U.S. Air Force B-1 Bomber Mock-Up & F-16 Fighting Falcon Prototype 80974 (1974)

Synopsis

Rescued from the garbage bin of Rockwell International's defunct facility in Los Angeles, this silent film (which once had a soundtrack -- but we didn't find one in the dumpster so this is shown silent) features footage of the B-1 Bomber mock-up and General Dynamics' YF-16 Fighting Falcon prototype. The B-1 mock-up fuselage shown was made almost entirely of wood and debuted in 1971. At 3:10 engineers and U.S. Air Force maintenance crew are shown examining the mock-up and demonstrating how the bomber would be serviced in the field. At 5:30 are shots inside the Rockwell plant showing the assembly of the B-1 and the manufacture of some of its component parts. At 7:00 the crew escape capsule is shown being tested. At 7:10 the B-52 bomber "Balls 8" flies the escape capsule up over Edwards AFB for a parachute test. At 8:23, a mock-up of the aircraft is tested for radar signature. A map at 8:55 shows the various companies involved in the B-1 program which had 65,500 sub-contractor jobs affiliated with it in 45 states (11:12). At 12:38 wind tunnel testing of a B-1 and its munitions payload is shown. At 14:00, crew work in a simulator. A pylon test is shown at 14:28 with a large model. The mock-up is shown again at 15:28. At 15:41 the film transitions to another movie about the General Dynamics F-16. The YF-16 prototype aircraft is shown at 16:53 flying over Edwards Air Force Base. The reactions of ground personnel at 25:47 appear to indicate that this might be the very first test…

Uploader's description on archive.org

Details

Running time

41 minutes

Collection

Ephemeral Films

Subjects on the Internet Archive

• Stock Footage