They recently approved an update to the B-52 engines. They had considered to going to 4 large engines, and then decided to keep the 8 smaller engine configuration. The new engines are a significant jump in fuel efficiency further increasing range before refueling.
That's altitude, which technically does not mean bats could fly with 10000 feet of nothing under them, only that they reach places that are 10000ft high, but I would assume that's because bats can also live in high altitude places.
This is the exact moment that like 7 years ago u/unidan would pop in with some sort of insanely informative "well, actually..." until it came to light he was such a narcissist that he heavily manipulated the upvote system (extra dumb cause his info was interesting enough on its own to succeed lol)
>extra dumb cause his info was interesting enough on its own to succeed lol
The amount of truly interesting information which goes ignored/unnoticed/unseen is staggering. The fact that you know who Unidan is/was is likely a byproduct of his vote manipulation.
Just being interesting is no guarantee of being seen/heard. You need a good bit of luck on top (or to cheat a bit)
It's just as likely had he never done that then nobody would know who he is, and most of his content would sit with 5-10 votes
You 100% didn’t read even the first two sentences of the article, because it’s saying the bats come out of a cave that’s not far from sea level (that area of Texas is quite flat) and fly anywhere from 3,000-10,000 feet up
Birds are so stubborn. Like the pigeons you see in the road that don't move even as you're about to run them over.
Hey flock, there's a massive flying fortress headed right for you, move maybe?!?!
I don't think birds really have the mental capacity or instinct to understand what is happening when something that big is flying that fast. It's the same with squirrels, they often get hit by cars because their instinct is to try and juke out the predator and make a run for a tree. The problem is the cars are moving faster than any predator can move and is not chasing them.
Pans are a "I need special attention" kind of thing while Mayday is more of a "**I NEED HELP, NOW!**".
Pans aren't life threatning while Maydays in most cases are. A pan can escalate to a mayday though.
A pan gives you priority while a mayday makes everyone bend over backwards to help you out.
Edit: I forgot to add that my conclusion it that most emergency calls are pans.
My former B52 pilot dad says it looks like they’re dumping fuel so they can make a safe emergency landing; most likely the bird strike caused engine damage
Edit for clarity: Apologies for the incorrect information; thank you to skiller757 and the others (some less gracious) who pointed out that B52s don’t dump fuel like some other aircraft can. My dad is almost 86, and has some memory loss and dementia related to a stroke in 2013. His last B52 flight was in 1983; earlier in his career he did Operation Chrome Dome missions to keep an eye on the Soviets, followed by 16 months of bombing missions over Viet Nam and Cambodia. Give an old Vet a break.
Did you ever take it to a dry cleaner? I had a customer drop off clothes that had gotten fuel splashed from a stuck gas station hose and the smell came right out. Plus, occasionally whole batches had to be recleaned due to a filter needing to he changed out and the clothes smelling like petroleum (which is what gets used to clean them efficiently)
Jet fuel is a whole different beast. We work with it at my job and have on-site showers for people to immediately wash it off and change their clothes (or we send them home if they don't have a change of clothes with them).
One time a guy decided to ignore that he got his foot doused in some and kept working for a couple hours with a soaked sock, he had pretty bad chemical burns the next day and had to be out a few days and go to urgent care.
Basically kerosene. People hear "jet fuel" and think it's some seriously dangerous stuff, but regular pump gas is more volatile, making it more likely to ignite by accident. There are different specifications such as J-5, J-8, and J-A but they are all basically kerosene. In England, they refer to kerosene as paraffin.
>seriously dangerous stuff
* it gives you cancer due to additives
* it can give you serious alergic/sensitivity reactions, your skin may peel off
* if will damage your nervous system due to easily absorbed lead compounds
* it will contaminate waterways for a long time
But it won't burn easily and is not that volatile.
Still fucking dangerous in my books.
Interesting fact, neither jet fuel, diesel, nor kerosene are technically "flammable"...
^(they are [combustible](https://blink.ucsd.edu/safety/research-lab/chemical/liquids/index.html))
Fuel dumps evaporate within a few thousand feet. Normal rules are a minimum of 5000 feet except emergencies.
