, F-105 Thunderchief, F-4 Phantom II, F-104 Starfighter, FB-111A strategic bomber variant, F-15E Strike Eagle, F-16 Fighting Falcon and the F/A-18 Hornet. The B-1B Lancer was also intended to carry the B43, though it remains unclear whether this particular aircraft was ever type-approved to carry the B43 prior to the B-1's reassignment to conventional strike roles. The B43 was also supplied for delivery by Royal Air Force Canberra and Valiant aircraft assigned to NATO under the command of SACEUR.

The image from the radar's cathode ray tube was projected onto the turret's gunsight, allowing the gunner to fire on targets in complete darkness, with corrections for lead and bullet drop being automatically computed. Due to it having the frequency that it did, it might potentially be spotted by any Luftwaffe night fighter fitted with the Funk- Gerät 350 Naxos radar detection system, which was primarily used to home in on the earlier H2S bombing radar system's emissions. One important development for the Luftwaffe that never made it onto its larger night fighters or strategic bomber designs, would have been the Borsig firm's "quadmount", hydraulically-powered Hecklafette HL 131V manned tail turret, fitted with a quartet of the firm's own MG 131 machine guns. Prototype examples of the HL 131V were trialed in the late spring and summer of 1943 on a trio of He 177A-3 examples set aside as the V32 through V34 prototypes.

Bergström 2007, p. 117 The successes of the German air arm were offset by the losses which unlike the Soviet Air Force could not be replaced easily as the German economy had not yet been put on a full war footing. Losses in personnel were also high and irreplaceable with 3,231 killed, 2,028 missing and 8,453 wounded.Bergström 2007, p. 118 The campaign in Russia had commenced with an insufficient number of combat aircraft. The reduction in serviceable aircraft, in particular dive- bombers, meant medium bomber and fighter-bomber units were rushing to 'hot- spots' to prevent enemy gains. Arguably the lack of a strategic bomber force denied the Luftwaffe the opportunity to attack Soviet industry and would prove fatal to the success of the campaign, as Soviet production continued to increase which would help them maintain high numbers of aircraft and gain numerical and then, briefly, air superiority in November/December 1941.

The single-spar all-metal wing was designed to serve as a fuel tank and its depth at the wing root was only slightly less than the height of the fuselage. The fuselage was of virtually rectangular section with space for five crew members, consisting of two pilots seated side-by-side with the radio operator directly behind in the front compartment, while a navigator and a flight engineer were housed in the rear fuselage under a stepped, glazed station.Green 1970, p. 617. Power came from four Daimler-Benz DB 601 engines, coupled together in pairs in a "power system" known as the DB 606, weighing 1.5 tonnes apiece and debuting in February 1937. The DB 606 "power systems" were originally developed for both the "single"-engined Heinkel He 119 high- speed reconnaissance aircraft, and the Heinkel He 177 strategic bomber, but the Me 261's design housed the DB 606 "power systems" in nacelles that afforded significantly better access for maintenance and ventilation of the "twinned" DB 601 component engines in each one, than the Heinkel heavy bomber possessed.

Military aviation first began as either army or naval aviation units established as force multipliers to allow armies and navies to better do what they were already doing, this taking mostly the form of reconnaissance and artillery spotting, this led to the first fighter aircraft whose purpose was to shoot down enemy reconnaissance and artillery spotting aircraft, and to protect one's own aircraft from being shot down. At this point the purpose of aircraft was still to act as an adjunct to traditional armies and fleets operating in the traditional way. However, as aircraft became more technologically sophisticated military theorists of the interwar period began to think of airpower as a means in and of itself where the critical blow could be delivered by strategic bombing, and the experience of World War II confirmed this. Post World War II air forces such as the Royal Air Force and the newly established United States Air Force concentrated on building strategic bomber forces for attack and fighter forces to defend against enemy bombers.

One view is that the SR-71 program was terminated due to Pentagon politics, and not because the aircraft had become obsolete, irrelevant, suffered maintenance problems or had unsustainable program costs. In the 1970s and early 1980s, SR-71 squadron and wing commanders were often promoted into higher positions as general officers within the USAF structure and the Pentagon. (In order to be selected into the SR-71 program in the first place, a pilot or navigator (RSO) had to be a top- quality USAF officer, so continuing career progression for members of this elite group was not surprising.) These generals were adept at communicating the value of the SR-71 to a USAF command staff and a Congress who often lacked a basic understanding of how the SR-71 worked and what it did. However, by the mid-1980s, these SR-71 generals all had retired, and a new generation of USAF generals wanted to cut the program's budget and spend its funding on new strategic bomber programs instead, especially the very expensive B-2 Spirit.

