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Anther pretty A/C... a friend of the family, flew those after going into SAC,.. being a previous WW2 P51 Pilot...with the fighter jock mentality... Colonel Lappo.... Dad knew him and I went to school with his son... actually saw him interviewed on the History Channel's "Wings" series in the 90s, on the B 47.

Stationed in Michigan at a SAC based in the 50s, a bar room tete d'tete broke out between some of his squadron mates, when they were being laughed at by some F 101 Pilots of ADC..

Major ( at the time), Lappo stated he could take a B 47 anywhere they could take an F 101, to which really made the Voodoo pilots laugh...

well evidently up in the air not long afterwards, over Lake Michigan both units were up in the air at the same time and one of the F 101 pilots, called him on his statement of being able to take a B47 anywhere a F101 could go... so a Voodoo pilot, took a 101 under the Mackinac Bridge, that connects the upper and lower peninsula of Michigan...

after doing so, the 101 Pilot radios, 'let me see ya do that!'

so Major Lappo radios back... "wanna follow me?"

he took the B 47 under the Mackinac Bridge, to the amazement of the following F 101... after that, he loops the B 47 and brought it back under the bridge for a second pass... the 101 pilot wouldn't follow it...

needless to say, when they landed, they both found themselves grounded.. as freaked out motorists on the bridge had notified authorities...

my stepdad's AF career started out in SAC in B 47s..those and F 4 were his favorite two A/C he flew in his career...

he flew C 130s in Vietnam, with the Air Commando units, and he had a lot of respect for the damage a 130 could take and bring the crew home.. but of course those didn't have the glamour of the B 47 or the F4....

he also talks about the wildest stunt they did, was a Colonel in a unit he was with, collected old sports cars...on a flight to England, the Colonel ended up buying an MG/TC or TD over there.. against regulations, they had the MG loaded and secured in the bombbay of a B 47, and then flew it back to their base in Kansas, basically smuggling it into the US past customs etc...

some of the stuff that was done after WW 2 and in the early days of SAC, were pretty wild...