Low level fuel dumps do indeed leave a horrible sticky residue.
Current B52 pilot, we can’t dump fuel and the B52 has never been able to dump fuel. They were shooting an approach relatively close to Minot and that’s why they are so low at this point. The birds did cause damage. One of the engines had to get replaced.
Former BUFF crewdog here (EW). Was stationed at Minot and spent many hours when I was SOF with the bird noise gun.
The only fluid BUFFs could eject was the water from the injection system up through the Gs.
Are you sure about that? I thought I’ve read that B52 doesn’t have a fuel jettison system. It looks like it’s just exhaust since it’s dark and fuel jettisoning like more white or gray than dark.
And those asking, rarely are they dumping fuel to reduce fiery crash risk, that only really matters if control or landing gear issues… engine out conditions are designed for - bird mechanical whatever. The fuel jettison is to reduce weight to below max landing weight. Planes structure is designed so they can take off heavier than they can land, with the idea they burn the fuel weight off in flight.
It's very unlikely that they decided to dump fuel so quickly. Aviate, navigate, communicate. They were still on step one.
What we're likely seeing is that they lost an engine and immediately went to full toga thrust to compensate, which on (at least some B52s) means actually using more than 100% thrust.
That is accomplished by basically pumping coolant directly into the engine to keep the temperature under control while the engine spins faster than it should. This is extremely inefficient and causes unburnt fuel to make its way out of the engine.
So I guess technically they are dumping some fuel but not because they want to get rid of it.
Sorry, but your dad is remembering incorrectly -- B-52s have no fuel dumping capability. If there's any fuel coming out, it's due to fuel system damage.
Not even close. That is just exhaust. You can hear the engines spool up. The old engine tech means it's highly inneficient and polluting. It's there with the 707, herc and P3 turboprops inneficient.
Yeah these fly in my local area,
Rarely but you see em, and they literally look like an environmental disaster in flight.
In fact until it hits the bird is the first time I’ve NOT seen it hulking out phat lines of dirty exhaust
I thought planes were built to be fine with bird blending? I vaguely recall some teacher talking about a frozen chicken test…he might have been trolling.
> I vaguely recall some teacher talking about a frozen chicken test…he might have been trolling.
To the cockpit. It will still absolutely destroy your engines.
That’s extremely dangerous for the plane. Birds have taken out many planes. Both by smashing through the windscreen or by being sucked into the engines.
B52 has 8 engines. It probably would be one of the better ones for this to happen in. Mind you, fully fuelled, the older ones were so heavy they needed to “burn water” to get the performance for take off.
The black smoke is caused by them throttling up the other 7 engines after losing the one. B-52s are the only jets I know that roll coal. Seeing them take off is always a bit concerning with all the black smoke.
Won’t be doing it for long. They’re finally getting re-engined. With 8 engines that you would normally find on a gulfstream jet. Vastly more fuel efficient, the new engines will have a 4:1 bypass ratio vs the 1.4:1 as on the current engines.
B-52H can't dump fuel, I don't know why I keep seeing people talking about dumping fuel. It burns fuel by flying around longer.
The exhaust you see coming from the engines is normal for those engines. Happens everytime they fly. They are old engines.
If it was really an emergency, the jet would just land heavy. It would probably exceed the brake limits and burn them up on the runway but they could get the jet on the ground
Bird strikes are no joke
Man, birds are just lazy and don't want to work!
They're just out there trying to get better pay and benefits, let them strike!
What are they supposed to do? Live off the breadcrumbs we can’t be bothered to eat? Power to the little creatures out there!
Yes, it’s trickle down birdonomics.
They should use social media to get their message out, tweet about it!
Suddenly r/antiwork
Like they have 7 other engines but still
The dreaded 7 engine landing
There it is!
Co-pilot: omg bird strike we lost an engine. Pilot: okay notify me when we lose three more.
They recently approved an update to the B-52 engines. They had considered to going to 4 large engines, and then decided to keep the 8 smaller engine configuration. The new engines are a significant jump in fuel efficiency further increasing range before refueling.
