If you were one of the lucky targeted individuals to get a postcard in the mail earlier this month, you may be wondering why does a guy living and instructing in Connecticut have a pair of B52's on his marketing material. Did General Bradley hide a few at the airport which bears his name? If you look closely to the one picture above your name, you might be able to read where the airplane was based. Don't strain your eyes...I don't want you to lose your medical so I'll tell you about it.
The B52 in the picture, SN 80225, was the first B52 to be based at Griffiss Air Force Base in Rome, NY. A Strategic Air Command base, it housed nearly 100 of the type before the base was closed in the early 1990s.
The officers and enlisted soldiers were reassigned to other bases and the airplanes were dispersed among other facilities, including the desert.
SN 80225 was not one that left the base; it stands proudly where the entrance to the Base once was on concrete pads. Today, behind the tail of the airplane is a community baseball field and the nose faces the main thoroughfare connecting what was the main Base avenue and downtown Rome, NY.
If you're ever in the upstate New York region and stop at Griffiss, (KRME), you can park your car next to the baseball field and walk right up to, around, and underneath the airplane. For a person who only saw most military bombers on television, it's a great experience to be able to walk up to a tool that was used to protect the American way of life during the Cold War.
They also have a replica of the ALCM (Air Launched Cruise Missile) sitting next to the airplane. The 416 of Griffiss was the first USAF wing to operate the missile.
And for the other picture...that's me taking a picture out of the window of the MU2 I flew for 5 years. I tried taking pictures from other angles, but the glare from the window prevented anything good from coming out.
