page_title: Boeing B-50 Superfortress
section_title: Operational history
hierarchical_section_title: Boeing B-50 Superfortress / Operational history
caption_attribution_description: English: A KB-50J refuels a F-101A Voodoo, B-66 Destroyer and F-100D Super Sabre at RAF Waterbeach, Cambridgeshire on Battle of Britain Day, 14 September 1963. Note the tanker's two General Electric J47 turbojets outboard of the piston engines and that the USAF were using probe and drogue methods. The B-66 is either just about to receive the drogue or has just exited it.
context_page_description: The Boeing B-50 Superfortress is an American strategic bomber. A post–World War II revision of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress, it was fitted with more powerful Pratt & Whitney R-4360 radial engines, stronger structure, a taller tail fin, and other improvements. It was the last piston-engined bomber built by Boeing for the United States Air Force, and was further refined into Boeing's final such design, the B-54. Not as well known as its direct predecessor, the B-50 was in USAF service for nearly 20 years.
  After its primary service with Strategic Air Command ended, B-50 airframes were modified into aerial tankers for Tactical Air Command and as weather reconnaissance aircraft for the Air Weather Service. Both the tanker and hurricane hunter versions were retired in March 1965 due to metal fatigue and corrosion found in the wreckage of KB-50J, 48-065, which crashed on 14 October 1964.
context_section_description: Boeing built 370 of the various B-50 models and variants between 1947 and 1953, the tanker and weather reconnaissance versions remaining in service until 1965.
  The first B-50As were delivered in June 1948 to the Strategic Air Command's 43d Bombardment Wing, based at Davis–Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona. The 2d Bombardment Wing at Chatham Air Force Base, Georgia also received B-50As; the 93d Bombardment Wing at Castle Air Force Base, California and the 509th Bombardment Wing at Walker Air Force Base, New Mexico received B-50Ds in 1949. The fifth and last SAC wing to receive B-50Ds was the 97th Bombardment Wing at Biggs Air Force Base, Texas in December 1950.
  The mission of these wings was to be nuclear-capable and, in wartime, be able to deliver the atomic bomb on enemy targets if ordered by the president.
  The 301st Bombardment Wing at MacDill Air Force Base, Florida received some B-50As reassigned from Davis–Monthan in early 1951, but used them for non-operational training pending the delivery of B-47A Stratojets in June 1951. The B-50 was built as an interim strategic bomber to be replaced by the B-47 Stratojet, but delays to the Stratojet forced the B-50 to soldier on until well into the 1950s.
  A strategic reconnaissance version of the B-50B, the RB-50 was developed in 1949 to replace the aging RB-29s used by SAC in its intelligence gathering operations against the Soviet Union. Three different configurations were produced, which were later redesignated RB-50E, RB-50F, and RB-50G respectively. The RB-50E was earmarked for photographic reconnaissance and observation missions; The RB-50F resembled the RB-50E but carried the SHORAN radar navigation system designed to conduct mapping, charting, and geodetic surveys, and the mission of the RB-50G was electronic reconnaissance. These aircraft were operated primarily by the 55th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing. RB-50Es were also operated by the 91st Strategic Reconnaissance Wing as a replacement for RB-29 photographic reconnaissance aircraft flown over North Korea during the Korean War.
  The vast northern borders of the Soviet Union were wide open in many places during the early Cold War years with little defensive radar coverage, and limited detection capability. RB-50 aircraft of the 55th SRW flew many sorties along the periphery, and where necessary into the interior. Initially, there was little opposition from the Soviet forces as radar coverage was limited and, if the overflying aircraft were detected, the World War II era Soviet fighters could not intercept the RB-50s at their high altitude.
  The deployment of the MiG-15 interceptor in the early 1950s made these flights exceedingly hazardous, with several being shot down by Soviet air defenses and the wreckage being examined by intelligence personnel. RB-50 missions over Soviet territory ended by 1954, replaced by the RB-47 Stratojet intelligence aircraft that could fly higher near supersonic speed.
  The B-47 Stratojet was manufactured in large numbers beginning in 1953 and eventually replaced the B-50Ds in SAC service; the last being retired in 1955. With its retirement from the nuclear-bomber mission, many B-50 airframes were converted to aerial refueling tankers.
  The B-50, with more powerful engines than the KB-29s in use by Tactical Air Command (TAC), was much more suitable to refuel tactical jet fighter aircraft, such as the F-100 Super Sabre. As tankers, KB-50s would feature extensively reinforced outer wing panels, the necessary equipment to air refuel simultaneously three fighter-type aircraft by the probe and drogue method, and removal of defensive armament.
  The first KB-50 flew in December 1955 and was accepted by the Air Force in January 1956. The tankers steadily entered the operational inventory of TAC supplanting TAC's KB-29s. By the end of 1957, all of the command's aerial refuling squadrons had their full complement of KB-50s. KB-50s, and later KB-50Js with two General Electric J47 jet engines were used by TAC, and also by USAFE and PACAF overseas as aerial tankers. Some were deployed to Thailand and flew re
caption: A McDonnell F-101A Voodoo (top right), Douglas B-66 Destroyer (top left) and North American F-100D Super Sabre refuel from a KB-50J tanker (420th Air Refueling Squadron) at an RAF open day in England, 1963
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