B52 sucker Tug?

[Rick65]

A question I am hoping someone will be able to answer.
I was reading an article on the Chaparral 2H sports racing car that discussed Jim Halls use of a separate engine to create a vacuum under his car's to suck them to the road (probably related more to the J than the H).
The following claim was made :
"The whole sucker concept comes from vehicles used to tow B-52 bombers on frozen Alaskan runways. It gave the necessary traction to get things moving."
Fact or fiction?
If it is fact does anyone have any information or images of these B-52 sucker tugs?

[tinbender2]

I don't know about B-52s, but my northern tier SAC base had KC-135s and used regular ol massive-weight tugs with tire chains. During freezing rains, the ramp would be coated with 3/8” thick ice that was clear as glass and almost as smooth. You couldn't walk on it without slipping and people with warped minds would gather to watch and count how many times line guys slipped and fell on their azz.

One of my better SAC memories was watching a -135 try to taxi inside the Alert Aircraft Parking Area on that ice. The pilot got it moving on the sloped ramp and a strong wind began pushing it downhill, sideways, toward other tankers. Lots of “Oh SH-T” comments and people running away. The rudder on the -135 was rapidly hitting the stops as were the engines, and the Wing King standing next to me was screaming into his brick for the crash trucks. I remember thinking the Wing CC was going to have to up channel an accident report of biblical proportions and kiss his star goodbye.

The pilot finally got it stopped with engine power, every wheel got chocked and watered to freeze them to the ice. It was later moved using two tugs in tandem after defueling it.

I thought it was funny because mother nature showed a bunch of incredibly arrogant idiots that they were not the supreme beings they believed they were.


Even more amusing was the time a two-stripe Airman forgot to install the nose wheel locking pin on a -135. The aircraft was balanced perfectly on it's mains, and those Canadian storm winds pushed down on the tail enough to allow the nose to rise and the nose wheel to collapse. It was an alert bird, in the AAPA no less. Sitting on it's nose, tail high in the air, the fuselage bent and massively wrinkled. With the straightest face I could muster, I asked one of the alert pilots if he'd like to be the one to call it in, then went out to my vehicle and had a good laugh. I still have pics of that bird somewhere. I believe they scrapped it.

[JohnB]

I thought it was funny because mother nature showed a bunch of incredibly arrogant idiots that they were not the supreme beings they believed they were.

The SAC (or USAFE or ACC) wing CCs I knew were occasionally arrogant, but NEVER idiots.
BTW: what was your job?


As far as the tugs go...I've never heard of such a thing. Like snowplows, I always assumed that they relied on sheer torque (from I-6 diesels) to do their job.
Jim Hall's a smart guy (also a pilot, IIRC)..I went to the opening of his museum about 10 years ago (where I met Phil Hill, Dan Gurney and the reigning Indy 500 winner) but I wonder if he's wrong here. Or perhaps he meant a sucker was proposed for tug work.

[airnutz]

The following claim was made :
"The whole sucker concept comes from vehicles used to tow B-52 bombers on frozen Alaskan runways. It gave the necessary traction to get things moving."

Is this supposed to be a direct quote from Hall, or is it something the writer attributed to Mr. Hall's saying? If the latter, I'm wondering if the writer confused Hall's idea to use a small aux motor to power the sucker device from some tugs having an separate onboard APU. What article did this come from?

Last edited by airnutz on Thu Dec 17, 2015 3:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[cco23i]

As was said all we did on 135's was to have chains on the "ukes" I remember the pilots using engine thrust to turn on ice also up in Bangor. As many said we crew chiefs and others working the line were always full of "testosterone".

[Rick65]

The original article link follows, I don't see it as a very authorative article, but sometimes interesting facts come from obscure comments in unrelated articles, other times massive misinformation.
http://www.motorsportmagazine.com/race/ ... 2f-and-2h/

I had never considered the difficulties in maneouvring large planes on the ground in icy conditions (West Australians don't understand ice and snow) and thanks those who have cast some entertaining light on the problems.