User:LanceBarber/ChromeDome

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Main article: Cold War

Chrome Dome, a code name for one of the Air Force's airborne global alert duties using the B-52 Stratofortress bomber.

Contents

[edit] Background

During the Cold War, B-52s performed airborne alert duty under code names such as Head Start, Chrome Dome, Hard Head, Round Robin, and Giant Lance. Bombers loitered near points outside the Soviet Union to provide rapid first strike or retaliation capability in case of nuclear war.[1] [2]

[edit] Mission

Section source: Nautilus.org[3]

A B-52D would leave Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas and fly across the United States to New England and head out to the Atlantic Ocean. The B-52 would refuel over the Atlantic heading north to and around Newfoundland. The bomber would change course and fly northwesterly over Baffin Bay towards Thule Air Base, Greenland. At this point he would fly west across Queen Elizabeth Islands of Canada.

[edit] Similar missions

B-52 Airborne Nuclear Alert route from Homestead AFB, FL to Italy
B-52 Airborne Nuclear Alert route from Homestead AFB, FL to Italy

[edit] References

  1. ^ "SAC AIRBORNE ALERT". National Museum of the USAF. Accessed 2 October 2007
  2. ^ US Nuclear Weapons Deployments Disclosed, Nautilus Institute
    History of the Custody and Deployment of Nuclear Weapons: July 1945 to September 1977
  3. ^ Nautilus.org Chrome Dome Route Map