One Late Night at Kadena AB, Japan ...

A very cool aircraft, the B-47.
Source

Bombers, something you'd think that I, a retired airman, would know a lot about. Well ...

In my 24 years on active duty, I spent the first eight working on the F-4C/D Phantom, when I wasn't in some sort of training. Training was six weeks basic (as the Air Force doesn't attack hills, beaches, or anything other than a bar with cheap drinks, that was deemed sufficient), training to work on the Weapon Control Systems on the Phantom took nearly seven months.

And when I got to Okinawa I soon learned that I didn't know Jack. A couple of very good Staff Sergeants taught me the ropes, I was probably useful on the flightline after about six months at Kadena.

So yeah, I was a fighter guy, okay, fighter-bomber guy, the Air Force doesn't really have Attack wings, though we do have one of the finest attack aircraft ever built, the A-10 Warthog (officially the Thunderbolt II, but no one calls it that).

I was part of Strategic Air Command for four years at Offutt, SAC Headquarters. But I worked on the software the Air Force used to schedule training routes and Military Operating Areas (MOAs). I did get to see the occasional bomber, we had a lot of different aircraft coming and going at Offutt, everything from the Junkers Ju-52 to the Lockheed SR-71.

The Ju-52 was privately owned, Martin Caidin I believe, and she was parked across from my office one fine morning, all decked out in full, authentic WWII colors (swastika and all). Mind you, this was back before we hid things from the faint and delicate wienies of the world. It's history bruh, get over yourself.

Anyhoo, had a B-52 land just over my head as I was driving down Fort Crook Road. Impressive sight indeed, those eight engines made a lot of noise and a lot of smoke (on take-off).

Saw a B-1 (affectionately known as the Bone, ya know B-one) do touch and goes on the field. Guy flew the beast like it was a fighter plane. Beautiful aircraft.

Saw the B-2 after I retired, back before the idiots in government bankrupted the nation and started printing money hand over fist to give to Ukraine. It flew down the parade route where I live now in Little Rhody on Independence Day. Damn thing was scary-looking and ominous as hell. Flew low she did, got kind of excited I did. Most impressive.

So there I was ...

So bombers, I've seen 'em. One lonely night on Okinawa, we heard tell that a flight of B-52s were coming in from Guam on typhoon evac. We thought, "Hey, wouldn't it be neat to track them on our radar?"

Where we were situated was the radar calibration dock overlooking the runway. We could legally radiate from there (that's my claim, not sure how "legal" it was, but we were young ...).

Anyhoo, we went to Operate (see below) and commenced to picking up one, two, then three aircraft out a ways to the south.

The OPR inside the red circle, that stands for "Operate,"
the radar transmits while in that mode.
This is in the back seat, BTW.
Source

So we thought that was pretty awesome, we're actually picking up B-52s on our AN/APQ-109A radar set, Someone, might have been me, might have been someone else, thought "Hey, let's lock on to one of those beasts!"

Okay, scanning is pulse radar, pulse goes out, bounces off object, pulse comes back. Tracking is a little different, I couldn't tell you exactly how it works, that was a very long time ago, but the B-52's systems can tell very quickly if the B-52 is being tracked.

B-52s do not, I repeat, do not like being tracked by fighter aircraft radar. I can venture a guess as to why. But that night on Okinawa, our little fighter radar antenna went from a graceful sweep of the skies, to pointing like a hunting dog at the incoming B-52s, to slamming against every stop on the radar mount. I mean, it was shaking the damned plane it was slamming so hard!

We quickly shut the radar down (back to STBY - Standby) so we weren't radiating anymore, and the antenna ceased its insane dance.

Those of us there, I think there were three of us, quietly agreed that we would not speak of this to anyone else. We were young, we were green, most of our NCOs were Vietnam vets and would no doubt look at us as if we were insane for trying to track a B-52.

We also made damned sure that we hadn't damaged the radar by giving it a very thorough check (which is what we were there for in the first place). Yup, no harm, no foul.

Scary stuff!

But cool, very cool.