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Planning For 80-Year Old B-52s
Merry_B.Buck writes "The B-52 Stratofortress, famous for its carpet bombing (or, as
the Pentagon prefers, "long sticking") was designed in the 1940s to carry boxcar-sized atomic bombs. This Fast Company analysis describes how the US plans to keep these planes -- the youngest of which was built in 1962 -- flying until 2040. "
And they're thinking about CONTINUING to do so until Hell freezes over!
If it works, don't fix it!
The major advances in aviation in the 1950's were sufficient to provide a number of platforms that are so cost effective as to not be worth replacing. B-52's and P-3's are examples.
The only good weather is bad weather.
Put the research money into fast deadly assault planes... and you can use hot air ballons to deliver your bombs.
I believe there was a plan at one point to extend their operational life by replacing their dual engine pods with the recently introduced engines used on the 777. As some of you may know, that engine is huge (it's intake diameter is the same as the diameter of a 737s fuselage!), so, I'm not quite sure how they planned to do that.
But if you add up the total thrust that would be produced for 4 777 engines, it would be enough to acclerate the B-52 vertically!
The thing about the B52's is that, even though not many people would know the technical specs, it has been encultured to convey power. You can tell the average Joe Shmoe that we are sending B52's into ombat and, even though Joe can't tie his own shoes, he will know that we are sending in the big guns. Plus its a dang good plane.
Ever take apart a full-tower? Or better yet, one of those IBM Netfinity boxes that covers about two square blocks? Much easier than working on, say, my Titanium Powerbook...
Who did what now?
NASA uses a B-52 for high altitude drops of prototype flight models.
It was actually tail number "008" making it the oldest operational B-52.
It is also the lowest flight time operational B-52.
The advanced technologies used in newer aircraft make the use of the subsonic B-52 possible. When the USAF owns the skys it's possible to bomb with a zeppelin. Still, the B52 and a few others (C-130, F4 Phantom, etc.) are marvels of elegant design.
Watching Cowboy Bebop in my jammies, eating a bowl of Shreddies.
If you think about it, there really wouldn't be that much needed to make these planes more modern. Yes the computer upgrade would be necessary in my mind. Add the new navigation and targeting radar systems, if that hasn't been done already. I suppose the radar jammers, (if they have them?) would be good enough. The um....idea that they're working off of now is fighting third-world countries. They'll be using old radar. So the old jammers are what you need. If newer ones are needed, use the pod (forget the name off the top of my head).
And this thing is IMPRESSIVE. If you've seen one, its hard to imagine it flying, even more so with the amount of ordinance it can carry. And what's more demoralizing that being carpet-bombed by one of these old big planes? Well maybe beign hit by a bomb.......but thats besides the point.
So maybe what needs to be the area of concern is not the age, but the capacity and reliability of these planes.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&o
Hooyah!
I was a Bomb/Nav tech on the B-52's and can definitely attest to their resilience. While the airframe is old, they are running early 80's era technology throughout many areas.
The bombing systems run off of 3 computing units, each with as I remember four Z-80A processors. Data is loaded from harden (and sloooow) tape drives.
The Nav/bombardier compartment is on the first floor, but it does sit quite a ways back from the pilot. Underneath the pilot's is the main radar antenna.
The FLIR and STV systems were top. The FLIR was especially handy in the blizzard-ridden hellhole I was stationed at. We could use them to discern the sex of people from far away (different hotspots), and we could also located our boss driving the trick in a whiteout. He was a chain smoker, so we would just aim it out on the flightline, and wait for the telltale thin white heat line of a man driving a work truck with his cigarette hanging out the window....
Sgt. Barker if you're out there, give me a ring at:
greygent [at] absent [dot] org
I loved working on B-52's, they were excellent, quality planes...and I actually do miss the flightline life...
Working on B-1s...was another story. Nothing scares a pilot thats about to take off, more, than when an advanced avionics tech rushes up into the plane to fix a problem with a rubber mallet (sticky relays). when I was in the military, I read a report that stated as things stand, even though the B-1 is 20 years newer, the B-52 airframe will still far outlast the B-1.
I've read that the first U2 spy plane was able to fly around 3000 feet higher than those of today simply because a crapload of equipment has been tacked on the modern version.
With the B-52, it seems this might not have happened, and the plane might have gotten lighter. After all, a "dance hall" full of vacuum tubes that can be replaced with a few microchips must take off a few tonnes (which can then be added on in munitions. yippee).
Also, when Mike T. is one in a long string of people that I've heard crap on the B-1. Is there anything about that plane that doesn't suck? Or is there some truth in people who say that the modern American aerospace industry couldn't produce a cheap, reliable airplane?
Obviously there's the F-22 and the JSF, but at $150 million for a single F-22, is stealth and all the associated razmataz really worth it? The US already dominates the world.
A company I once developed software for was running their production systems on old Wang computers. It was kept in an air-conditioned room and employees were told to stay out of it. The box was about the size of a tall washing machine. It even looked like one, with dials in the front. I think they used telnet on their Windows machine to access it. As far as I know, the software has remained intact, with some slight updating to accomodate more products.
What since when? I had the feeling the capital of serbia was named BELGRADE. I also use to thought that Kosovo was a REGION not a city. A region that wanted to separate from the rest of the country! Now if this guy got all his fact as straight as is understanding of a RECENT war, I'm sure we can trust him.
Trust me, I'm a reporter!
So it was designed to carry boxcar-sized atomic weapons, yet 5 years later, the first atomic weapons were inly 15 feet long.
We can only try to imagine what kind of payload these planes would deliver in 2040.
I wonder how many nanorounds one of these babies can pack.
