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CNN Live At Daybreak

America Strikes Back: Look at Massive B-52 Bomber

Aired October 17, 2001 - 08:55   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BRIAN NELSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I will be going up in a B-52 bomber later on today, and this is it here; this is the plane behind me. It's called the Old Crow. It's a venerable 41-year-old lady. She was built in 1960, the 55th one off the assembly line in that year, one of the last actually.

The engines on this plane, their eight of them, four on each side, each of them has 12,000 pounds of thrust. The plane could reach a ceiling of 50,000 feet, although we are not going that high today. We can travel as far as 9,000 miles. We also will not be going that far today. It carries a mixture of conventional weapons -- cruise missiles, smart bombs, dumb bombs -- and it is quite a plane. So we will be going up on that later today.

And with me now the squadron commander, the 23rd squadron commander here at Minot Air Force Base, Lieutenant Colonel Bruce Hemming (ph).

You've got your crew behind us. Do you want to briefly introduce them for us?

LT. COL. BRUCE HEMMING: You've got it, Brian. We have -- to my right here, we have the crew that you'll be flying with, a total of nine of us on that aircraft, and then further on here, the crew of the lead aircraft, which will be flying in front of us today, we be the number two in the two-ship formation.

NELSON: All right, this is going to be a regular training mission, right?

HEMMING: That's correct.

NELSON: What are we going to do?

HEMMING: Well, we typically train in the upper Midwest. We take off and fly. We'll fly for about five hours today. We will takeoff. We will shoot some conventional air-launched cruise missiles, simulated. We'll drop some joint direct-attack munition weapons. We'll do that several times, and then we'll do air refueling, and we'll come back for some pattern work.

NELSON: And we're also going to see the plane challenged as if it was attacked? HEMMING: Absolutely, throughout our sortie today, we will have simulated threats that we respond to and simulate, defending the aircraft against, so we'll practice those skills.

NELSON: Since the troubles over Afghanistan, has training increased here? Has it heightened up, ratcheted up a notch?

HEMMING: It really hasn't, although it's maybe focused just a little bit, but we routinely train very hard, so that we are always ready for any type of contingency.

NELSON: OK, and the crew members, are they experienced or are they new to this?

HEMMING: Well, there is a mixture of both. We have both inexperienced and experienced. Right now, we have -- our most senior aviator is usually the senior captain, about the nine-year point in their career, and then we have obviously some that are just getting into the cockpit as well, and venturing those along the way.

NELSON: Now this plane, do you have to go through anything special with this plane because it is a 40, 41-year-old plane?

HEMMING: Nothing unusual. The crew chiefs have been out here for about five hours already, making sure that the planes are ready to go and making sure all the i's are dotted and t's are crossed, so it should be we're all set to go.

NELSON: All right, well, thank you very much, Lieutenant Colonel Bruce Hemming, and the crew. We, the two planes will be lifting off a little later this morning. We will have live coverage of prior to liftoff, when we come back later today, so stay tuned for that.

So thank you very much.

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