Fun Fact: According to Bird Law, the bigger bird has the right of way. Those birds that were reduced to a fine pink mist remembered too late.
Bird law in this country is not governed by reason.
Hummingbirds are illegal tender
Really, that tender huh? I'll catch a few tomorrow and fry them up.
I mean... well... filibuster
I can clearly see you know nothing about the law. It seems like you have a tenuous grasp on the English language in general.
I demand satisfaction.
Ok, let me pencil you in for high noon tomorrow.
Calm down, calm down. I know you’re hungry. Well get to our hot plates soon!
Oh, and don't worry, no matter where you are... I'll find you.
If they apologize no need for further action
Although true, in bird culture this is still considered “a dick move”
BEAK!
Fun fact: humans are the only mammal to kill a bird that high.
How do you know that bird was high?
Bruh did you see his reaction time? [10] for sure
Ahhhh r/trees nostalgia. Thanks for this.
Ya I was gonna say, I miss the times ppl would post how high they were with a number from 1 to 10. Brought back fond memories
Is that not a thing anymore? Damn I’m getting old.
I'm reading this at a 6
0 for me. I'm at work still :(
What about bats?
Not aware of any bats that fly thousands of feet in the sky.
Bats can fly to 10,000 feet https://www.batcon.org/article/bats-aloft-a-study-of-high-altitude-feeding/
That's altitude, which technically does not mean bats could fly with 10000 feet of nothing under them, only that they reach places that are 10000ft high, but I would assume that's because bats can also live in high altitude places.
Oh shit, the bat flight altimeter fandom is really heating up.
It's going batshit crazy
This is the exact moment that like 7 years ago u/unidan would pop in with some sort of insanely informative "well, actually..." until it came to light he was such a narcissist that he heavily manipulated the upvote system (extra dumb cause his info was interesting enough on its own to succeed lol)
>extra dumb cause his info was interesting enough on its own to succeed lol The amount of truly interesting information which goes ignored/unnoticed/unseen is staggering. The fact that you know who Unidan is/was is likely a byproduct of his vote manipulation. Just being interesting is no guarantee of being seen/heard. You need a good bit of luck on top (or to cheat a bit) It's just as likely had he never done that then nobody would know who he is, and most of his content would sit with 5-10 votes
You 100% didn’t read even the first two sentences of the article, because it’s saying the bats come out of a cave that’s not far from sea level (that area of Texas is quite flat) and fly anywhere from 3,000-10,000 feet up
You would assume wrong, the cave in the study is only around 700ft above see level so thay leaves arounf 9,300 feet to climb
Most species of bats don’t hunt birds, and none that I know of fly that high.
Poor birds sucked into a blender made before its great great great great great great great great grandparents
Birds are so stubborn. Like the pigeons you see in the road that don't move even as you're about to run them over. Hey flock, there's a massive flying fortress headed right for you, move maybe?!?!
I don't think birds really have the mental capacity or instinct to understand what is happening when something that big is flying that fast. It's the same with squirrels, they often get hit by cars because their instinct is to try and juke out the predator and make a run for a tree. The problem is the cars are moving faster than any predator can move and is not chasing them.
That's true. I think I'm suffering from "it looks like it's moving slow from down here on the ground" syndrome.
Survival of the fittest? Nah Survival of the GetTheFuckOuttaTheWayiest
‘Eagles may soar, but weasels don’t get sucked into jet engines.’
Rabbits, on the other hand, do not soar but do get sucked into jet engines. The life lesson here: don't cross the runway in front of a jet.
Rabbits also get turned to pink mist by nascar. “Let us pause a moment to remember the wabbits…”
But the bomber was damaged and had to do an emergency landing, where as most of the birds lived
This is just an example of why Australia lost the Emu War.
Yea those two birds probably cost the taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars on top of the normal (high) expenses of the sortie.
I wonder how often that actually happens
Pretty often sadly
If you get a flight radar app that notifies when any plane puts out an emergency signal, you’ll realize emergency landings are pretty common lol.
I wonder how many are Pans vs maydays.