Kevin Fox
lets see, B-52 took part in the bombing of Slobodan Milosovich's Yugoslavia(Serbia+montenegro), Kosovo, the region, was a part of jugolsavia(and still is, at least on the paper). Kosovo it's not Milosovichs capital, as the journalist says, its a part of the country.
And by the way: why did the US++ start to call Kosovo Albanians Kosovoar during the campaign?
Nemo
...we don't need them any more in 40 years.
I think the point of the article is the amazing work done by engineers in the 1940's with slide rules and log tables...not to promote war.
Is it just me or does anybody else find it amusing that this was posted by an anonymous coward?
K.
-
-- Proud descendant of semi-nomadic cattle-herders.
aka the blackbird. Titanium body, sustained speed and altitude specs that still (so far as I know) can't be beat. Mothballed a few years ago ... bet they'd come in handy for some surveillance jobs right about now.
"that's not encryption - it's a new perl script that I'm working on..." - from some Matrix parody
We've got literally thousands of old planes mothballed out in Arizona - not just B52s but B47s and B36s as well. A lot were destroyed under the SALT treaties of the 1970s and START treaties of the 1990s, but a lot are still there. So what if they are supposed to be destroyed, Dubya's getting us out of the ABM treaty, ain't he? Yeeha!!! Given that a SINGLE B-2 comes in at sizable fraction of a BILLION dollars, how many of these puppies could we get back in the air for the cost of a single "modern" bomber? Check out here and here...
I would suppose there's something to be said for years of experience maintaining a system and dealing with its oddities.
When something is done right the first time, it's not necessary to re-invent the wheel...
And the humbling realization that something this big was done so long ago.
All the armed forces keep weapons around for a long time. The Army has used the M113 armored personnel carrier since '60, and apart from engine swaps (which the B-52 gets, too), they're still running around. It's also been used as the basis for countless other vehicles, and it would suprise me greatly if it didn't hang around another 40 years.
.45, for an insanely long time. It was introduced in 1911, and saw action in horseback cavalry charges when Pershing was going after Pancho Villa in Mexico. It started to get replaced by the M-9 in 1986, but was still very much around during the Gulf war. 80 years of service life, unmodified. Not bad.
Along the same lines, the Army and Marines hung onto the M1911, the (in)famous Colt
And then there's the C-130 and all its variants. I know guys whose granddaddies jumped out of them. They're going to be around a long time, too.
mechanical engineers come up with a design that will pass the test of time with flying colors. the B-52 is just an example,but then there is the Morris Minor, the Porsche911 etc. One reason could be that there are no such dramatic technological advances in mechanical engineering, as there are in electronics (for example), so a few talented mechanical designers have the chance of making an outstanding, long-lasting product.
:o)
Let me explain this point: as transistors appeared, nobody wanted or had any reason to make computers based on valves or relays. Once you could integrate many transistors on one chip, most of the computer logic moved from discrete to integrated electronics. This, on the other hand, brought about new and more sophisticated logic designs.
In mechanical engineering you can have new alloys, new kinds of bearings, sensors and microcontroller-regulated engines, but the basic concept is totally the same. Today you could (theoretically) employ a mechanical designer from the beginning of the century, and he would be up to speed with his colleagues in a matter of months. And his biggest challenge would be to learn CAD/CAM software usage
Software engineers are probably the most "disposable" of thebunch: advances in software engineering (ans I don't mean just programming, like moving from RPG, PL/1 to Pascal and then to C, C++, Java etc., but advances in project management techniques, requirements management, software quality control, risk management, all that sh*t...) are coming at an incredible speed, even during an alleged economical downturn, that it's not anymore important whether you know something, but how fast you are able to learn something new.
So, if I was to think of one software design from the 60' (not that long ago, even), I can't think of any.
Sigged!
After that B1-B crashed in the Indian Ocean last Tuesday, due to "multiple malfunctions," it makes me wonder why we're even using B1-B's in the Afghanistan conflict, after having achieved extreme air superiority. As this article points out, the annual budget to maintain all 94 of our B-52's is about $250 million, while the cost of a new B1-B is $280 million. B1-Bs are faster, can fly lower, avoid radar better, and have better electronic counter-measures, but the biggest cause of loss to our bombers crashing isn't speed, altitude, radar detection, or anti-aircraft missiles, it's that they break! It's hard to say what the cost would be to build new B-52s, since the last active B-52 was built in 1962, but it would sure be cheaper than the $280 million each for B1-Bs.
Or a cargo plane. The U.S. drops its biggest non-nuclear bombs from C-130 cargo planes. They're shoved out the back off the loading ramp.
However an argument can be made to update stuff regularly. Technology moves along at a rapid pace, and supporting old products can be a challenge. In this particular case support could mean spare parts, training etc. There might be certain elements which were standard when the plane was designed, but are hard to get today.
Let's say you had a computer still using tubes - difficult to get today, maybe there's only one company left which makes them, so you might end up with something which is more expensive today then when the computer was designed.
Similarly you'd find it hard to get people who still want to learn how to maintain or operate a tube-based computer, they'd know that they'd learn skills which would have little market value.
The aeroplane industry moves a lot slower now than it did, and certainly a lot slower than IT. So probably their decision was correct. I do think though that sometimes there are reasons to fix things, even if they aren't broken (yet). :)
Are you kidding? I mean, yeah, it's obviously got a psychological impact... but carpet bombing is massively destructive. Nobody launches a precise, laser-guided missile per vehicle at an enemy convoy. They just drop a shitload of bombs on the general area and call it a day.
Amen.
