Operation Chrome Dome

Operation Chrome Dome was a United States Air Force Cold War-era mission from 1961 to 1968 in which B-52 strategic bomber aircraft armed with thermonuclear weapons remained on continuous airborne alert, flying routes that put them in positions to attack targets in the Soviet Union if they were ordered to do so.

The goal of "Chrome Dome" was to keep a number of nuclear-armed aircraft in a position to help guarantee nuclear retaliation against the Soviet Union in the event that the latter was somehow able to destroy the majority of US nuclear weapons still on the ground, while also ensuring that Strategic Air Command bomber crews had experience with airborne alert procedures so that, in the event of heightened concern, the number of patrolling bombers could be increased dramatically.

[1] After the Soviet Union's successful launch of its first satellites, in 1957, US military planners feared that intercontinental ballistic missiles could under some circumstances destroy the bomber forces of the Strategic Air Command (SAC) prior to their taking off.

General Curtis LeMay had, prior to this, worked to reduce the ground-based alert time for SAC's B-52 bomber forces to 15 minutes, but the new SAC commander, General Thomas S. Power, pushed to augment this with a full airborne-alert program, in which some portion of the American B-52 bomber force would be airborne and armed with nuclear weapons 24 hours a day.

The ultimate plans called for the ability to maintain at least 1/16th of the entire SAC bomber forces in the air at any given time in a period of high alert.

The operations of 1961, each using 12 bomber sorties, were: "Cover All" (15 January–31 March), "Clear Road" (1 April–30 June), "Keen Axe" (1 July–30 September), and "Wire Brush" (1 October–5 November).

It was explicitly planned that, in times of high alert, the number of B-52s on the "Chrome Dome" routes could be increased far above the twelve daily flights.

President John F. Kennedy presented Power with a flight safety award in December 1962 as a result of the fact that no accidents of significance were reported during this period.

[8] The missions in 1964 involved a B-52D that left Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas, and flew across the United States to New England and headed out to the Atlantic Ocean.

1964 Operation Chrome Dome Map from Sheppard Air Force Base, TX
1966 overview of US airborne alert routes, based on a document used by White House staff.
Operation Chrome Dome flight routes proposed in October 1961; this image comes from Royal Canadian Air Force files and so is focused on the aspects of the flight that overlapped with Canadian airspace, but part of the Mediterranean route is also visible, as is the observation of the Thule early warning site.
B-52 Airborne Nuclear Alert route from Homestead AFB , FL to Italy