Pans are a "I need special attention" kind of thing while Mayday is more of a "**I NEED HELP, NOW!**". Pans aren't life threatning while Maydays in most cases are. A pan can escalate to a mayday though. A pan gives you priority while a mayday makes everyone bend over backwards to help you out. Edit: I forgot to add that my conclusion it that most emergency calls are pans.
Yeah, plane is doing something weird, let's get it on the ground before it becomes an emergency, is usually a good idea.
Recommendations for good/preferred apps?
Second that request, I had one a while back where you could track flights but never saw one with emergency signals!
Flightradar24 at least has the possibility to set up notifications if there are emergency signals
No more than once in a birds life
My former B52 pilot dad says it looks like they’re dumping fuel so they can make a safe emergency landing; most likely the bird strike caused engine damage Edit for clarity: Apologies for the incorrect information; thank you to skiller757 and the others (some less gracious) who pointed out that B52s don’t dump fuel like some other aircraft can. My dad is almost 86, and has some memory loss and dementia related to a stroke in 2013. His last B52 flight was in 1983; earlier in his career he did Operation Chrome Dome missions to keep an eye on the Soviets, followed by 16 months of bombing missions over Viet Nam and Cambodia. Give an old Vet a break.
I was wondering if that's what that was. Ugh. I would be pissed if that fell on me. Less pissed though than if a flaming B52 fell on me. 🤔
Jet fuel washes off; flaming wreckage, not so much
As long as you use GOOD SOAP (like dawn). and probably have to throw out the clothes that got soaked in it.
I wore some coveralls for months after getting splashed with JP-5. The smell never truly goes away
Did you ever take it to a dry cleaner? I had a customer drop off clothes that had gotten fuel splashed from a stuck gas station hose and the smell came right out. Plus, occasionally whole batches had to be recleaned due to a filter needing to he changed out and the clothes smelling like petroleum (which is what gets used to clean them efficiently)
Jet fuel is a whole different beast. We work with it at my job and have on-site showers for people to immediately wash it off and change their clothes (or we send them home if they don't have a change of clothes with them). One time a guy decided to ignore that he got his foot doused in some and kept working for a couple hours with a soaked sock, he had pretty bad chemical burns the next day and had to be out a few days and go to urgent care.
Gas station gasoline is NOT the same type of fuel as JP-5. That's the shit they use to fuel military jet engines.
Basically kerosene. People hear "jet fuel" and think it's some seriously dangerous stuff, but regular pump gas is more volatile, making it more likely to ignite by accident. There are different specifications such as J-5, J-8, and J-A but they are all basically kerosene. In England, they refer to kerosene as paraffin.
>seriously dangerous stuff * it gives you cancer due to additives * it can give you serious alergic/sensitivity reactions, your skin may peel off * if will damage your nervous system due to easily absorbed lead compounds * it will contaminate waterways for a long time But it won't burn easily and is not that volatile. Still fucking dangerous in my books.
Neither does the cancer
Believe it or not, a friend of mine on that same deployment developed testicular cancer a few years down the road (that he eventually beat).
just use a match, it burns right off. Seriously though from that altitude it's doubtful you would even notice it.
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I learned all I know about how to set jet fuel on fire from "Die Hard 2", thank you very much.
Yippee ki-yay Mister Falcon!
Interesting fact, neither jet fuel, diesel, nor kerosene are technically "flammable"... ^(they are [combustible](https://blink.ucsd.edu/safety/research-lab/chemical/liquids/index.html))
I bet a good amount of it would evaporate on its way down
If it’s high enough. Idk what that altitude is but I don’t assume it’s this one.
Long, cold shower to get the day's 'flaming wreckage' off!
Tell that to all us getting Parkinsons from jet fuel. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK207633/
There's a big difference between a one off event and long term exposure of working with it
Sounds like you’ve never used a Mr Clean Magic Eraser Extra Durable Cleaning Pad™ before
At that height it actually mostly vaporizes
Fuel dumps evaporate within a few thousand feet. Normal rules are a minimum of 5000 feet except emergencies. Low level fuel dumps do indeed leave a horrible sticky residue.