From what I recall, the SR71 offered a task that no satellite or U2 could perform - high-speed, on-demand surveillance overflights of not-yet-completely-controlled airspace. Sending a U2 into enemy territory without adequate SAM surpression is a very bad idea (ask Gary Powers, who probably still has burn scars on his ass... unless he's dead by now). The raw speed of the SR71 means that a) it can get there faster, so that action, before the party's over, and b) it is harder (altho not impossible) to shoot down. Wasn't there something about the US finding Bin Laden during the first few days of the campaign but not getting proper surveillance data soon enough?
I'm reminded of a scene in a Tom Clancy film (Clear and Present Danger?) where terrorists at a desert training camp hide all of their equipment during satellite overflight times, much like the white folk stopped their partying when the black man got on the bus in that oft-referenced SNL skit. Also, while one can argue that satellite imaging resolution is much more advanced than it was when the SR71 was conceived, and that such might reduce the utility of the SR71, would not the equipping of an SR71 with the same upgraded optics allow even *greater* imaging capabilities? I think to those satellite images shown during the press briefings during the early part of the Afghanistan campaign... "and this slide shows a runway... err, no wait, I think it's a... oh sorry folks, this is my son's biology experiment, let me just change that" - surely greater detail would help? (I'm sure the US military has better slides than it shows up, but the same "get the camera closer" logic applies in either case.
Anyone that is remotely interested in the SR71 or the U2 or surveillance / stealth planes in general owes it to themselves to read Skunk Works. There is also a decent SR-71 site that even has the flight manual (recently declassified) online! In case you ever find one left running unattended at the local 7-11, natch.
-- "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge." (Charles Darwin)
My dick just gets bigger and bigger as I think about these weapons of war. Let's see the whole planet bombed to hell! Yeah, let's!
Yes, it's just an airplane but really... from a European point of view the US media is becoming more and more militaristic each day, with Great Britain blowing into the horn as much as they can. Hopefully the US and GB won't turn into the Nazi Germany and 1940's Japan.
Sounds like Dale Brown's Flight of the Old Dog
The B52 is still kicking around because it just works. It's carrying massive amounts of conventional weaponry and not costing a billion dollars each just to purchase. It's relatively low maintainance, easy to maintain, and incredibly durable.
The B2, and to a lesser extent, the B1-B, is built to fight a war that we probably won't see for a long, long time - high-altitude strategic attacks. Granted, the B-52 was as well, but which one has adapted better to the role that needs to be played in the current theater? The B1 and B2 were designed to avoid taking hits with their speed (B1) and stealth (B1 and B2) - if they got hit by moderate AA fire, they'd be on the ground. The B-52 takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin'.
"The Air Force remains so enthusiastic about its 40-year-old bombers that it has publicly declared that the B-52 will continue to be a crucial element of the nation's war-fighting ability for another 40 years -- until 2040. "
In 40 years, new technology may make the b-52 obsolete so in 2040, they'll probably be laughing at the statement above.
The only reason it is still in use is because the USA has fought countries with limited resources after WW2. Vietnam (technically this goes with the Cold War), Iraq, Afghanistan. If (when..) they go to war with China, both countries have the resources for an arms race, producing new Anti aircraft defences and possibly making the B-52 obsolete.
Another example of good engineering is the P3, which is based on the Lockheed Electra L-188. The Lockheed Electra had several well publicized crashes when introduced into passenger service. Those problems were fixed and the Electra and its offspring have been flying for the last 40 years. I see P3s flying by my home on a regular basis. Both the U.S. Navy and the RAF have attempted to replace the P3 with more "modern" aircraft, without success. The U.S. Navy aircraft that was recently clipped by a Chinese fighter was a special version of the P3. It may be slow and ugly, but it keeps on going and going.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
yes it is a great plane..
but think, it was designed to drop 2-4 Nukes. nukes are now the size of 500 pound TNT bombs. and a B52 can carry several hundred of them. Nuclear carpetbombing is possible with this plane and that makes that plane very scary.
It is still one of the most powerful weapons in our arsenal.
Although, didn't the USSR have a long range bomber like the B52 that was a turboprop? a propeller plane that could go stratospheric and insanely fast.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
The Douglass DC-3 was rolled out in 1935 and is still flying today. It is widely used by "bush" airlines flying in third world countries. They've been crashing lately but I suspect that is more due to poor maintainence than bad design.
I would agree with you, especially since it has been recently demonstrated that civilian airplanes are capable of taking down the world's largest buildings. However, war planes kill less pilots doing the same job. No, let's keep using war planes, for humanitarian reasons.
Taliban fighters are brave enough to die for their cause, not because things turn badly, but because they planned it that way. They have no "fancy technological toys".
But are they winning? No? Well, then I suppose technology has its value in battle.
I wonder how long uncle ho and the NVA would have lasted if the US politicians had gotten their heads out of their butts and had prosecuted the war to the utmost of our capabilities.
Primary Function: Heavy bomber
Contractor: Boeing Military Airplane Co.
Power plant: Eight Pratt & Whitney engines TF33-P-3/103 turbofan
Thrust: Each engine up to 17,000 pounds
Length: 159 feet, 4 inches (48.5 meters)
Height: 40 feet, 8 inches (12.4 meters)
Wingspan: 185 feet (56.4 meters)
Speed: 650 miles per hour (Mach 0.86)
Ceiling: 50,000 feet (15,151.5 meters)
Weight: Approximately 185,000 pounds empty (83,250 kilograms)
Maximum Takeoff Weight: 488,000 pounds (219,600 kilograms)
Range: Unrefueled 8,800 miles (7,652 nautical miles)
Armament: Approximately 70,000 pounds (31,500 kilograms) mixed ordnance -- bombs, mines and missiles. (Modified to carry air-launched cruise missiles, Harpoon anti-ship and Have Nap missiles.)
