Does the B52 stratofortress nose wheel lock during takeoff and landing?

Question

I wonder if the B52 nose wheel is still moving while takeoff and landing. Does it?

Answer 1

The B-52's tandem or "bicycle" landing gear system features 2 gear legs (one on each side of the fuselage centerline) forward and 2 more gear legs (again one on each side of the fuselage centerline) aft, with each gear leg supporting an axle with 2 wheels. There is a smaller "outrigger" wheel near each wingtip. The B-52 takes off without rotating -- discussed in this related ASE question.

Certainly the forward wheels are steerable, via the rudder pedals. Any takeoff or landing would no doubt include such steering inputs. The B-52 rudder is quite small (specifically, very narrow in chord) and would not be effective as the sole way of steering the aircraft during takeoff and landing. Differential thrust would work, but in actual practice the forward wheels are steered with the rudder pedals. See for example this quote from an article called "Flying the B-52, Part 2" by Major Kong (https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2012/12/13/1169386/-Flying-the-B-52-Part-2):

There was no tiller for the nose-wheel steering like an airliner would have. It was all done through the rudder pedals. There was a setting for taxi and a low range for takeoff and landing that limited how much steering you had.

So in no sense should the B-52's front wheels considered to be "locked" during takeoff or landing.

A more interesting question might be "as well as setting the angle of the rear wheels, does the 'crabbing' crosswind correction system, controlled by a dial between the pilots' seats, also change the angle taken by the forward wheels when the rudder pedals are centered?"

Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_B-52_Stratofortress) states: "A notable feature of the landing gear was the ability to pivot both fore and aft main landing gear up to 20° from the aircraft centerline to increase safety during crosswind landings (allowing the aircraft to "crab" or roll with a sideways slip angle down the runway)." This seems to imply "yes", but not absolutely unambiguously so.

A Linked-In article by Roger Hall (https://www.linkedin.com/posts/rogerhall-lxm_setting-b-52-landing-gear-crab-angle-an-activity-7094196003355947008-JpGj/) seems to make the point more clearly: "SETTING B-52 LANDING GEAR CRAB ANGLE; an interesting feature of the B-52 landing gear greatly eases the problems posed by crosswind takeoff & landings. Both the front and rear bogies can be set at angles of as much as 20° to either side of the straight-ahead position." The article includes a photo of the dial for setting the crosswind correction. The dial includes the label "lift up" (to operate) -- this is clearly something that is set to a desired angle and then left alone, not continually actively manipulated to help steer the aircraft.

Consider that accidentally touching down with a 20-degree difference between the front and rear wheels would invite a severe swerve. Since zero rudder deflection is required to approach the runway in a crab, a crosswind gear system that only set the angle of the rear wheels, not the front wheels, would seem to invite exactly that problem. So common sense suggests that the crosswind correction system affects the angle of the front wheels as well as the rear ones.