B-52 Stratofortress Film Report 1964 “Flight Without A Fin”
This incredible film, FLIGHT WITHOUT A FILM, recounts an extraordinary accident that took place in 1964. As Lt. Col. Schmidt of Norton Air Force Base explains, on January 10, 1964 a flight crew flying a B-52H for Boeing was testing the aircraft over mountainous terrain. Flying from Boeing’s Wichita plant, pilot Chuck Fisher took off in a B-52H with a three-man Boeing crew, flying a low-level profile to obtain structural data. Over Colorado, cruising 500 feet above the mountainous terrain, the B-52 encountered some turbulence. Fisher climbed to 14,300 feet looking for smoother air. The bomber then flew into clear-air turbulence. As Fisher recounts, it felt as if the plane had been placed in a giant high-speed elevator, shoved up and down, and hit by a heavy blow on its right side.