A People's Republic of China (PRC) air and missile analyst, he participated in national level current and crisis analyses of the Sino-Soviet border mobilizations, Chinese strategic bomber and missile development and deployment, and the 1974 Paracel Island conflict between the PRC and Vietnam. During this tour of duty, Wilson was promoted to Lieutenant, augmented into the regular Navy, and changed his designator from reserve unrestricted line (1105) to special duty intelligence (1630). Following graduation from the Defense Intelligence College in May 1975 LT Wilson transferred to USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63) home-ported in San Diego, CA. He served as the Division Officer for the ship's Intelligence Division and as the Multi-Sensor Interpretation (MSI) Officer in the ship's Integrated Operational Intelligence Center (IOIC) during a six-month deployment to the western Pacific Ocean in 1975. KITTY HAWK changed home ports from San Diego to Bremerton, WA, in March 1976 where the ship underwent a one-year overhaul, during which LT Wilson managed the ship's force rehabilitation of all intelligence division working and berthing spaces.

Heilbronn in 1945 Dresden in 1945 A pile of bodies in Dresden awaiting cremation, February 1945 Before the D-Day invasion in 1944, Harris was ordered to switch targets for the French railway network, a switch he protested because he felt it compromised the pressure being applied to German industry and using Bomber Command for a purpose it was not designed or suited for. By September the Allied forces were well inland; at the Quebec Conference it was agreed that the Chief of the Air Staff, Royal Air Force (Portal), and the Commanding General, U.S. Army Air Forces (Arnold), should exercise control of all strategic bomber forces in Europe. Harris received a new directive to ensure continuation of a broad strategic bombing programme as well as adequate bomber support for General Eisenhower's ground operations. The mission of the strategic air forces remained "the progressive destruction and dislocation of the German military, industrial and economic systems and the direct support of Land and Naval forces".Pogue 1954, p. 273.

One of the four contra-rotating propellers on a Tu-95 Russian strategic bomber In the 1950s, the Soviet Union's Kuznetsov Design Bureau developed the NK-12 turboprop. It drives an 8-blade contra-rotating propeller and, at , it is the most powerful turboprop in service. Four NK-12 engines power the Tupolev Tu-95 Bear, the only turboprop bomber to enter service, as well as one of the fastest propeller-driven aircraft. The Tu-114, an airliner derivative of the Tu-95, holds the world speed record for propeller aircraft. The Tu-95 was also the first Soviet bomber to have intercontinental range. The Tu-126 AEW aircraft and Tu-142 maritime patrol aircraft are two more NK-12 powered designs derived from the Tu-95. The NK-12 engine powers another well- known Soviet aircraft, the Antonov An-22 Antheus, a heavy-lift cargo aircraft. At the time of its introduction, the An-22 was the largest aircraft in the world and is still by far the world's largest turboprop-powered aircraft.

The engine was intended to be used only on the largest of designs, notably the Focke-Wulf Fw 238, the Focke-Wulf Ta 400 six- engined Amerikabomber design competition competitor, and other large bombers. The big, 6-BMW 801-engined Ta 400 was proposed in 1942 as an upgraded version of the never-produced Focke-Wulf Fw 300, and was meant to compete directly against the Messerschmitt Me 264, Junkers Ju 390, and by the timeframe of February 1943; what became Heinkel's Amerikabomber contract design, the Heinkel He 277 — itself meant to be powered by only a quartet of 1,470 kW (1,973 hp) output BMW 801E radials from the start — for the May 1942-approved Amerika Bomber contract, for a trans-Atlantic range strategic bomber designed to attack New York City from European bases. The projected range was enough for the round trip from France to New York, but it was of course never realized. The Focke-Wulf firm even intended to use the BMW 803 powerplant for single-seat fighter design, and it also appeared on several Blohm & Voss designs as well.

