I came across this in the March 2009 issue of Smithsonian Magazine. Here is the brief article on the flight:
"On March 2, 1949, ninety-four hours after taking off from Carswell Air Force base in Forth Worth, Texas, Lucky Lady II, a B-50 Superfortress piloted by Capt. James Gallagher, completes the first nonstop flight around the world. The crew of 14 refuels the plane four times in midair during the more than 23,000-mile trip. The secret mission surprises even the crew's families--"I'd have had a storming tizzy if I'd know about it before-hand," second pilot Arthur Neal's wife tells a reporter--but is announced on completion as a demonstration of American ability to deliver bombs to any location." (Smithsonian Magazine, March 2009, p.19)
Interestingly, I found the photo above at Life Images (www.life.com/life), and the caption read: "Lucky Lady II getting ready for take off for her round-the-world-flight." It sure doesn't look like the mission was top secret to me.
6 comments:
What are an amazing and awesome feat. Flying a bombing misssion takes and just flying a palne can take some courage, but to fly a nonstop mission around the globe would be very tiring and hard. I thought the wives must have been pretty surprised when the pilots got back home. However, I bet they had blast but at the same time it probably felt like they were reliving the war.
William Finch
First of all, was the actual crew informed that they would by flying across the whole world? Secondly, how was the crew able to refuel the plane in air?
- Jay
Jay, there is a very good description of how the plane was refueled at the following site (http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=2634). I will check into your first question.
That person must really enjoy flying if she flew across the whole world. I wonder how I would do if I took flight training? How long did it take to fly all the way around the world?
-CM1
The Lucky Lady's flight took 96 hours (4 days) and a few minutes from take off to landing at Carswell AFB in Ft. Worth, Tx.
The crew had trained for the flight extensively near Tuscon as one of 3 aircraft for the mission. The first aircraft landed in the Azores after engine trouble. Lucky Lady II's crew got the order to take off around 4:30am.
The plane is far from spacious. Inside, a 5'8" man can touch the inside insulation on both sides by standing in the center. Add all the crew stations, guns, radar, etc. and it's "cozy".
"Probe & drouge" refueling was slow, dangerous and involved winching a hose from the tanker (A KB-29) down to the receiver and hooking it up to a stand pipe. It was essentialy firehose sized and gravity-fed. At one refueling point, the winch broke and had to be replaced in 30-minutes at 12,000ft. While connected, one wrong move could bring down both planes.
The wives knew their husbands would be gone on "a long training mission" and they worried as all wives did.
At the time, the flight was a bold demonstration to the USSR that the USAF could drop the A-bomb anywhere in the world using U.S. based bombers. It kept Stalin cautious.
Mission planning sent KB-29 tankers ahead of the B-50's (which were B-29's with better engines) to be in position for refueling.
At the time, it was a big deal. But today, it's just a footnote. The B-52 Lucky Lady III repeated the flight less than 8 years later in half the time. Today's in-air refueling for combat operations was essentially pioneered by the crew of Lucky Lady II.
My source for all of this: My father who was a 1st Lt. and radar operator on Lucky Lady II and my mom. The fuselage of The Lady is at the Chino, Ca. Planes of Fame Museuem.
Why is the crew of the Lucky Lady ll ever the only ones in History to be acknowledged. My Great Uncle, Lt. Col. Jack Hunt, was an observer on the refueling KB-29 Tanker out of Clarke Field in the Phillippines. This plane ran into some problems with the equipment, but prevailed by replacing a motor to complete the mid-air refueling process. It was the courage and determination of these crews on this mission to help the Lucky Lady ll complete it's round the world non-stop flight. The flight my Great Uncle was on never made it back home, as the crew ran into bad weather and crashed into a Summit 12 miles from Clarke Field. All perished in the crash. As a further note, my Great Uncle, Lt. Col. Jack Hunt, also wrote the "Student Pilot Handbook" for the United States Army Air Corp.
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