The rapid launch of 17 B-52 Stratofortresses, that was the highlight of Constant Vigilance exercise held at Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota, on Jun, 11, 2012 was just the last of a series of event that have the aim to test the U.S. Air Force heavy bomber force’s mission readiness.
As the following interesting video shows, in June 2009, Minot hosted a 15-ship 15 MITO (Minimum Interval Take Off) in support of Exercise Global Thunder.
You can see crew members and crew chiefs rush to the planes and then hear a series of “booms”, with white smoke, before the engines spool up. That’s the effect of “cart-starts”, small starter cartridges, coffee cup sized shotshells used to jumpstart the engines removing the need for ground power or air start.
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Hmm, this is a new procedure over what it used to be. Back in the day of the A-D model they used a shotgun shell, and you got a huge black cloud of smoke. Sometimes they’d start 4 or more at once. This uses a very small explosive charge to start two engines, and they start the others while heading for the runway, hence the white smoke.
There are some great pictures of B-57 cartridge starts that show the difference.
Awesome stuff, thank you!