In this 1957 video, a 110-foot long, 116-foot wide, 133,000-pound Boeing B-47 bomber pulls a tight upside down maneuver after releasing its payload. The technique was so risky that pilots called it the “Idiot’s Loop.”
Not only was the plane at risk from extreme aerodynamic and gravitational loads, it would also be carrying an atomic bomb at the same time.
Practiced by Richard Bach at Eglin Air Force base, this “toss bombing” delivery method was concocted to allow the aircraft to “toss” a bomb at low altitude while giving it enough time to reverse course in order to avoid anti-aircraft defenses or the blast from the nuclear bomb it just released…
Source: YouTube
Is that Major Richard Bach, the author of Jonathan Livingston Seagull? To my knowledge he only flew F-86 fighters, not bombers and certainly not the B-47. I say this because Bach never mentioned flying such a bird, but wrote about the Sabre flightime while in the Air National Guard as his service time.
BTW, my father, Major Jim Walther did fly the B-47 and undoubtedly performed this manuever, known as an Immelmann, named after the German ace of WW I that used it in a biplane, just to turn around fast.
Yes, Richard Bach the author. He described the maneuver in his book “Stranger to the Ground”, but when he was flying a F-84F Thunderstreak.