B-52 Workhorse Remains at the Ready for Nuclear War : Bomber: It gained lasting fame in Vietnam as an aerial terror. During the Gulf War, it dropped one-third of the U.S. bomb tonnage. Its main liability is its bulk, making it a big target. And sometimes it shows its age.

ABOARD FLIGHT “DOOM 98”--At 370 m.p.h., just 400 feet above the Kansas prairie, Capt. Mitch Hansen steered his rumbling, roaring B-52 bomber to its target.

On the windowless lower deck, bombardier Capt. Andre Mouton held his radar aim and Capt. Joe Hagans, navigator, counted down to a carefully calculated launch point.

” . . . 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, release.”

A single bomb plummeted to earth, “destroying” a mock anti-aircraft artillery site. Hansen thrust a fist into the air to signal a successful strike, then pulled the huge plane into a steep climb and banked left.

This was a practice nuclear strike (with a dummy warhead, of course)--a mission the Air Force considers important enough to keep on the training schedule for B-52 crews, even though the threat of nuclear war today is the lowest in many decades.

The B-52, which entered the Air Force fleet four decades ago, is surprisingly versatile. Besides nuclear bombs, it is capable of launching cruise missiles, Harpoon anti-ship missiles, non-nuclear gravity bombs and sea mines.

B-52s dropped one-third of the tonnage of U.S. bombs used against Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War. The plane gained lasting fame in Vietnam as an aerial terror.

The B-52’s main liability is its extraordinary hulk, making it a fat target for enemy guns. The plane weighs as much as 488,000 pounds and is wider than it is long (wingspan of 185 feet, compared to length of 160 feet). The control flaps on its wings cover more space than the entire wings of most fighter planes.

That’s why the crews practice flying and fighting below the reach of radar.

For all its strengths, the Boeing-built B-52 is getting old and sometimes shows it.

The mission named “Doom 98” that flew out of Barksdale Air Force Base, La., on a steamy September morning was late getting under way because first an intercom problem and then a more serious generator fault cropped up. The fixes were made, though, and the crew calmly adjusted its flight plan on the run.

The mission was hardly in the category of aerial attacks that Pentagon leaders say are most likely to be called for in the post-Cold War era.

In fact, there never has been a nuclear attack against a tactical target like an anti-aircraft artillery emplacement, and it’s hard to imagine one by the United States in anything except a nightmare scenario: all-out, global nuclear war.

But the Air Force wants it known that B-52s at Barksdale and Minot Air Force Base, N.D., can still do these doomsday missions in addition to conventional strikes.

Hansen and the other crew from Barksdale’s 96th “Red Devil” Bomb Squadron said they spend roughly 20% of their training time on nuclear missions. That’s a lot less than in the past, but it keeps them proficient.

For now, in fact, the 94 B-52s in the Air Force fleet are the only long-range bombers fully equipped to fight both a nuclear and a non-nuclear war.

“I like to think the B-52 is the proven workhorse,” said Brig. Gen. David Young, who flew B-52s in Vietnam and now is commander of Barksdale’s 2nd Bomb Wing.

The plane is a relic, but one the Air Force counts on heavily as the mainstay of a strategic bomber force that has shrunk drastically over the last 30 years.

The Air Force says the B-52s could last until the year 2030. And they may have to; there is not a new long-range bomber on the drawing board. The only bomber still in production is the B-2, and current plans call for the last of 20 B-2 Stealth planes to be delivered to the Air Force in 1998.

With some sprucing up, the “Buff” (short for Big Ugly Fat Fellow), as the B-52 is affectionately nicknamed, has repeatedly defied predictions of its demise. The B-52s have been re-winged, rearmed and stuffed with some of the latest electronic gadgetry, including low-light TV sensors to improve their low-level performance. They also have an updated electronic jamming system.

Gen. Curtis LeMay, who commanded the nation’s bomber fleet at the height of the Cold War, called the B-52 “obsolete” and “on the way out.” That was in 1968.

Yet it flies on.

To an observer of a B-52 training mission, the idea of dropping nuclear bombs at a height of 400 feet seems suicidal, even if the cramped cockpit has lead-lined curtains to shield the crew from a thermonuclear flash.

But Capt. Kelly Lawson, a B-52 instructor-navigator at Barksdale, says such low-level nuclear strikes would be standard. The B-52 is hardened to withstand blast effects. Parachutes slow the bombs’ descent, giving the plane more time to escape.

On this mission to the Smokey Hill bombing range near Salina, Kan., the “Lucky 13” B-52, tail number 60-0013, made eight passes over its target, six times dropping a single bomb and twice conducting a computer-simulated bomb launch.

The bombs that “Lucky 13” dropped were BDU-38s, which are mock versions of the B61 nuclear bomb. The B61’s yield is variable; it could be set as high as 300 kilotons, or about 20 times the explosive power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.

Back at Barksdale later, the crew sipped cold drinks and reviewed their results: All six bombs landed long, by 130 feet to 380 feet. That may seem like a poor aim, but for a doomsday nuclear strike it is plenty accurate enough.