ON APRIL 15, 1952 the first flight of America's newest warplane - Boeing's enormous B-52 Stratofortress - took place from the company's airfield outside Seattle, Washington. Sixty years later the B-52, a utilitarian weapon of war, has acquired near-mythical status after a career spanning more than half of the 109 years of manned flight, with no end in sight - indeed, it seems more than likely that the last B-52s, built more than 50 years ago, will carry on till they've chalked up their century! Because of its high-profile involvement in the Cold War - and the first war to be extensively televised, Vietnam - the B-52 attracted wide public attention. Stanley Kubrick's movie, Dr Strangelove, featured the bomber and since then popular culture has given its name to a drink, a hair-style and a rock group. Boeing called the B-52 'Strato-fortress', carrying on the Fortress theme that started with the B-17 Flying Fortress and moved on through the B-29 and B-50 Superfortresses. As a result of the carpet bombing of jungles during the Vietnam War it gained the monikers 'Monkeyknocker' and 'Coconutknocker'.
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