I just finished reading WIlliam Prochnau's book, Trinity's Child, and one of the story lines woven within the book is about a B-52 crew that has to drop nuclear bombs on the Soviet Union. At the beginning of the book when the alert horn goes off the crew scrambles to their aircraft in quick order but once onboard they start complaining about this being "another drill". While on the ground the crew goes through a lengthy checklist of the aircraft systems and the codes that they have received. After figuring out that this was the real thing they do a scramble take off and depart Fairchild AFB right before it is destroyed by a submarine launched nuke.

For those of you who were in SAC and/or knowledgeable about aerial nuclear warfare I have a couple of questions for you:

1). In real life did alert crews go through a long line of checklists and code decoding before take off or did they just do the minimum to get airborne and then sort things out once they got out of harm's way?

2). Did SAC ever run drills where the crews were given the impression that a nuclear attack was under way to see how well they handled the "real thing"? Or was this just too risky as the Soviets might think that we were sending nuclear armed bombers their way?

Thanks for any responses.

I was never a SAC guy so can't answer your questions with any authority and didn't read the book.

However I will add that during the years from 1960-68, SAC kept nuclear armed B-52s airborne as part of their alert force. No long checklist needed on the ground for those birds. Do a google search of "Chrome Dome" if you desire more info.

dfwjim1 wrote:

For those of you who were in SAC and/or knowledgeable about aerial nuclear warfare I have a couple of questions for you:

1). In real life did alert crews go through a long line of checklists and code decoding before take off or did they just do the minimum to get airborne and then sort things out once they got out of harm's way?

2). Did SAC ever run drills where the crews were given the impression that a nuclear attack was under way to see how well they handled the "real thing"? Or was this just too risky as the Soviets might think that we were sending nuclear armed bombers their way?

Thanks for any responses.

Well, after spending 2 years at Robins AFB and another 2 at Andersen AFB I might be able to answer. First of all, there was no takeoff with weapons loaded, at least the alert birds with nukes. But during the normal exercise you got on alert, when the klaxon went you got to the aircraft as soon as you could. Normally the A/C and the Copilot would be the first two up the stairs followed by the Radar and Nav.

There was an alert start checklist which had just a couple of items such as the battery switch, which enabled the #1 UHF radio which the downstairs would use to decode the message. The two pilots did a cartridge start, the G would do all 8 and the D did 4&5 and then used bleed air to start the remaining engines. The EW would also hustle up to help decode the message. The gunner would help the crew chief move any ground equipment and then climb on board. The checklists were designed to do only the minimum necessary. In addition, the aircraft was configured so all the switches were set to go.

I can assure you, there was never, to my knowledge, any type of loyalty test at all.

I flew KC-135As, but we pulled Alert like the bombers. When an aircraft was put on Alert status, we had a preflight checklist we would run that would take you up to engine start - we called that cocked on Alert. When the horn went off, we would respond to the aircraft "as fast as safety permits" and run an Alert start checklist which covered a handful of items taking you to engine start. We used cartridge start, I think on 1 & 4, but occasionally, depending on the situation, in all 4 engines.

We would get a coded message from command post - usually they would broadcast the first 5 characters, which would be enough to let you know if it was an exercise or real, and what initial actions to take. The Navigator would decode, with the Boom Operator checking. Once you had engines running and the hatches buttoned up, one of the pilots would usually take a look at the message as well.

mmo wrote:

dfwjim1 wrote:

For those of you who were in SAC and/or knowledgeable about aerial nuclear warfare I have a couple of questions for you:

1). In real life did alert crews go through a long line of checklists and code decoding before take off or did they just do the minimum to get airborne and then sort things out once they got out of harm's way?

2). Did SAC ever run drills where the crews were given the impression that a nuclear attack was under way to see how well they handled the "real thing"? Or was this just too risky as the Soviets might think that we were sending nuclear armed bombers their way?

Thanks for any responses.

Well, after spending 2 years at Robins AFB and another 2 at Andersen AFB I might be able to answer. First of all, there was no takeoff with weapons loaded, at least the alert birds with nukes. But during the normal exercise you got on alert, when the klaxon went you got to the aircraft as soon as you could. Normally the A/C and the Copilot would be the first two up the stairs followed by the Radar and Nav.

There was an alert start checklist which had just a couple of items such as the battery switch, which enabled the #1 UHF radio which the downstairs would use to decode the message. The two pilots did a cartridge start, the G would do all 8 and the D did 4&5 and then used bleed air to start the remaining engines. The EW would also hustle up to help decode the message. The gunner would help the crew chief move any ground equipment and then climb on board. The checklists were designed to do only the minimum necessary. In addition, the aircraft was configured so all the switches were set to go.

I can assure you, there was never, to my knowledge, any type of loyalty test at all.

Could you please clarify "There was no takeoff with weapons loaded..." This would seem to defeat the whole purpose of armed deterrence..If the ships performing Chrome Dome evolutions were not armed, what was the point of having SAC?

bhill wrote:

Could you please clarify "There was no takeoff with weapons loaded..." This would seem to defeat the whole purpose of armed deterrence..If the ships performing Chrome Dome evolutions were not armed, what was the point of having SAC?

Please read what I wrote carefully. First, I didn't talk about Chrome Dome missions, I wrote ONLY about aircraft on alert. You had asked about aircraft on alert and I gave the response. The aircraft on alert were armed and "cocked", which was the term used to signify they were ready to takeoff as the result of an alert scramble. The Chrome Dome was a different thing, that was airborne alert. That went out in the late 60s due to cost and a couple of airborne mishaps which resulted in a couple of B-28s in the ocean.

Hopefully, that has cleared up your confusion.

Everything I know about SAC I learned form the movie Dr. Stranglove. Probably not that far from the truth!