Crew: Five (aircraft commander, pilot, radar navigator, navigator and electronic warfare officer)
Accommodations: Six ejection seats
Unit Cost: $74 million
Date Deployed: February 1955
Inventory: Active force, 85; ANG, 0; Reserve, 9
More facts and an imposing photo at AF.MIL
Oh btw, great post, Hemos / Merry / Greygent!
Yes. The have (had?) the Tu-95 /142, NATO codename Bear heavy bomber. They used to be intercepted over the northsea all the time by aircraft from the squadron where I served.
a propeller plane that could go stratospheric and insanely fast.
It also was insanely loud :-)
karma capped
They are definitely out of the running in 2040, because by then they (and other planes, cars and industry) will have used up the last bit of fossil fuels on this earth. So it couldn't even fly longer even it they wanted to.
in fact, the first "real" computers were used to crack German cryptography during WWII.
Oh, and you are refering to UBL, you maybe thinking of that incident where Mullah Omar was found by an "asset", but the chain of command was to complex to authorise a weapons release on the van he was in quickly enough. But I could be wrong.
karma capped
Carpet bombing is not the same as a longstick.
The emotive term carpet bombing is used by the media to conjure up images of indescriminate widespread destruction. A single bomber cannot carpet bomb. The expression was coined during WWII when waves of bombers would beging to bomb a target area and over the course of many planes dropping bombs, perhaps over hours, the destructive wave would roll forward like a carpet. It was so predictable that ultimately the first bomber would drop it's bombs short of the target in anticipation that the carpet bombing would eventually roll over the target area guaranteeing it's destruction.
So, longstick is NOT carpet bombing. It is pretty accurate, and supplemented with JDAMS & paveway guided bombs, it is even precise.
So, when you think you're being sophisticated and circumventing US propaganda calling this carpet bombing, you are infact misrepresenting what it is, and propagating a lie.
It is effective, but it is UGLY (and that's an understatement).
It is so ugly that words cannot convey the meaning: it is as ugly as the "bombing" of the world trade center..
Excuse me not to get so excited about a plane designed for carpet bombing..
Carpet bombing is IMPRECISE so there are many "colateral damages", an military term for innocent civilians ie also innocent children, women and men mutilated and killed..
What's interesting is that the Russians have a bomber that is still in service with their Air Force thanks to continual equipment upgrades and new weapon systems: the Tupolev Tu-95 Bear bomber.
First flown a few years after the B-52's first flight, the Tu-95 has proven to be a very reliable platform with several different variants that can drop gravity bombs, various types of large cruise missiles, carry electronic warfare equipment and specially-made to carry the AS-15 Kent cruise missile. And the Russian Air Force today still has a good number of them in service.
Relatively speaking that is. A lot of the discussion going on seems to assume that the planes are still running all of their original systems. To quote the article: "...ribs, fuselage, wings -- is original equipment. It's the systems, from air-conditioning to weapons, that are new"
"A defensive-weapons officer, a navigator, or a bombardier from that era, [1960's] on the other hand, would very likely have no idea how to operate the equipment at his old station."
In other words, all those systems have been replaced, or at least upgraded.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
Gary Powers has been dead almost 25 years - he crashed a L.A. television news helicopter he was flying. I was a kid when he died yet still remember seeing the morning newspaper headlines very well because it was the first time I'd heard of his U2 incident over the USSR.
"My mother works for Microsoft now. A whole other cult."
Providing advisors to the NVA to man SAM sites and fly fighter planes is one thing; using strategic nuclear weapons in response to a US invasion of the North would have been something entirely different.
You'll note that the Chinese and Soviet response to the mining of NV harbors and the Linebacker II bombing campaign in 1972/3 (I may have my dates wrong) was nothing more than diplomatic protests, falling far short of a more active military intervention.
ACtually, it wasn't designed to carpet bomb, it was one of the first designs to carry multiple nuclear weapons. Even better eh?
Actually, you see it carpet bombing on TV a lotm, but that's not really what the Air Force uses it for much, it was first used in the method we see on TV in the gulf war, in open desert against iraqi Military, the B-52 isn't a penetration aircraft anymore, so you can't use it to bomb out cities much these day.
But it can carry a ton of cruise missiles, and shoot from a 120 miles away, at a city.
BTW, behind enemy lines portrays mines as they are, its a decent movie. Will almost make you cry at the children are playiong in the streets, carefully stepping over tripwires.
--Nuintari
slashdot : where an opinion can be wrong.
Yes, it leaked fuel. Like other have said, because the heat expanded the plane in flight, sealing it up.
Maintenace nightmare? Perhaps. Reliability? Maybe.
But I'd like to point out a few things.
The plane is thirty years old. There are still no production planes that can challenge it's speed or altitude records. Nothing on the horizon, either (That's been admitted to) It was engineered with slide rules, and it can't be shot down to this day- we've never lost one to enemy fire.
At MACH 3, (3000 ft/s!!!!) It's faster than bullets. It's faster than any other plane out there. It's faster than missiles. Oh yeah, it goes higher than all of them, too. Do you know of a plane that can engage at 80,000 to 100 000 feet in the sky?
Survelliance? It can survey a 35 mile wide strip of the USSR in two hours. And if it passes over a golf course, they can tell you what brand of balls they're playing with.
The engines? They're unlike any others, past or present. ramjets. Any other similar engines are on test aircraft.
I'm just saying, don't knock it.