The USAF also does not want to buy and maintain large numbers of MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper systems in order to have an aircraft that would have the ability to penetrate denied airspace and persistently provide ISR coverage. The RQ-180 may also be responsible for the termination of the Next-Generation Bomber program in 2009 from costs, and the emergence of the follow-on Long Range Strike Bomber (LRS-B) program that would be cheaper and work with the UAV. The USAF MQ-X program that was to find a platform to replace the Reaper may have been cancelled in 2012 because of the RQ-180. Creation of the RQ-180 is believed to be related to the LRS-B program, which will have a new strategic bomber operate with a "family of systems" including a Long Range Stand Off Weapon, conventional Prompt Global Strike missiles, and electronic attack and ISR platforms; the RQ-180 would appear to fill the electronic attack and ISR roles.

32 The JSOC task force in the country, Task Force 11—manned by a squadron from DEVGRU, a Ranger company, and supported by a company from the 160th SOAR conducted occasional hostage rescue missions. In September 2005, a British security contractor was kidnapped by Taliban insurgents in Farah province, the JSOC Task Force managed to locate where he was being held—in the mountainous region off Bala Boluk—however, the Taliban murdered the hostage after the JSOC Task Force (rescue attempt carried out by DEVGRU) attempted to rescue him. In 2006, a six-man RRD (Regimental Reconnaissance Detachment) team from the 75th Ranger Regiment attached to the JSOC Task Force inserted into the Hindu Kush mountain range after intelligence indicated an insurgent chief, Haqqani, would be entering Afghanistan from Pakistan. After establishing an OP at a position almost 4,000m above sea level, the RRD team waited and watched for their target, as insurgents arrived into the area, the Ranger team was spotted and fired upon. In response, the RRD's attached JTAC called in an orbiting B-1B strategic bomber to 'pummel' the insurgents, an estimated 100 were killed in the airstrikes but Haqqani was not among them.

On 25 January 2008, Boeing and Lockheed Martin announced an agreement to embark on a joint effort to develop a new US Air Force strategic bomber, with plans for it to be in service by 2018.. This collaborative effort for a long-range strike program will include work in advanced sensors and future electronic warfare solutions, including advancements in network-enabled battle management, command and control, and virtual warfare simulation and experimentation.. Under their joint arrangement, Boeing, the No. 2 Pentagon supplier, would be the primary contractor with about a 60% share, and Lockheed Martin, the world's largest defense contractor, would have around a 40% share, according to sources familiar with the companies' plans.. Northrop Grumman, another major defense contractor, received $2 billion in funding in 2008 for "restricted programs" – also called black programs – for a demonstrator that could fly in 2010.. The Air Force was expected to announce late in 2009 its precise requirements for a new bomber that would be operating by 2018.. In May 2009, testimony before Congress, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates mentioned that the Pentagon is considering a pilotless aircraft for the next-generation bomber role..

Cabin In October 1932, the British industrial conglomerate Vickers-Armstrongs decided to tender for the Air Ministry Specification B.9/32, which called for the development of a twin- engined medium bomber.Barfield 1972, p. 146. During late 1934, by which point the company was already in the midst of developing their Type 271 design, to meet the needs of Specification B.9/32, Vickers received a draft requirement for a larger bomber. The draft specification developed into Air Ministry Specification B.1/35, which sought a twin-engined heavy (by the standards of the day) strategic bomber. The aircraft was intended to make use of more powerful engines, in the range of 1,000 hp, that were being developed, to enable the bomber to be faster and carry a heavier bombload than the earlier B.3/34 specification. Among the requirements of Specification B.1/35 was a speed of no less than 195 MPH while flying at 15,000 feet, a range of 1,500 miles while carrying a payload of 2,000 lb of bombs, along with a limitation on the wingspan to less than 100 feet, while the engines were also to be furnished with variable-pitch propellers.

Great Britain used aircraft to suppress revolts throughout the Empire during the interwar period and introduced the first military transports, which revolutionized logistics, allowing troops and supplies to be quickly delivered over vastly greater distances. Vickers Victoria heavy transport USAAF Consolidated B-24 Liberator long range maritime patrol aircraft While they first appeared during World War I, ground attack aircraft didn't provide a decisive contribution until the Germans introduced Blitzkrieg during the Invasion of Poland and Battle of France, where aircraft functioned as mobile flying artillery to quickly disrupt defensive formations. The Allies would later use rocket-equipped fighters in the same role, immobilizing German armored divisions during the Battle of Normandy and afterwards. World War I also saw the creation of the first strategic bomber units, however, they wouldn't be tested until the Spanish Civil War where the perceived effects of mass bombardment would encourage their widespread use during World War II. Carrier aviation also first appeared during World War I, and likewise came to play a major role during World War II, with most major navies recognizing the aircraft carrier's advantages over the battleship and devoting massive resources to the building of new carriers.

