I watched them practice flying below the mountain tops in the Boone NC area. I remember being on top of Howard’s Knob and looking down onto the top of one flying up the valley over Boone right at dawn. I’ll never forget it ! Looked like filled the valley.
Sometimes they did not make it over Mountain Tops. My 1st Gunner was killed just after he moved from GFAFB, ND down to Robins AFB. They took out the top of Square Top Mountain on a descent to a low level run out West. Another Gunner I knew that just left GFAFB died in a low level crash into a butte near LaJunta. Entire crew killed on both crashes. Early 1980’s had quite a few crashes & accidents. Also had one blow up on the ramp refueling at GFAFB & a bomber fire on Nuke alert there too.