It's an incredible marvel of engineering for it's time, and it did exactly what it was supposed to do. Any problems related to it stemmed from the fact that the entire design was uncharted territory.
Incidentally, the only russian plane out there to hit Mach 3 destroyed itself in the process- the pilot had to eject, the entire plane was wasted.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
For human society to so dramatically transform in 40 years for there to be "no more war" would make any of the changes of the 20th century appear tiny and irrelevant.
It is interesting to observe that despite the technical progress, the 21st century has been marked by conflicts that would have been quite well recognized hundreds of years ago. In the late 1800s, there was fighting in South Africa in the Boer Wars; the last century has been marked by, if anything, more, and more vigorous wars than the 18th and 17th centuries.
The notion that war will be no more in 2041 is foolishly wishful thinking.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
About ten years ago Aviation Week and Space Technology (known to people in the black projects arena as "Aviation Leak") had several stories about an unknown aricraft that flew very high, very fast, and had a weird contrail. It was believed to be called "Aurora" and to be a replacement for the SR-71.
Best Slashdot Co
This entire story is something worth considering, in many industries.
Today there's some irrational urge to have something that's bigger or faster, thinking that somehow those things make it better.
Tinker with things, fix what needs to be fixed, and leave the rest alone
Umm..don't keep up much, eh? The US has the F-22 entering into service in a few years as well as the JSF. Europe has its own Eurofighter, the Russians, well, latest they've done i guess is the mig-29, but I'm sure they have something in the works as well.
The problem is these things take alot of time to reach the assembly line. Like 10+ in the case of the Raptor.
Compare that to the P-51 Mustang which went from the design boards to full production in 6 months time. Of course, the Mustang was obsolete in the USAF by the middle of the Korean War. Compare that to the F15 which first flew in 1970 and 30 years later remains a top line fighter.
Both the F-22 and JSF are on a 40 year life cycle. Knowing the military that will probably mean at least 60, assuming we don't start producing X-Wings and Tie Fighters before then.
Probably CHARON-11, or its "brother", CHARON-VAX. Neat full-quality emulators for the older platforms, and they have hobbyist versions available to play with.
I cant beleive that nobody has mentioned Dale Brown's excellent book from a few years ago, "Flight of the Old Dog", about a re-worked and updated B-52, called the "Megafortress". Basically, they turned a B-52 into one HUGE *stealth bomber*, with updated electronics, weapons, carbon fiber wings, etc. A great book, and worth checking out, as well as the sequels.
Some people might remember that the UK actually recovered a scrapped Vulcan long range bomber from the junk heap back in the 1980's to bomb Argentine encampments during the Falklands war. Prior to the war they had decided these planes were obsolete. Obviously they were not.
Once air defenses are not an issue, the only things that matter are:
1. They should be able to fly far.
2. They should be able to carry serious payload.
3. They should be reliable.
Speed and fancy features become a liability as witnessed by the dismal reliability and usefulness of the B1 bomber. They hardly seem safe to fly. (But they are newer!)
http://msnbc.com/news/671543.asp?cp1=1
http://www.cnn.com/US/9802/18/B1.crash.update/
http://www.texnews.com/1998/local/net0219.html
--- -- - -
Give me LIBERTY, or give me a check.
Had this not been miraculously modded up into the realm of positive numbers, I would have continued to ignore it. However, given that the weirdos with spare points and an antiwar axe to grind deem, by their positive moderation, your comment somehow relevant to the original article, I will respond (nee bite).
(If the original AC post, entitled "Sick", has since been appropriately re-modded into oblivion, Slashdot folks can move right along to the next post, as there's nothing to see here.)
First, we're not all Americans on here, you know - I would hardly call Slashdot "US media" (Fastcompany, I'll acknowledge, is as US as it comes this side of Guns and Ammo). Second, if you were paying attention in history class you'd know that, by most interpretations, there wouldn't be an english-speaking Great Britain today if it weren't for the Americans and Canadians that rolled up onto the shores of Normandy. (Granted the Soviets also had a lot to do with it, but the history books most post-war Brits undoubtedly favoured the American influence over the Soviet influence on the matter. Save the debate for later.)
The reality of the matter is that there are certain times where force, and/or the threat of force, absolutely MUST be used in the name of peace and saving lives. Asking an advancing army nicely doesn't always work. I think that much is pretty obvious to anyone over three apples high.
As for the B52s in question, you (as a war hater) should be able to grasp that preserving B52s is GOOD for those with your mentality, for three simple reasons.
#1 - It's good for the environment to reduce, reuse and recycle, right? Better to use what we have already than build new bombers.
#2 - B52s are hardly high-tech. Keeping them around means less likelihood of an arms race based on either a) more of the planes that replace them (B1-B/B2 etc) or b)the search for alternative delivery mechanisms (ICBM / space laser / rail-gun / death ray).
YOU of all people should be THANKFUL that B52s are being kept instead of scrapped for newer, scarier war technologies - better the smoky, subsonic devil you know than the one you don't. Let me know if you're still having trouble with this concept.
#3 - Economics. Undoubtedly, you're not a big fan of your tax money going to defence. I know, I know, you're not an American, but from UN dues to NATO dues to peacekeeper participation, I'd guess your country foots some of the bill somewhere down the line. And besides, would you rather have the best scientists and engineers in the world working on a B52 replacement, or working on more peaceful things?
So yes, tell me again how you disapprove of this article and the news that B52s are going to be kept online for the next fourty years.