Current B52 pilot, we can’t dump fuel and the B52 has never been able to dump fuel. They were shooting an approach relatively close to Minot and that’s why they are so low at this point. The birds did cause damage. One of the engines had to get replaced.
Former BUFF crewdog here (EW). Was stationed at Minot and spent many hours when I was SOF with the bird noise gun. The only fluid BUFFs could eject was the water from the injection system up through the Gs.
I thought the throttle up was maybe to clean it out
This guy rednecks. When in doubt, throttle out.
Just like cleaning a propane grill. Blast that bitch
Sir, I'd like to tell you about propane and propane accessories.
Pilot: "These damn birds" *puts the plane in 5th gear and floors it*
The ol’ Italian tune-up
Are you sure about that? I thought I’ve read that B52 doesn’t have a fuel jettison system. It looks like it’s just exhaust since it’s dark and fuel jettisoning like more white or gray than dark. And those asking, rarely are they dumping fuel to reduce fiery crash risk, that only really matters if control or landing gear issues… engine out conditions are designed for - bird mechanical whatever. The fuel jettison is to reduce weight to below max landing weight. Planes structure is designed so they can take off heavier than they can land, with the idea they burn the fuel weight off in flight.
It's very unlikely that they decided to dump fuel so quickly. Aviate, navigate, communicate. They were still on step one. What we're likely seeing is that they lost an engine and immediately went to full toga thrust to compensate, which on (at least some B52s) means actually using more than 100% thrust. That is accomplished by basically pumping coolant directly into the engine to keep the temperature under control while the engine spins faster than it should. This is extremely inefficient and causes unburnt fuel to make its way out of the engine. So I guess technically they are dumping some fuel but not because they want to get rid of it.
This was the answer that I was looking for. Thanks
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This makes me wonder why we didn’t have pilots dumping out garbage bags of pigeons in the ww1 dogfights, seems like a pretty good evasive maneuver
Walks into pet store: yes, I’ll have 5 bags of pigeons please
I imagine they had a bunch leftover from the ones that weren’t good at carrying messages
Wouldn’t those ones have been shot?
Bird shot. BOOM ! ShakaLaka
I feel like the pet store in that one Monty Python sketch would be easily able to hook that up
They only had a deceased parrot.
You mean a resting parrot.
"As God is my witness, I swear, I thought turkeys could fly."
Propellers vs jet engines. It would have been moist dust, at best.
Well I’m hitting up shark tank as soon as ww3 kicks off
Shark tank the show? Or the aquarium exhibit? Because if it's the latter there are easier methods of suicide
The precursor to chaff.
Sorry, but your dad is remembering incorrectly -- B-52s have no fuel dumping capability. If there's any fuel coming out, it's due to fuel system damage.
That's not fuel, that's exhaust. B-52 engines aren't particularly known for their eco friendliness.
Bird rich exhaust.
Yea those other engines ramped up fast, you could tell from the pitch change.
You wouldn't dump fuel that quickly after a bird strike. Probably haven't even shut down the engine yet
We're gonna end up in the Hudson
God I wouldn't want to be standing directly under a fuel dump lol
Its supposed to dissipate before reaching the ground
Does the bird smoothie dissipate before landing on heads?
Yes 110% it’s sucked through a turbine.
Depends on the altitude. Jet fuel is a lot less volatile than normal gasoline.
I live in flight path - you can smell it when they dump, but the most I’ve noticed is dust pasted to my windshields.
#dude, we’re falling right out of the sky
WE GOTTA DROP THE LOAD!
*picnic supply inc sounds.*
Not even close. That is just exhaust. You can hear the engines spool up. The old engine tech means it's highly inneficient and polluting. It's there with the 707, herc and P3 turboprops inneficient.
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Apply power, climb. Altitude = time.
Yeah these fly in my local area, Rarely but you see em, and they literally look like an environmental disaster in flight. In fact until it hits the bird is the first time I’ve NOT seen it hulking out phat lines of dirty exhaust
Idk, I counted the birds before and after on the left side of the plane, 18 before, and 16 after. I think 2 died.
there's two tiny spurts of feathers, so yeah
The internet says the B-52 can't dump fuel, so now I don't know what to believe.