During the 1950s the U.S. Strategic Air Command also briefly brought back the outdated term "medium bomber" to distinguish its Boeing B-47 Stratojets from somewhat larger contemporary Boeing B-52 Stratofortress "heavy bombers" in bombardment wings; older B-29 and B-50 heavy bombers were also redesignated as "medium" during this period.Strategic-Air-Command.com, 509th Composite Group, 509th Bombardment Wing SAC's nomenclature here was purely semantic and bureaucratic, however as both the B-47 and B-52 strategic bombers were much larger and had far greater performance and load-carrying ability than any of the World War II-era heavy or medium bombers. Other aircraft such as the twin- jet US FB-111, Douglas A-3 Skywarrior and France's Dassault Mirage IV had nominal warloads of less than , and were significantly smaller in size and gross weight compared with their strategic bomber contemporaries, based on which they might be classified as medium bombers. In the nuclear strike role, France would replace its Mirage IVs beginning in the late 1980s with the even smaller, single-engine Mirage 2000N fighter-bomber, a further example of advancing technologies and changing tactics in military aviation and aircraft design.

The Avro Vulcan was a strategic bomber used during the Cold War to carry conventional and nuclear bombs. After victory in World War II, the RAF was to be further re-organized, as technological advances in air warfare saw the arrival of jet fighters and bombers. The first significant Cold War action of the RAF was its support to the Berlin Airlift in 1948 and 1949 which was originally designated Operation Knicker and Operation Carter-Paterson and later titled Operation Plainfare. Although the United Kingdom did not base any RAF squadrons in Korea during the Korean War, the Independent reported that 41 RAF officers seconded to serve with the United States Air Force, several RAF pilots saw action while on exchange with the USAF, mainly flying F-86 Sabres, they were credited with seven kills. At least one pilot was killed when his F-84E Thunderjet was shot down by anti-aircraft fire on 2 January 1952 as he attempted to strafe a column of trucks near Sunsan, a village north of Pyongyang.RAF Museum British Military Aviation in 1952 Other RAF pilots flew Meteors in Royal Australian Air Force squadrons on ground support attacks.

The Bf 109 was the backbone of the day Jagdwaffe (fighter force) throughout the war. Unlike the Germans, prior to the war the RAF and the USAAF (under the command of General Henry H. Arnold), developed strategic bomber forces. From 1942 onwards their bombers penetrated deep into Reich's territory in increasing numbers. This forced the Luftwaffe to substantially increase the fighter allocation to the Western Front in 1943, which in the Allied intelligence estimate, accounted for 60% of the total, with the Russian Front allocated 22% and the Mediterranean Front 18% of its fighters.p.196, Kreis, John F., (ed), Piercing the fog: Intelligence and Army Air Forces Operations in World War II, Air Force History and Museums Program, Bolling Air Force Base, Washington, D.C., 1996 The British had tried to convince the Americans that daylight bombing could not be accomplished as Allied fighters lacked the range to escort bombers to and from the target. Initially the British were to be proved right, as by the end of 1943 losses nearly halted daylight raids. The USAAF maintained an unescorted daylight bombing campaign of industrial targets until October 1943, when it lost 120 bombers in two raids on Regensburg and Schweinfurt.

In the aftermath of the Second World War, Britain identified a threat posed by the jet-powered strategic bomber and atomic weaponry and thus placed a great emphasis on developing aerial supremacy through continuing to advance its fighter technology, even following the end of conflict. Gloster Aircraft, having developed and produced the only British jet aircraft to be operational during the war, the Gloster Meteor, sought to take advantage of its expertise and responded to a 1947 Air Ministry requirement for a high-performance night fighter under Air Ministry specification F.44/46. The specification called for a two-seat night fighter, that would intercept enemy aircraft at heights of up to at least 40,000 feet. It would also have to reach a maximum speed of 525 kn at this height, be able to perform rapid ascents and attain an altitude of 45,000 feet within ten minutes of engine ignition.Allward 1983, p. 6. Additional criteria given in the requirement included a minimum flight endurance of two hours, a takeoff distance of 1,500 yards, structural strength to support up to 4g manoeuvres at high speed and for the aircraft to incorporate airborne interception radar, multi-channel VHF radio and various navigational aids.