Last little bit, the US military is becoming MORE militaristic than it was in, say, the 1980s? Or in the 1960s, when Walt Disney submitted each of his films to the FBI for editing? Or during WWII, when major pro-war Hollywood films were made entirely with government grants? Where-ya-been? Now, more than ever (which admittedly isn't saying much), US media is quasi-objective about what its government and military are doing. If you're a Western European, you're shallow for not recognizing that your country's freedom is in no small way connected to Americans. If you're an Eastern European, you are a hypocrite for complaining about the actions of American media when your own (former soviet) media are so blind to what goes on in Chechnya and if you are neither Eastern European nor Western European, how in heck are you able to offer a "European point of view"?
Sheesh.
Enjoy your 16th birthday... and the freedom that surrounds it.
-- "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge." (Charles Darwin)
Carpet bombing is IMPRECISE so there are many "colateral damages", an military term for innocent civilians ie also innocent children, women and men mutilated and killed.
It's called war! Where people get these ideas that war is nice and fluffy and the only injuries people get are broken nails and bruised egos. People die. You will die.
If you think for one second that innocent people are never killed in wars then you've lived a sheltered life. Is it good that people (innocent or otherwise) die in wars? No. Would I like to die in a war when I was just a bystander? No. Is war terrible? Yes.
But you need to crawl out from under your stupidity blanket. Yes, it's comfy, but the real world has a lot to offer.
And let me explain something to you, and hopefully you can pass this along to your other sheltered pals:
The industrialized world has done is best to prevent wars of all types and for good reason. Yes, they had interests in many cases which need protection, but at the same time, a country such as the United States can't sit idly by while a bully in one part of the world lays the smack down on his or her neighbor. That goes against everything we believe in and we will do our best to protect all peoples. Have you noticed that it is very difficult to get the United States, or any industrialized country, to suddenly go to war against you? That's because we want to make sure that if we go to war, we think that we can win and we can do something that will be worth people dying over. But remember that what you think is worthwhile is not what the government thinks is worthwile; their view of the world is a bit (just a tad) bigger than yours.
Ever heard of World War II? Go back and take a look and you tell me if you think it was worth a few civilian casualties to stop the war machines of the Germans and the Japanese. That's just one example of a "good" war; but do skip a few wars just because there's a few outspoken folks who think it will end up a "bad" war? You obviously don't understand the necessity of global peace, which, oddly enough, is obtained by war.
You Know You've Been Reading /. Too Long When...
No, "Collateral Damage" refers to damaging or destroying things other than the target. If the shock wave knowcks over an outhouse 2 miles away, that's collateral damage.
No, sorry *bzzzzt*, wrong. The guys out in the field fixing these birds do NOT by any stretch of the imagination "get plenty" as you seem to think. The military has been forced to do more and more with less and less money every single year.
The overall budgets stay the same, inflation marches on, and operational commitments increase constantly. Combine that with pork projects, and it's no mystery why we haven't brought a new air superiority fighter online in the last 25 years.
When you run out of panel screws halfway through the fiscal quarter and can't get more until the next quarter, and as a result, you have to ground several aircraft, there's a significant funding problem.
Unless you've actually been in that situation, I would contend that you are talking pacifist spew out of your ass.
We have the plans for the B-52, just like we have the plans for the Saturn V. We could resume production of either, but it would cost millions to billions to set up the manufacturing lines, and for how many units produced?
With the B-52, we seem to have enough planes to do the job already.
With the Saturn V, we'd probably want to just start over with a new design and lighter materials. It would probably have been more cost-efficient to have kept the Saturn V in production than to have spent what we did in money and time on the Shuttle, though. The shuttle was supposed to have been cheaper to fly, but it ended up being much more expensive.
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
Fuck man, get a clue. Do you REALLY fucking think people live in shit infested villages because they lack technology or medicine? It's the fault of their corrupt leadership which spends loan money on their ragtag military force to defend their coup government. Food doesn't need to be delivered by high tech means, humans collectively have been doing the agriculture thing before the wheel was fucking invented. Corrupt governments have the military power to keep down normal citizens and are often only resisted by even more ragtag resistance forces. The groups spend all their time fighting and looking for more money. People uninterested for fighting on either side of the conflict end up screwed because both groups take their food and blow the fuck out of their land which leads to the starving masses Sally Struthers whines about on TV. Scientists and engineers coming up with more technical ways of getting stuff done just makes the problem worse because those technical things need technical infrastructures. Why suggest using a fusion powered hover craft when a horse and a decent wooden carrige would work fine?
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
I'd rather see better methods of delivering food and medicine to desperate people than have one more other than the current million ways to kill people. I'd rather not use intimidation as a means of protection.
Um hello, the main problem with getting food and medicine to desperate people is making sure the goods get to where they are supposed to go instead of being stolen and sold to the highest bidder. The whole "Blackhawk Down" Somalia bit came about because of exactly that. As a Washington Post article from 1992 explains,
"[Former UN Sec-Gen] Boutros-Ghali...concluded that only 'a country-wide show of force' by outside troops can guarantee deliveries of food and humanitarian aid in the face of attacks by warring militias."
International Organizations including the UN are in a serious cash crunch, in no small part because of the US goverment's inabilities to pay their dues on time. Financial and technical resources are finite. You suggest spending money to develop, say, a revolutionary new delivery system for a vaccine, but you don't agree with the idea that an attempt should be made to ensure that such a device, once produced, actually makes it TO those in need? Without protection for such shipments, such a device would get stolen and sold on the black market to heroin addicts in no time.
Don't get me wrong. I work for the UN, but obviously my opinions are my own. That said, you say I'd rather not use intimidation as a means of protection well of course not, no one would. But you cannot eliminate the capabilities and devices for it and expect to remain protected. The B52 is such a device - it is, as another poster mentioned, a recognized symbol - a deterrent.
