B-52 over Hanoi

This is fascinating audio to listen to. It's taken from Lilac 02, a B-52 participating in Linebacker II over Hanoi in December of 1972. It's in five parts, but it's worth a listen. The amazing thing is how calm the crew is. You'd think they were on a routine training flight talking to ATC at points of it. This mission occurred after a 36 hour stand down for Christmas. The mission prior, 1200 SAMs were fired at the attacking aircraft. The North Vietnamese used the stand down to restock.

Based on descriptions of this raid, I have reason to believe that at least one of these aircraft was dealt with by my father when he was in Anderson. He told me a similar story as was described in this.

Lilac 02 was deployed to Anderson AFB Guam, from the 306th Bomb Wing, McCoy AFB Florida.

Red Crown was radar tracking and SAR from the US Navy. It was apparently USS Truxton.

I'd love to be able to sit and listen to these later but I have a question.

I dont know if you are or were a pilot but listening to portions of these and other radio recordings, does it sound that bad to the pilots and atc?

Its funny how hollywood aircraft radio are capable of carrying out long, intimate convos but hearing the real thing....I can barely make out a lot of what they are saying.

My brother was atc in Air Force for 8 years, I could ask him but he always wants to borrow money lol...

reply to post by tinner07


When it's recorded like this a lot of times there's static and it's hard to hear portions of it, because it's recording everything at the same time. When you're on headphones you can be talking on the intercom and not hear the radio, or talking on the radio and not hear the intercom, etc. So it's a lot easier to hear.

Thanks for the answer Zaphod. I listened to portions of a few, mostly #4 and they sure do seem calm considering they are watching sams heading up and (in the very beginning) the plane crash. Seems it was from Michigan.

I've seen some footage and radio talk of special forces ops where them boys stay pretty calm, but they are SOC...
I wonder if they are vets of Korea conflict. Not taking anything away from them, they are calm as hell.

reply to post by Zaphod58

When it's recorded like this a lot of times there's static and it's hard to hear portions of it, because it's recording everything at the same time. When you're on headphones you can be talking on the intercom and not hear the radio, or talking on the radio and not hear the intercom, etc. So it's a lot easier to hear.

Not true. The first time I was in a control tower I was about 10 years old. It was 1968. I remember listening to the pilot of an HS748 (a British twin-turboprop airliner) coming in over the radio. I couldn't understand a word for the static. The ATCs could, though. They were even making jokes and laughing. It was all grrgrrcracklegrrSWEEbarf to me.

During the cold war our pilots seemed to be ICE COLD calm no matter what... and they ALL seemed to be from texas with an accent.

reply to post by Astyanax


It takes a trained ear to understand the lingo. Years and years of training and experience and also if you know what you are listening to you know what you expect to here.

reply to post by Astyanax


I've never really had trouble hearing them when I was on headset, but have always had trouble with listening to recordings.

reply to post by Zaphod58

I'm guessing that these would be recorded on magnetic wire as I mentioned in another post,hence the poor frequency response and lack of clarity from the recordings?

reply to post by Imagewerx


They may have been digitized since then, but yes, the original is magnetic.

reply to post by Zaphod58

And it didn't help they have always used narrow bandwidth for aircraft communications (as they do for all non broadcast quality transmissions) of something like 300Hz to 3000Hz.Not a problem with female voices,but it can kill the intelligibility of deeper male voices.

reply to post by Imagewerx


Exactly. If you listen to these a couple times you can start to pick out what they're saying, but the first run through is going to be almost unintelligible for people that aren't used to it.

reply to post by Zaphod58

I heard a B52 over the radio at our Embassy Air Tatoo at Fairford in about 2006 (possible callsign "razor") and it wasn't a lot better than the ones on the Youtube videos,but at least the squelch was working properly to kill the noise between when they were talking,which for some reason it wasn't on those recordings.

reply to post by Imagewerx


They started getting a massive overhaul this summer, which includes digital architecture, finally replacing the analog systems. It includes the Combat Network Communications Technology (CONECT) upgrade, and the ARC-210 Warrior radios.

reply to post by Zaphod58


Good for another 50 years I hope!

reply to post by Imagewerx


The current plan is somewhere between 2048 and 2052, which would put it at almost 100 years old at retirement.

reply to post by Zaphod58


This is what make the B-52 one of my favorite. Old as dirt but can still kick ars!

I wonder if there is any other airframe that will have been in active service for 100 years at retirement?