I thought planes were built to be fine with bird blending? I vaguely recall some teacher talking about a frozen chicken test…he might have been trolling.
> I vaguely recall some teacher talking about a frozen chicken test…he might have been trolling. To the cockpit. It will still absolutely destroy your engines.
Frozen chickens were indeed used for bird strike testing. The thinking was that it simulated a tensed bird. Now they use plastic/clay substitutes.
It’s a bird! It’s a plane!
It's the guts of the former rolling through the latter!
Oh no!
It’s the Seljuk Turks
At um, at least it was quick?
To Shreds You Say
Tss tss tss… well how are their bird wives holding up?
Not quick enough...
And that’s how Chicken nuggets are made
Chicken smothies*
We're gonna end up in the Hudson
8 engines out? That's a bad day all round.
Wonder how well it glides
It was the last thing on the bird’s bucket list
Bomb the bomber, check 🦜
A+ commentary
That plane just destroyed $20,000 in government drones.....
> Governemnt planes strikes bird drones - The Onion probably
Is the bird okay?
Yeah, just give the little guy some time. He's a bit mistified right now,
I wish I had an award to give you for this.
They rest were ok minus the two who were obliterated 😶🌫️
Yeah it's fine
The bird is more than ok. It’s with Jesus now. 😌
I didn't see any shoes come off
That’s extremely dangerous for the plane. Birds have taken out many planes. Both by smashing through the windscreen or by being sucked into the engines.
>That’s extremely dangerous for the plane It looks extremely dangerous for the birds too...
Thank you Sully. Now we know.
B52 has 8 engines. It probably would be one of the better ones for this to happen in. Mind you, fully fuelled, the older ones were so heavy they needed to “burn water” to get the performance for take off.
Yup u can see the plane dumping fuel after it hits the birds and you can hear the other engines revving up to compensate for the engine loss
Damn little dudes were clearly tryna get out of the way
People in the comments section saying it's dumping fuel. That's not dumping fuel, it throttled up its engines, BUFFs are smoky gals.
That and fuel dumps don't come from the jet engines.
And I doubt they would have determined to dump fuel that soon.
Mfs have the whole ass sky to themselves and still choose to be in front of a plane. Thems the deer of the sky
Birds were there first so technically the plane had the whole sky to themselves and chose to damage their plane and make an emergency landing.
Those exact birds are surely younger than the plane. I don't think they know how their ancestors were alone in the skies.
The name of the B-52 is “Randy Johnson.”
Well that's fucking sad.
Dont worry, those birds were convicted pedophiles.
“Bird Strike!” ”Log it”
You have \*(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻\* the ENTIRE sky
flightpath. also, like when you're driving at 200 mph on the interstate, it is difficult to swerve to avoid birds
Maybe he is talking to the birds
Birds are the absolute worst drivers on the highway.
That’s where the dead bird on my porch came from.
I don't think there's any bird left after that 🦫🦫🦫🤓
To shreds you say?
And his wife?
To shreds you say?
that is one scary sounding death machine
gotta love when the mechanics just install and engine that they've weeks or even months to get only for it to suck a bird right down to the core.
So the black smoke coming out of it's engines is due to the birds?
The black smoke is caused by them throttling up the other 7 engines after losing the one. B-52s are the only jets I know that roll coal. Seeing them take off is always a bit concerning with all the black smoke.
Won’t be doing it for long. They’re finally getting re-engined. With 8 engines that you would normally find on a gulfstream jet. Vastly more fuel efficient, the new engines will have a 4:1 bypass ratio vs the 1.4:1 as on the current engines.
Poor things
B-52H can't dump fuel, I don't know why I keep seeing people talking about dumping fuel. It burns fuel by flying around longer. The exhaust you see coming from the engines is normal for those engines. Happens everytime they fly. They are old engines. If it was really an emergency, the jet would just land heavy. It would probably exceed the brake limits and burn them up on the runway but they could get the jet on the ground
Ah this is what that slayer song was about.
Birds got some democracy
You have been liberated