Gaffes

In several scenes, flight line maintenance personnel and command staff officers are not wearing hearing protectors while standing near jet aircraft with running engines. Air Force policy requires personnel to wear hearing protection while around operating engines to prevent permanent hearing damage caused by the extremely loud, high-pitched sound produced by jet engines.

During an inflight emergency when his B-52 experiences a fuel leak while refueling from a KC-135 tanker, Col Caldwell correctly orders his crew to don oxygen masks so as not to breathe the gas fumes. The crew puts on their masks, but the remaining scenes depicting the emergency show the crew with their masks off again, even though fuel is still leaking and fumes are still present.

During the no notice readiness inspection at the end of the film General Kirby is informed that the operation begins at 23:06 ZULU. Zulu time is Greenwich Mean Time so as the Air-Base is near San Francisco the local time for the start of the operation should be 16:06 Pacific Daylight Time and the B-52 aircraft should be taking off in daylight not darkness as seen.

In many scenes, officers are wearing hats and caps indoors. Air Force custom dictates that personnel will not wear headgear indoors, except when participating in ceremonies.

When the B-52 with the fuel leak lands, and has to use brakes to stop instead of the parachute, the fire crews spray the wheels with carbon dioxide fire extinguishers to cool them. This would be against procedure, since rapid cooling of the wheels could cause them to fail and the tires to explode. Instead, the fire crew would have stood by in readiness for a wheel fire and let the brakes cool gradually.

Although there were no missiles at Hamilton AFB, where the movie takes place, there were NIKE missiles located at Fort Barry, 19 miles away, Fort Cronkite, 21 miles away and Angel Island, 22 miles away. During a SAC drill, these bases would also participate, so it is conceivable that these scenes shown in the movie would be happening.