autoevolution
 

Stratofortress Flying With F-18s Looks Like Mother Goose Strolling With Goslings

Few things in this world can match the view of a military airplane in the skies. One of them is a bunch of airplanes flying in formation, kind of like the thing we have here.
B-52 Stratofortress with F-18 Hornets 1 photo
Photo: Spanish Air Force
What you are looking at in the main photo of this piece (click to enlarge) is a formation of six airplanes conducting a flight over Europe as part of the Bomber Task Force Europe mission earlier this June. A formation that comprises a U.S. Air Force (USAF) machine and five others belonging to the Spanish Air Force.

The American plane is, of course, the largest one, the mother goose leading its goslings to their destination. It’s the B-52 Stratofortress, the seven-decade-old strategic bomber we’ve featured several times before here in our Photo of the Day section. Accompanying it out of Moron Air Base in Spain are five F-18 Hornets deployed with the Spanish military.

Although strategic bombers usually fly accompanied by fighter aircraft, they do so at such high altitudes most of us are generally oblivious to such an occurrence. So it’s the Spanish who are to blame for taking this pic, and we can only be grateful they did.

The B-52 Stratofortress is not such a common plane in the sky, with just about 700 of them made since production started all those decades ago. The massive machine, described by its present maker, Boeing, as the most combat-capable bomber in the U.S. inventory, can carry both nuclear and conventional bombs. When fully loaded, it can weigh as much as 488,000 lbs (219,600 kg), which is the maximum takeoff weight.

The nimble F-18 Hornets, on the other hand, are much more common in the skies, with close to 1,500 of them made since the early 1980s. They are multi-role combat jets, capable of both air-to-air combat and ground strike missions.
If you liked the article, please follow us:  Google News icon Google News Youtube Instagram X (Twitter)
About the author: Daniel Patrascu
Daniel Patrascu profile photo

Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies.
Full profile

 

Would you like AUTOEVOLUTION to send you notifications?

You will only receive our top stories