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By Lorenzo Cortes
Air Force crewmembers operating Boeing (BA) B-52H bombers credit the aircraft's capacity to drop a wide range of munitions and its long loiter time as crucial factors to the bomber's success during Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF).
"We have a very long loiter time," Capt. Patrick McDonald, a radar/navigator operator with the 5th Bomb Wing at Minot AFB, N.D., said during an interview with Defense Daily yesterday about the B- 52H's performance in OIF. "And, we have a very large arsenal."
That arsenal included Boeing's AGM-86C Conventional Air-Launched Cruise Missile (CALCM), unguided gravity bombs such as the Mk 82 500- pounder and Mk 84 2,000-pounder and even laser-guided GBU-12 500- pound bombs. The GBU-12 is a Mk 82 fitted with a Paveway...