You think the DMCA is totalitarian, and that having to live under it means you're not free? Oh please. I'm in a developing (nee third-world) country. Trust me, you have no idea how good you've got it. I suggest you go see some of the world you're talking about.
-- "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge." (Charles Darwin)
Sure, there is something to be said for being nonmilitaristic, but this was sheer impotence and cowardice, and countless innocents lost their lives because the powers of the EU refused to engage the situation.
So the US rightly disregarded European input on defense matters from that point forward.
The EU could be a powerful force for Western values (values that originated in Europe) and moderation, but instead their inaction has forced the US to oversee its defense and shape its foreign policy for it.
Interesting - the inventory list at this web site is "temporarily unavailable". Wonder if it's been pulled because of 9/11?
Corrupt governments have the military power to keep down normal citizens and are often only resisted by even more ragtag resistance forces.
The hand of the "West", both government and corporate can often be found supporting corrupt third world dictators. (A corrupt dictator can be easy to infuence. Especially if it's made quite clear that it's no big deal to replace them.) The US is a major player here, to the extent of toppling democratic governments in Iran and Central America.(On the basis that they wanted control of their own economy).
The groups spend all their time fighting and looking for more money.
Most of the worlds weapons come from a comparitivly small number of the richest nations.
The Tu-95 is definitely a Russian original, mostly because the fuselage design and the use of four gigantic turboprop engines owe nothing to any previous Russian design.
It's a pretty fuel-efficient plane, especially considering the state of Russian engine design. That's why it had the range (with one refuelling) to bomb targets in the continental USA), hence the reason why the Tu-95 stayed in service continuously even though many Soviet military officials thought it would be a better investment to procure more missiles.
What's interesting is that the best-known versions of the Tu-95 are the electronic intelligence versions that frequently flew close to the USA or its allied countries or often shadowed US carrier task forces. These Tu-95 ELINT/SIGNIT planes are still operational, especially flying near Alaskan air space.
For human society to so dramatically transform in 40 years for there to be "no more war" would make any of the changes of the 20th century appear tiny and irrelevant.
Since the only change that could occur in 40 years that would make war obsolete would be the complete destruction of the human race, I'd be very concerned about anybody that expresses the hope that it will no longer exist.
Collateral Damage is the direct result of an enemy colocating their troops with civilian population.
When Hussein parked his Republican Guard around the perimeter of Baghdad, he had troops lined up and camped out on residential streets. It's a wonder and a miracle that MANY more civilians weren't killed.
When a leader tries to hide his military equipment among his people, he's not trying to protect his people, he's trying to protect his military equipment, and thus, his own ass.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Between avionics, engines, stealth requirements, software, etc., designing and building new fighters and bombers is an extremely costly proposition these days. It's also highly political since, when you're talking about a weapons system that will cost tens of billions of dollars to field, you can be sure that every state will want their turn at the trough.
Having said that, a number of new fighters are in the works. The US has the F-22 Raptor entering service in a couple of years, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter will be fielded towards the end of this decade, the European Typhoon will enter service next year, the Russians are working on several interesting designs (though whether any of them will get past the prototype stage due to funding problems is another question entirely), the Chinese have their own programs, etc.
New manned bombers are a thornier problem due to escalating costs (B-1B cost $200 mil per plane in the '80s; B-2 cost ten times that in the '90s), but I think if the USAF can design something that manages to keep the costs down, they'll always have a need for something that can haul a lot of explosive power over intercontinental distances.
Very nice troll. Though ironic when coming from an admitted "anonymous coward".
Of course you're complaint has been a common throughout history. Assuming you are yourself a soldier and that you are not inhumanly old (Your name isn't John Carter is it?) you yourself are an example of the sad decline of warrior spirit. I'll bet that you learned to shoot your enemy from hiding rather than issuing a challange and facing him squarely on the field of battle. I'll bet you even use that morally indefensible and cowardly weapon: gunpowder. I have it on the good authority of the chivalry of France that no true warrior could employ such a weapon. And even those noble knights were sadly fallen from the warrior spirit of their forefathers that disdained the use of armor (or even clothes) and rushed naked into battle against the Roman legions. The Romans in their cowardice defeated the Gauls, the English in thier cowardice defeated the French, the Americans in their cowardice employed ambush and hid behind trees to defeat the orderly ranks of the English. And today the Air foce continues the long sad decline.
I take it from your comments that you are bitter about having been a POW and losing your legs, you feel underappreciated and that it is unjust that other soldiers with less demanding and dangerous tasks share in the reflected glory of your heroism. It's a little odd that as a POW you would be so particularly bitter about the Air Force not making similar sacrifices - most of your fellow POW's in whatever war during which you were a prisoner would be either air force or navy pilots.
Or are you just talking out of your ass.
The story might be bogus, but your facts are, too.
If you know anything about old Soviet aircraft, you'll know that an Su-9 could never reach the operational altitude of a U-2.
Err whut? The Su-9 is, as you say, quite similar to the MiG-21. The Ye-66A, an experimental version of the MiG-21, held the altitude record for a brief period in the early 1960s - 113,829 feet. The F-104s were hitting 90,000 feet even before they started strapping booster rockets onto them. Obviously this is not a sustainable altitude (ask Chuck Yeager - whoops) but the idea of an Su-9 blowing by a U2 at 75,000 feet is certainly not impossible. Don't confuse operational ceiling with maximum altitude.
Err whut? Mach 2.1 for the MiG-21, Mach 1.8 for the Su-9.
