Watch online Tail On The Air with subtitles in 4K
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tail On The Air
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Air Force's Last Tail Gunner Has Retired. Whenever someone retires, it marks the end of an era in their personal life. Air Force Chief Master Sergeant Rob Wellbaum leaves the service he’ll end an entire era of aerial combat as America’s last bomber tail gunner. On May 1. 2, 2. 01.
Wellbaum retired after three decades in the Air Force. When he first joined up in 1.
Specialty Code 1. X0—Aerial Defense Gunner.“I went into the recruiter’s office and asked them what jobs they had for enlisted . The gunner job sounded like the coolest job out of the three so that is what I applied for.”For the next five years, he served in that role on a B- 5. Stratofortress bomber. This aircraft – more lovingly referred to as the Big Ugly Fat Fellow, or BUFF – was the last in service to even have a tail gun. USAFChief Master Sergeant Rob Wellbaum and his family pose in front of one of the 1. Wing's KC- 1. 0A Extender tankers.
When the first B- 5. Boeing’s plant in Seattle in 1. For more than a decade at that point, American heavy bombers, as well many smaller attack and maritime patrol aircraft had featured various guns for self- protection against enemy fighters and interceptors.
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The American workhorses of World War II, Boeing’s B- 1. Flying Fortress and Consolidated’s B- 2.
Liberator both bristled with machine guns by the end of their service life. Both companies specifically designed the armament configurations to provide maximum coverage. So, in addition to weapons in the nose and sticking out the sides and the top and bottom of the fuselage, another gunner’s position was installed in the tail.
From there a member of the crew could cover the vulnerable rear flank. The U. S. Army Air Force’s entire bomber doctrine revolved around this defensive armament. The lumbering aircraft would fly together in tight “boxes” in order to provide mutually supporting firepower. Over Germany especially, American crews suffered horrific losses until sufficient escorting aircraft became available. After one raid on Nazi factories in Schweinfurt on Oct.
Eight Air Force effectively lost more than 2. With the Schweinfurt missions went the virtual end of the idea that the heavy bomber could . Boeing’s B- 2. 9 Superfortress, which became iconic of the fight against the Japanese, still had multiple machine gun positions, including then state- of- the- art remote control dorsal and ventral turrets.
Its particularly deadly tail gun position, often referred to as the plane’s “stinger,” packed a pair of . M2 machine guns flanking a single 2. M2 cannon. But with the Japanese Army and Navy air arms all but crushed, American crews began leaving some or all of those weapons back at base to reduce weight and increase flying time. Many immediate post- war bomber designs for the brand new, separate Air Force continued to come with full suites of defensive weapons. The B- 5. 0, a suped- up B- 2. The initial prototypes of Consolidated’s massive B- 3. Peacemaker had numerous, retractable remotely- operated turrets with 2.
But technological advances were making much of this obsolete. Most importantly, surface- to- air and air- to- air missiles gave anti- aircraft teams on the ground and fighter pilots the ability to attack bombers from increasingly long distances, well outside of the range of a bomber’s guns. USAFThe tail gun position on a B- 5. D. So, Boeing’s B- 4.
Stratojet and B- 5. On both aircraft, tail guns were the only traditional defensive weapons.
Nearly all of the B- 5. M3 machine guns, each firing at a rate of 1,2.
The ultimate version, the B- 5. H, came with a single 2. M6. 1 Vulcan cannon, able to spit out up to 1.
In addition, the air search radar for the guns was powerful enough to act as a navigational aid and help keep bombers in formation, according to an article in Air Force Magazine. On top of that, it could help guide trailing bombers in a single cell toward their destination through bad weather. Still, physically separated from the rest of the crew at the other end of the plane’s enormous fuselage, it sounds like it would have been a lonely job. However, starting with the B- 5.
G, the gunner joined the rest of the crew in the main cabin. The Air Force Magazine piece explains this was done in order to allow the crew to better coordinate during the flight and finally put the gunner in an ejection seat like everyone else, but . At the same time, electronic countermeasures and chaff to jam and confuse enemy radars, along with bright- burning flares to distract heat- seeking missiles, increasingly became the primary means of defense. Fast- forward to the 1. B- 5. 2 was Americans sole remaining heavy bomber.
It was also the service’s last aircraft to even feature a tail gun, whatever its utility might have been at that point. Over Southeast Asia, B- 5. D bombers scored just two kills. Both instances occurred over North Vietnam in 1. USAFA B- 5. 2H bomber with its tail gun still installed. I expended 8. 00 rounds in three bursts.”A gunner in another nearby B- 5. Moore had blasted a North Vietnamese Mi.
G- 2. 1. This was the last time a tail gunner from any air force scored a kill.“On the way home I wasn't sure whether I should be happy or sad. You know, there was a guy in that Mi. G,” Moore wrote afterwards. But it was a case of him or my crew. I'm glad it turned out the way it did. Do I want another Mi. G? No, but given the same set of circumstances, yes, I'd go for another one.
It now sits near the north entrance to the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Moore died in 2. 00. After the Vietnam War ended, the Air Force continued to train enlisted personnel like Chief Master Sergeant Wellbaum to man the guns on the remaining B- 5. After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1. My decision to eliminate the guns from the . Butler, then head of Strategic Air Command (SAC), wrote to the aerial gunner community in the fall of 1. The service’s 1. 11.
X0s, including Wellbaum, transitioned to other jobs. Neither the B- 1 Bone nor the B- 2 Spirit bombers ever had tail guns.“We knew something was in the works but we weren’t expecting to be cut,” Wellbaum said of the Air Force’s decision to remove the BUFF’s weapons for good and eliminate tail gunners. His last position was as the superintendent of the 1. Watch Turner Risk full movie with english subtitles UHD. Operations Group, the flying component of Pacific Air Force’s composite 1. Wing, which is situated at Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii. Update 5/1. 6/2. 01.
Since this story was published, multiple readers have reached out to inform us that there are in fact other former aerial defense gunners still on duty. Initially, it appeared as if the 1.
Wing's public affairs office had only been referring to individuals within the active component and not counted personnel who had gone on to serve in the Air National Guard. However, a representative of the Air Force Gunners Association explained that there were in fact at least two of its members still in active component units. Its unclear how the error occurred, but it seems safe to say that the last B- 5. Contact the author: jtrevithickpr@gmail. Don't forget to sign up.
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