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          A B-52 Stratofortress, known affectionately as a BUFF (acronymn not to be explained), taking off. This was, to put it mildly, an extremely loud and viscously head-snapping experience!  From where I'd stopped my MB-4 tug it is almost 15,000 feet to the other end of the runway, one of the longest in the world.  So long, in fact, that for north-south orbit Space Shuttle launches this was an emergency abort landing site.  If this had been an EWO (Emergency War Order) "generation" there would be two B-52s in the picture, so close together would they take-off.

- Boeing Thunder -

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