While I don't neccesarily buy the Su-9 story, realize that a properly piloted Su-9 will zoom climb much higher than a U2's cruise altitude. So the story's plausible.
The flameout theory's been pretty thoroughly debunked as far as I know, both by recently declassified documents and by NASA's records: "Powers...insists that he was shot down ata operational altitude"
-- "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge." (Charles Darwin)
By the sound of it, you are someone who ascribes to the 'fighting fair' philosphy.
No, not at all. If a war is just you have an obligation to win it as quickly as possible.
What is "morally indefensible and cowardly" about gunpowder? Especially when compared to bows,...
Nothing. I was being a bit sarcastic. Read my post again - that was the opinion of those in their day that exemplified the "warrior spirit" as you purport to honor today - it was also their opinion on the subject of the long bow. My point was that they would have had the same low opinion of you that you have towards the Air Force. You may have received excellent and long training and have lived as a soldier for your entire adult life. They were bred for it - from childhood they trained for combat and for the excersise of authority. And on the fields of Crecy and Agincourt they were wiped out by mere peasents who lived as farmers knowing nothing of the code or the rigors of mind, body and spirit that was the "warrior spirit." Your complaint about the decline of "warrior spirit" is as old as war.
I will grant you there is some truth to it - but it is true of every nation that has experienced long peace and security. During peace time an army is just a bureacracy who's function is just to sustain itself as insurance against the day it is needed. The skills a soldier needs to succeed in such an environment are not the same as those needed to succeed in war. At the start of every real war there has usually been a shift as those with the skills for peacetime maintenance give way to those with the skills to wage war.
But even during the height of war there are different roles and different expressions of "warrior spirit" The Army Air Corps never had the same expression of "warrior spirit" as the marine corps and they shouldn't. The roles are different - the function is different - the necessary skills and values are different. The capabilites needed to maintain and operate an air force is different from those needed to storm a hill. For a marine you want raw courage, and blind devotion to the task at hand, a high IQ may be present but it doesn't help any and if it is couled with inquisitiveness it may even hurt. An air force is a high tech organization that requires a few brave men with 'warrior spirit' to fly the planes and whole whole mass of technocratic support personell who don't particularly need courage or any of the traditional martial virtues but had better be smart and inquisitive if your high tech knight going into battle hopes to come back again. If it makes you feel better think of them as the serfs required to raise the crops for the knight's war horse and the smiths that made his armor rather than as fellow warriors.
I have to say that on the whole I actually agree with the some of your concerns. Of course honor, duty and courage are important for a soldier. I would go futher and say they are important for any person - though the precise expression of it will be differ along with different peoples roles. I share your concern about the decline of these virtues (among others) in our culture as a whole, not just in our military.
BUT your tendency to hyperbole and flaimbait insults is a problem not only because it detracts from the presentation of your thesis but because it weakens your thesis itself. Let me make a couple of points.
First: throughout history the defense of a nation has depended on a variety of soldiers with differnt roles and varying degrees and expressions of 'warrior spirit' Certain soldiers because of their roles have always had to have it to an extreme not necessary (and often not even desirable) in soldiers with a differnt role. It is certain that the French nobility at Agincourt and Crecy had more raw physical courage, sense of honor and duty than the masses of English pikeman or yeoman. Without their 'high tech' longbows the yeoman were not to be relied upon to pick up a spear and fight on. If an airforce engineer at Wright Patterson by some tragedy finds himself on the front lines then of course we as a culture would expect him to do his duty as a soldier but for obvious reasons we don't expect nor train him to have or exhibit the same battlefront expression of 'warrior spirit' that is necessary in a Marine. We don't even expect the same level of 'warrior spirit' in the regular army infantryman that we expect in a marine. That is as it should be, marines are an elite with a different role.
Secondly, as I pointed out before some loss of warrior spirit is inevitable when there is no war to be spirited about. We have an armed force and culture experiencing a long period of peace and security. We should seek to mitigate the loss of 'warrior spirit' through training but there is no real substitute for the real thing. That being the case I prefer the alternative (peace) I also have confidence that our military would rise the occasion should it come (the word 'rise' in that phrase is exactly what I'm getting at). It could be far worse. I would argue the demoralised force we had after Vietnam was less ready to rise to a challenge than the force we have now, we are certainly better prepared for a challange now than the sad pittance of a military we had the day of Pearl Harbor - and yet just a few months after that we were bombing our enemies capitol.
Third, your complaint about being over dependant on our technology - true perhaps, but so what? Every military since we moved from rocks to bronze has become increasingly dependant on it's technology. And the force with the technological advantage has always won, even when their opponent was superior in the military virtues we have been calling 'warrior spirit.' I'd rather have a technocrat dependant on his technology be it greek fire, a long bow or F-18 than the supreme warrior carrying a rock. Yes I'm sure that because of their martial virtues a unit of marines with nothing but rocks and stones will still be a force to be reckoned wheras a bunch of airmen would be a hopeless mob. Of course we hire those nerdy technocratic airmen precisely so it won't come to that.
Finally, you are overstating your case - and by a long shot. I don't believe that our military is as lacking in 'warrior spirit' as you make it out to be. Sure there are stupid little distractions like giving *everybody* a black beret so they can all pretend to be army rangers and feminist senators trying to turn the military into a social laboratory to test their latest gender theories. But for the most part this is tomfoolery on the part of politicians not soldiers. Where it is soldiers it is those of a high enough rank to be more properly considered politicans rather than soldiers. Despite your concern that the Air Force doesn't have the brave men it needs I think they do and they are found in those positions where their bravery is most required - forward ground controllers, fighter and attack pilots etc. etc. etc. Which brings us back to my original post.