 Editor in Chief Bill   | 07 Oct 2019 5:07 p.m. PST |
The B-52 will be armed with long-range, nuclear cruise missiles… the B-2 will elude the most modern air defenses and the B-1B bomber will fire hypersonic weapons -- if the Air Force's plan for the next several decades comes to fruition… link |
epturner  | 07 Oct 2019 8:09 p.m. PST |
The B=52, the BUFF, was always imagined to be The Last Man Standing… Just my opinion, which is worth about exactly two centavos, but it's how I see it. B-52's, Twinkies, and Cockroaches. They will survive. Eric |
| Thresher01 | 07 Oct 2019 8:26 p.m. PST |
The B-52 will be flying for a full century, I suspect. A tribute to its great designers, and design. |
 aegiscg47 | 08 Oct 2019 6:19 a.m. PST |
Not too surprising since the cost of replacing them including spare parts, training, etc., would be monumentally staggering. With most air forces cutting strength, the "wave" of the future is making existing airframes extend life as long as possible. Israel is making a killing refurbishing and upgrading Mig-21s! |
 Andrew Walters | 08 Oct 2019 8:03 a.m. PST |
I'm not surprised. Part of it is similar to the M1911 or M2, you get a basic thing right and it's a long time before someone makes a cost effective improvement. Part of it is the spectacularly politicized and spendthrifty way new high tech military projects are developed. The B-52 is about getting the job done. More recent projects are about politics and money. |
| Lion in the Stars | 08 Oct 2019 11:17 a.m. PST |
About the only way to improve the B52 would be newer engines. Those old JT3s are fuel hogs. A 'new' CFM56 (dates to the early 1980s) gets better fuel economy at takeoff power than the JT3s get at cruise! Not to mention that the CFM56s have spare parts in production and have a Mean Time Between Failures of somewhere above 300,000 hours! |
| USAFpilot | 08 Oct 2019 7:22 p.m. PST |
Reminds me of the time a B-52 had to shut down an engine in flight. The pilot declared an emergency on tower frequency, and some joker chimed in on the radio: "oh no, not the dreaded 7 engine approach". ;-) |
| TGerritsen | 09 Oct 2019 7:23 a.m. PST |
You guys are reading this all wrong. The USAF has perfected time travel and they are literally flying these bombers into the 2040s. Seriously, though, the B-52s are finally getting new engines. They will be new rebuilds of the TF33 with modern fuel economy techniques built into them- if only congress will let them get on with it… link |
| Lion in the Stars | 09 Oct 2019 12:53 p.m. PST |
Ugh, TF33s are seriously old junk. replace with the CFM56s as used on the P8 poseidons and call it good. |
