Home Of Strategic Command flooded

Full title is : Home Of Strategic Command And Some Of The USAF's Most Prized Aircraft Is Flooding (Updated)

As many already know Nebraska is experiencing some of the worst flooding in recent history. Towns, farms, you name it are under water. www.thedrive.com...

The home to America's prized RC-135 "Rivet Joint" strategic reconnaissance and E-4B "Nightwatch" Advanced Airborne Command Post aircraft, as well as others, and the headquarters of U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM), is flooding with water from a swollen Missouri River.

Offutt Air Force Base sits near Omaha, Nebraska and is considered one of the most critical installations in the U.S. Air Force's portfolio. Not only does it house extremely high-value, but low density reconnaissance and command and control aircraft—massively expensive platforms that are essential to national security—but it is also the beating heart of STRATCOM that oversees America's strategic nuclear forces. In fact, a brand new command bunker, buried underground at the base, was just opened in January—which sounds far less than ideal considering water is now nearly covering the end of the base's runway.

I do not know how deep the water was before they could move the aircraft to higher ground on the airfield. Luckily many were flown out before it got to bad but as usual there were aircraft that were deemed "not good to go".. .

Usually all you have to do is jack and aircraft up and remove the wheels and repack the wheel bearings if the water level covers the axles or tires...That is unless the water got inside the wings or fuselage.. Then you have a different set of problems.. Another consideration is all the underground facilities at Offutt which I would guess many got flooded big time.

A short video of some of the devastation in Nebraska. youtu.be...


This year has been a year of major floods from the mid east (Saudi Arabia and others) to south America (Brazil and others) and of course many other places around the world that we are unaware of..

Sao Paulo Brazil youtu.be...


Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and other places in the Mid East youtu.be...


Other places are dry as a bone...welcome to planet earth..

Hmmm. Expensive (exotic, even) avionics systems and flooding. Doesn't sound like a good combination. OTOH, it would have to be some seriously deep flooding for some aircraft. Since they're much higher off the ground than (say) a car. Still. Landing gears probably don't fare that well in floods either.

I'm sure the aircraft were moved prior to the flooding.

The E-4Bs were moved to Wright-Patterson to do their maintenance after the floods. Their maintenance facility at Offutt is back to about 50% capability, so anything that doesn't require just a roof over their head is still done in Ohio.

www.defensenews.com...