Strategic Air Command needed to prove its new bomber could be trusted, and it chose the hardest demonstration available: fly the B-52 around the world without landing. Five B-52Bs took off from Castle Air Force Base, California, on Jan. 16, 1957. Three of them landed at March Air Force Base, California, 45 hours and 19 minutes later, having covered 24,325 miles nonstop.
The mission, Operation Power Flite, made those three Stratofortresses the first jets to circle the globe without stopping. It took a chain of aerial tankers staged along the route, a two-star general riding in the lead bomber, and crews who stayed aboard for nearly two days.
Air Force Global Strike Command’s history of the flight, written by historian Bill Harris under the title “Year of the B-52: B-52s make historic, nonstop around the world flights,” records that five B-52Bs launched two days after a Jan. 14 briefing at Castle. “Two bombers experienced equipment malfunctions and recovered at bases in the U.S. and England,” Harris writes, while “the other three completed the 24,325 mile flight in 45 hours and 19 minutes.”
Why SAC flew the B-52 around the world
The B-52 was new and under scrutiny. A Strategic Air Command history adapted by Global Strike Command, “Saving the B-52: Operation Power Flite,” originally written by the SAC History Office in November 1981, states that “the B-52 had come under fire as a result of several crashes earlier in 1956.” In response, “SAC leaders designed a counteroffensive to show that the B-52 was a safe and effective weapon system.”
The bombers came from the 93rd Bombardment Wing at Castle. Maj. Gen. Archie J. Old Jr. served as mission commander. The Air Force Historical Foundation’s entry for the flight says Old “rode aboard the lead aircraft,” Lucky Lady III, “which was piloted by Lieutenant Colonel James H. Morris.” Morris had done this before: the foundation notes he “had been the copilot of the Lucky Lady II round-the-world flight in 1949.”
Around the world on KC-97 fuel
No B-52B could carry enough fuel for 24,325 miles, so the route was built around KC-97 tankers flying from bases along the way. The SAC history lists tanker support from Goose Bay in Canada, Ben Guerir Air Base in Morocco, Dhahran, the Philippines and Guam. “By the time the Stratofortresses finished their last refuel over the western Pacific, nearly 100 KC-97s had taken part,” it records.
The Air Force Historical Foundation’s Jan. 18 entry describes the result in figures: the B-52s “averaged 532 MPH and relied on three KC-97 air refuelings in setting the F.A.I. record.” The two records count differently: the foundation counts three refuelings, while the SAC history counts the tankers involved across the whole route.
The two bombers that dropped out did not finish the circuit. The SAC history says one diverted with the tanker force and that “the second spare left the group over North Africa and landed in England.” The remaining three “headed across Africa, Saudi Arabia, and up into the Persian Gulf.” Then, “over a railway crossing in Malaya the aircrews simulated a bomb run and then crossed the Pacific.”
The crews flew the whole route in the airplane they took off in, with no stop to change crews. One man aboard saw the trip from an unusual angle: the aerial gunner, who rode facing backward. “I was the first person to fly around the world backward,” said Airman 1st Class Eugene Preiss, as quoted in the Global Strike Command account.
“On the morning of 18 January, all three B-52s landed at March AFB, California,” the SAC history records, where “General Curtis E. LeMay, SAC Commander-in-Chief, greeted the group.” The Air Force Historical Foundation states that every member of the flight crews received the Distinguished Flying Cross, presented by LeMay after landing, and that the 93rd Bombardment Wing was awarded the Mackay Trophy for demonstrating SAC’s ability “to strike any target on the face of the earth.”
The B-52B behind the record
The bomber that flew Power Flite was barely two years into service. Air Force Global Strike Command’s B-52 Stratofortress fact sheet states that “the B-52A first flew in 1954, and the B model entered service in 1955.” The same fact sheet records that “a total of 744 B-52s were built with the last, a B-52H, delivered in October 1962.”
The 1957 flight answered the question SAC had set itself after the crashes of 1956. Three B-52Bs of the 93rd Bombardment Wing went around the world without landing, 24,325 miles in 45 hours and 19 minutes, setting an F.A.I. record and earning the wing the Mackay Trophy.
Top image: A B-52B Stratofortress in flight, U.S. Air Force historical photo. Image Credit: U.S. Air Force — Public domain / Wikimedia Commons
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Combat Rated editors prior to publication.