US Navy/Capt. Cassidy Norman
Two US F-35Bs have landed on the Italian Navy aircraft carrier Cavour.
In the coming weeks, the pilots and test team will collect data to certify that the ship can conduct carrier operations with Italy s own F-35s.
Two specially instrumented US F-35Bs from Air Test and Evaluation Squadron 23 (VX-23) at Naval Air Station Patuxent River (NAS Pax River), Maryland, landed aboard Italian aircraft carrier ITS Cavour, off the US East Coast, on March 1, 2021.
The flagship of the Marina Militare (Italian Navy) had left Naval Station Norfolk (Virginia) on February 28, in preparation of the four-week sea trials.
US Air Force/Kelly White Ghost Rider and Wise Guy, the only B-52 Stratofortress bombers to be resurrected from the Air Force s boneyard, are undergoing maintenance before returning to Minot Air Force Base.
Both were retired to the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group in Arizona and were never to fly again, but they ve been resurrected to bring the fleet back to the Congressionally mandated 76 B-52s.
Only two B-52 Stratofortress bombers have been restored out of the Boneyard to be returned to the fleet: Ghost Rider, tail number 61-0007, and Wise Guy, tail number 60-0034.
Both aircraft were retired at the 309th AMARG (Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group) at Davis-Monthan AFB, Arizona, where they were supposed to remain to be cannibalized of parts needed by other front-line BUFFs and never to fly again.
US Air Force
On January 10, 1964, a B-52H bomber with the serial number 61-0023 took off from Kansas on a test mission to examine the effects of turbulence at varying altitudes and airspeeds.
By the time the bomber landed in Arkansas hours later, its vertical stabilizer had been shorn off, and the Air Force had learned a lot more about what the B-52 could take.
On January 10, 1964, Boeing civilian test pilot Chuck Fisher and his three man crew launched from Wichita, Kansas, for a mission aboard B-52H serial number 61-0023.
The aircraft was involved in a test mission whose purpose was to examine the effects of turbulence at varying altitudes and airspeeds. In other words the aircrew would shake, rattle and roll the Stratofortress bomber at high speed and low altitude to record sensor data on how such conditions could affect the plane s airframe.