B52 Bomber Mildenhall Air Fete Take Off!
 

Was at one of the Mildenhall Airshows back in the 80's when a B52 started it's take off run down the runway, it came off the deck at a very low nose down attitude ( which I know they normally do ) but on this occasion it wasn't getting any higher and kept this very low attitude with nose only a couple of feet off the ground and getting closer to it. Everyone was shaking their heads in disbelief as we had visions of it going in. Luckily it got airborne that was also another close call!

Glider 90

I remember that take off, bit more than a couple of feet; spectacular certainly but not a close call.

Saw a Buffalo do something similar from Gatwick once, lift off, nose down, gear up, held low for a short while before climbing out in a curiously flat attitude.

It looked close to me and so did many others!

You seem obsessed with close calls! Unfortunately many amateurs think things look bad when, in fact, they are perfectly normal.

Looked odd to some apparently, not to me, a great demo of the B-52's capabilities. If anyone is tempted to call "Bud Holland", I gather it wasn't.

Completely tangential and pedantic but I don't understand why people omit the hyphen and write the likes of B52 and F35. They don't randomly add hyphens to make 7-3-7 or A-320 so why omit them from other designations?

I suppose one possible comeback is 'I was using the ICAO type codes'.

Admittedly it is marginally better than 'BBC Standard' which appears to be Hercules C-130-J.

But note that the ICAO decode for A332, for example, is "Airbus A-332-200".

Other types suffering from ICAO hyphen-rash include the "BAe-146" and most of Aerospatiale's helicopters.

Noticed an aviation mag article recently in which various Wichita types had become Cessna C152, Cessna C172, etc... I did find it a bit grating!

Back on the B52 at Mildenhall topic.
I remember one show about 1970, standing beside an American who said "Look at this bird go". The B52 then took off due to the earth's curvature, as usual, did a couple of flybys and departed to the States.
About 2 items later the 5 engined Vulcan did it's display and said American's jaw dropped to the floor.

Returning to the original post and the "nose down attitude". Never having had the opportunity to take to the air in a BUFF I have a question for those who have.

On rotation do you actually pull the yoke towards you?

Apologies in adavnce if this is a dumb question:8

There is not such thing as a dumb question, only a dumb answer. Doh

Wot, like that?

Note the longitudinal axis of the B52 on climb out. It does look very flat. I've seen the too, but too many years ago to be accurate. What I do remember is the Vulcan takeoff in reheat and finding I could hardly breath. Chest pain was very real. Ears were also protesting and not one H&E Db meter holding numpty in sight. Ah, the days before them were relaxed.

nose-down attitude at take-off B-52 ground effect
 

(Dumb question? er...question sequence)
Doesn't something called "ground effect" enhance lift below some very low altitude? So wouldn't that, plus lower Cd due to gear up, make very low flight above a runway a good place to accelerate? And wouldn't a low-nose attitude sort of facilitate this low flat flight regime? And reduce tire wear, in comparison to developing pre-rotation velocity in normal fashion?

Reheat on a Vulcan? Vulcan test-beds did carry under slung engines for the likes of the Concorde, Tornado and TSR2.

Some details and pics of the under slung engines carried on Vulcan test-beds.

Jet Age - Pt 6 - Vulcan To The Sky

Wasn't there a story about one of the bombing competitions in the USA attended by Vulcans? Something about the height a Vulcan could reach from a standing start and before passing the far end of the runway. The Vulcan crews won a case of whisky?

The Buff has four trucks for the undercarriage. Two in front and two behind the bomb bay. You try and land it like a conventional aircraft and it will porpoise as it bounces from front to rear trucks. For this reason it is designed to land with the fuselage level. In crosswind conditions the trucks can be turned so that the aircraft will track along the runway even though the nose is offset to counteract the drift.

Take off is the same. It runs along the runway until the wings overcome it's weight and then it will get airborne, again in a level attitude. It will maintain that level attitude as it increases speed as the flaps are pulled in.

This is off topic but it's something that I'm very curious what is the maximum number of engines that the B52 lose for Takeoff and en enroute?

Ground effect peters out above 1/2 wing span or so.

Note that the B-52 has HUGE flaps, effectively increasing the angle of attack well above the wing's angle of incidence. Combined with ground effect, the B-52 can indeed climb away from the ground with a flat (or even negative) fuselage attitude.

"Very low flight" may be a good place to accelerate theoretically, but proximity to the ground also makes it more dangerous and subject to often-uncontrollable outside influences (birds, turbulence...) that may tend to reduce altitude to 0.

Landing gear drag versus angle in raising or lowering
 

Is it ever too low to raise gear if there isn't enough runway left to abort take-off?
As gear generally or always rotates longitudinally or laterally, is there any angle in its movement where drag is higher than when fully extended?