However, their use in the strategic bomber role was determined to be less than optimal; allegedly, the Vautour's performance was commonly considered to be marginal and suitable for use as a stop gap measure at best. The deficiencies of the type contributed to France issuing a more stringent requirement calling for a new high performance bomber aircraft to be developed to perform the strategic mission. While efforts were made by Sud Aviation to design improved variants of the Vautour to conform with the new demands, the AdA opted to pursue rival aircraft company Dassault Aviation's proposal, which eventually resulted in the deployment of the Mirage IV, which eventually succeeded the Vautour in the bombing role in French service. As early as 1955, preliminary agreements for Israel's procurement of the Vautour were being drawn up and advanced plans being laid for its deployment.Crosbie 2015, p. 56. During early 1957, the type was officially selected to replace the British-built de Havilland Mosquito then in service the Israeli Air Force (IAF). On 1 August 1957, the first Vautour arrived in Israel, delivered secretly via French air bases in Tunisia and with AdA markings. The planes were delivered at a rate of 1 or 2 per month.

The Twin Mustang was developed at the end of the prop-driven fighter era and at the dawn of the jet age. Its designed role as a long-range fighter escort was eliminated by the atomic bombing of Japan and the sudden end of World War II. With the rapid draw-down of the armed forces after the war, the newly established United States Air Force had little money for new prop-driven aircraft, especially since jets, such as the Messerschmitt Me 262 and other Luftwaffe fighters, had been faster than P-51 Mustangs in the skies of Germany in late 1944. The completed airframes (less engines) of the P-82 pre-production aircraft already manufactured by North American went into storage, with an uncertain future. However, during the 1947 Soviet Aviation Day display at Tushino Airport, a surprise appearance was put in by three Boeing B-29s, followed by a fourth four-engined long-range strategic bomber. It was an example of the Tupolev Tu-4, which was a reverse-engineered copy of the B-29 Superfortress, three examples of which were known to have been interned in the Soviet Union after having been forced to land there during bombing raids against Japan in WWII.

Post-war, North American's employment dropped from a high of 91,000 to 5,000 in 1946. On V-J Day, North American had orders from the U.S. government for 8,000 aircraft. A few months later, that had dropped to 24. Two years later in 1948, General Motors divested NAA as a public company. Nevertheless, NAA continued with new designs, including the T-28 Trojan trainer and attack aircraft, the F-82 Twin Mustang fighter, B-45 Tornado jet bomber, the FJ Fury fighter, AJ Savage, the revolutionary XB-70 Valkyrie Mach-3 strategic bomber, Shrike Commander, and T-39 Sabreliner business jet. XB-70 Valkyrie The Columbus, Ohio division of North American Aviation was instrumental in the exclusive development and production of the A-5 Vigilante, an advanced high speed bomber that would see significant use as a naval reconnaissance aircraft during the Vietnam War, the OV-10 Bronco, the first aircraft specifically designed for forward air control (FAC), and counter-insurgency (COIN) duties, and the T-2 Buckeye Naval trainer, which would serve from the late 1950s until 2008 and be flown in training by virtually every Naval Aviator and Naval Flight Officer in the US Navy and US Marine Corps for four decades.

Reactivated under Strategic Air Command in late 1946 and equipped with B-29 Superfortresses. One of the first operational B-29 squadrons of SAC, the squadron was not fully manned or equipped until 1948. Trained for strategic bombardment missions during the postwar years; began upgrading to the new B-50 Superfortress, an advanced version of the B-29 in 1948. The B-50 gave the unit the capability to carry heavy loads of conventional weapons faster and farther as well as being designed for atomic bomb missions if necessary. By 1951, the emergence of the Soviet Mig-15 interceptor in the skies of North Korea signaled the end of the propeller-driven B-50 as a first-line strategic bomber. Replaced the propeller-driven B-50s with new B-47E Stratojet swept-wing medium bombers in 1954, capable of flying at high subsonic speeds and primarily designed for penetrating the airspace of the Soviet Union. In the late 1950s, the B-47 was considered to be reaching obsolescence, and was being phased out of SAC's strategic arsenal. Began sending aircraft to other B-47 wings as replacements in late 1959. Moved to Carswell AFB, Texas in early 1960, in preparation for receiving the new B-58 Hustler supersonic medium bomber, sending the last of its B-47s to AMARC in early 1960.