Ellsworth AFB in Rapid City, SD

One of our friends was stationed at Ellsworth AFB and while at the rally attended a reunion there.  He arranged for all of us to have a tour of the base while we were there for the museum.  Several B1B bombers took off while we were there and they ARE LOUD!  In the third picture we were on a bus that took us out to one of the flight lines while on our way to watch a crew practice loading bombs.  The fourth picture is the business end of these planes.

 

In talking with these servicemen they told us that the actual loading takes place outside....no matter the South Dakota weather.  When some of their planes flew to Iraq they were doing this in the middle of winter outdoors.  They told us it takes them 3 hours to load a bomber, and the pilot 3 seconds to unload it.

We also got to go down into a Minuteman silo plus see and talk with some ordnance disposal specialists, all have been in Iraq and/or Afghanistan.  They demonstrated their robot and showed us some of the original and new IEDs used by the bad guys.  When the US develops better mine detectors the bad guys revise their IEDs.  The current IED is a 4 gallon red plastic container full of homemade explosives.  The bad thing is there are thousands of these containers with fuel, cooking oil, and anything you can think of all over Afghanistan, everyone uses them for legitimate purposes.