The Down East Seniors Club held their Jan. 18 meeting at the Blind Center of North Carolina in Washington. President Stewart Rumley led the meeting. Ed Hamrick led the singing of “God Bless America,” and Ed Bolen gave the invocation. Dick Paul provided humor.

Mike Gwynn introduced Frank Belote as the speaker. Belote is a retired colonel of the U.S. Air Force. He told about his many years of flying B52 bombers. The B52 was the “work horse” of the Air Force during the Vietnam war as a conventional bomber and during the Cold War as a nuclear bomber on alert. It has been replaced by the B2 bomber.

Some facts about the B52 are that it has an empty weight of 188,000 pounds and a maximum gross weight of 488,000 pounds, meaning it can carry 300,000 pounds of load and fuel. It has a wing span of 185 feet, a length of 154 feet and a height of 40 feet. Earlier models had six turbo-jet engines; later models had eight fan-jet engines. It operated with a crew of six. Most planes take off and land with the nose tilted upward. Because of its layout of four landing gears, the B52 had to both take off and land with the plane horizontal. It was manufactured from 1952 to 1962. The worst experience Belote had on his bombing missions was once over Vietnam when a bomb in the process of dropping didn’t release from one of its hangers. It was hanging out of the plane and the crew couldn’t get it loose. They had fly back to their base, circle until almost all the fuel was used, then land very carefully. The live bomb was suspended about two feet above the ground when the plane stopped. The ground crew was able to remove it from the plane and safely explode it at a remote site.

Mike Gwynn won the 50/50 drawing.