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On-air spookmaster Fart Smell never impressed me. I thought he was a
professional gullibard, bringing every goof with some paranormal or
conspiracy ideas on uncritically and on the rare occasion some
worhtwhile individual was on would fail to ask them anything really
interesting. I rarely allow my car radio to sit on the successors'
broadcasts very often because it's inevitably pure horse****.

Tonight some idiot is promulgating the idea that a B-50 bomber took
off in 1947 and crashed in Thule, Greenland in 2001. Like a sap, I
pulled over and listened. It took me ten minutes to realize that this
story was obviously put together on purpose with more holes than a
Swiss cheese, because no one concocting such a tale would ahve failed
to notice a half dozen major gaffes.

One, a B-50 was simply a B-29 of later mark with R-4360 engines
instead of the R-3350s. It is not easy to tell a B-50 from a B-29, the
fuselage and wing are identical and the engine nacelles and cowlings
are a little different. From the air no one but an expert could tell,
yet this guy maintains his homies spotted the airplane on a mythical
return flight to CONUS in 2001 or 2002 all over the place. No ****ing
way: only one B-29 is airworthy and the warbird guys would have been
on it like stink on ****. A government secret operation would have
never pulled such a return flight if keeping the story on the QT were
of any interest whatsoever.

Two, he talks about "the tower" (Thule approach in 2001/02) having
heard them on sideband radio on a now unused frequency. Bull****.
Recip era aircraft DIDN"T CARRY single sideband radios, that came in
with the jets without fulltime radio operators. The used either modern
VHF or UHF AM aeronautical band (hasn't changed since WWII) for voice
or HF Morse code-Thule probably doesn't monitor HF and if they did no
one there in 2001 could copy code.

Three, the USAF is the most warbird-ops-averse organization on
planet. They do not have crews who could work on or fly these things
and would not allow them to do it if they did. The guest claims they
could have pulled parts from C-97 stockpiles (unlikely) and flown it
out on 'the same fuel the C-1130s use' (very ****ing wrong). I doubt
any kind of avgas is available on Thule now or ten years ago. Car gas
will run some radials but definitely not a 3350 or 4360, high
compression purple burning engines. I'm not even sure they have car
gas on Thule, everything's probably diesel so it will run on "Arctic
Diesel". (The USAF runs on JP-8 now, which is diesel compatible, but
in 2001 were they still burning JP-4? I doubt it. )

Four, he claims that the 1947 crew died of hypothermia in their
seats. Bull****, they aren't going to just sit there and freeze. These
men were trained and equipped to survive for days in arctic conditions
as over the pole operation was Cold War doctrine from Day One. The
aircraft would keep them warm for quite awhile, especially if the APU
had fuel, even so they would not freeze in a few hours. These aircraft
operated in high altitude cold and were well insulated, they had to be
as unlike modern jets they didn't have hot high pressure bleed air to
keep the cabin hot.

Fifth, he claims outrage that the gummint hid the stiffs and denied
everything, a transgression against their family...No, the
transgression against the families is that if this aircraft really was
lost with all hands, in 1947, he'd pull **** like this out of his
ass.

That people have made this Cub Scout spook story show Number One in
its time slot...any time slot...shows people are really, really
****in' gullible.