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Sixty Years On, B-52s Are Still Going Strong
Hugh Pickens writes "Those who grew up in the 1960s and 1970s knew the B-52 Stratofortress as a central figure in the anxiety that flowed from the protracted staring match between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Now CNET reports that it was 60 years ago, on April 15, 1952, that a B-52 prototype built by Boeing took off on its maiden flight and although the 1950s-vintage B-52s are no longer in the US Air Force inventory, the 90 or so H models delivered between May 1961 and October 1962 still remain on active duty. 'The B-52 has been a wonderful flying box,' says retired Brig. Gen. Peyton Cole. 'It's persevered all these years because it's been able to adapt and still continues to fly. It started out as a high-level flying platform during the Cold War. Then as air defenses got better it became a low-level penetrator, and more than that was the first aircraft to fly low-level at night through FLIR (forward looking infrared) and night-vision TV.' The B-52's feat of longevity reflects both regular maintenance and timely upgrades — in the late 1980s, for instance, GPS capabilities were incorporated into the navigation system but it also speaks to the astronomical costs of the next-generation bombers that have followed the B-52 into service (a total of 744 were built, counting all models) with the Air Force. B-52s cost about $70 million apiece (in today's dollars), while the later, stealth-shaped B-2 Spirit bombers carried an 'eye-watering $3-billion-a-pop unit price.' The Air Force's 30-year forecast, published in March, envisions an enduring role for the B-52 and engineering studies, the Air Force says, suggest that the life span of the B-52 could extend beyond the year 2040. 'At that point, why not aim for the centennial mark?'"
Wikipedia quotes the unit cost at under $750m introductory in 1997, and with current inflation just over $1b. Where did the $3b number come from?
In other news, the B-52's from 'Love Shack' fame, are still going strong after 36 years..
I guess the USAF expects to have the better fighter jets in the decades to come, so they will maintain air superiority - and then, it doesn't matter that your bombers are 80 year old tech. They probably consider this a more viable option than counting on the expensive B-2 being purchased in large numbers.
Disclaimer: I am not an aviation or army expert. This is just something I was thinking about and you are welcome to extend or correct my thoughts.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
The B-52 may have the same airframe as those of the 1960's, but the aircraft is continuously retrofitted with the latest fly-by-wire and navigation/communication technology, and is capable of accepting newer and more efficient engines. For the role they play as a heavy bomber/delivery system (and in situations that do not warrant usage of expensive stealth technology or have additional fighter support), they are still quite effective in that role today.
But it wasn't a rock.
It was a rock lobster!
Let this be a warning to us all.
Part of the expense it putting the space and equipment necessary to carry the flight crew. These missions are lasting nearly a day at times for targets across the globe. With the ever increasing abilities of drones to deliver munitions on target the Air Force needs to have its collective hiney kicked into the current century. Where the Navy is still stuck on carriers the Air Force is stuck on manned bombers.
The nice thing about going with a drone based system is that you could theoretically just change the scale of the solution to the needs of the mission. The hard work is developing a secure and reliable connection to the remote driver. Drones delivering low tech loads could do without a lot of fancy tech whereas that tech can be concentrated on special purpose penetration bombers.
Yeah the best route would be to end all war, but as we read daily the world is just full of people who want nothing more than to blow up everyone not like them. We have our own bunch here, usually identified by whichever party is in power. Unfortunately for the world there are even crazier ones elsewhere.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
When your enemies live in caves and fire small arms it actually pays to fill their sky with the contrails of your bomber for hours on end. The Taliban can't shoot back at a B-52 so there is no need to hide.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
And already posted ten minutes earlier.
Yeah, I thought the article was about the rock group. I suddenly felt old, very, very old. Fortunately, it's not that bad. I'm just old.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
How about 60 years of western freedom, which was guaranteed by things like this?
That was Love Shack. The meme is definitely Rock Lobster.
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
In the September 1965 National Geographic feature article on the USAF, they write about the B-52's capabilities, but give a warning, saying (quoting as best I can): "Weapon systems have a useful service life of about a decade, and the B-52 is almost that old now. How long will it be until we need to replacement for it?"
Mind you, in 1965 that outlook did make more sense than it does in hindsight. The USAF/USAAF's primary long-range bomber had gone from the B-29 to the B-36 to the B-47 to the B-52 within the the space of twenty years, and the B-70 hadn't been cancelled yet. The same thing applies to fighters, going from one new deployed design per year on average, then, down to one every 10-12 years now. I presume part of that is due to increased computing capability allowing more tinkering and experimentation without having to actually build something, but that can't be all of it. Anyone care to speculate?
"The Greens lynched a hacker in Chicago. Last month, but I think the body's still hanging from the old Water Tower."
No. Rock Lobster was posted ten minutes earlier..
No doubt some World War I planes are still airworthy, but to extend the lifespan of B-52s beyond 2040 and still expect it to be used for military bombing raid --- this is lunacy to the max !!
Just to save a penny or two they are going to put the lives of the boys and girls flying those planes
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
How about reality, which is somewhere in the middle of the extremes you guys are throwing around?
How about 60 years of western freedom, which was guaranteed by things like this?
How?
The Soviets were really afraid of our ICBMs and especially our balistic submarines because they could get to target in 30minutes or less. Our submarine force was the real Cold War heros.
And today? Keeping up free from whom? The Chinese?
Oh and let me tell you about how our Air Force and Army will hold up against the Chinese - they couldn't. They will just out number us with shear quanitity. Whiz bang jet fighters? Bombers? Etc?
They'll just come at us wave after wave with cheap shit until we run out of bullets and missles. Then as we're going to reload, they'll shoot us in the ass.
When I read comments such as yours, it just reminds me that we here in the US are subjected to as much propaganda as any tolitarian state.
We're fighting for FREEDOM in [insert country here].
Afghanistan? Not freedom. Like the Taliban or Al-Qaeda could take our Freedom away (Our Government is doing quite well on its own thank you very much.) No, it was just about knocking out an adversary; which I have no problem with. But let's cut the horseshit of "Fighting for our Freedom!", OK. It just cheapens what folks have done in the past who really fought for our freedoms.
Western freedom:
Decades of defense by B-52's
Murdered one day by a quartet of 757/767's
The b-52 hasnt needed a major upgrade since we figured out, we don't need a more efficient bomber (other than one that has stealth capabilities) as when the enemy overtakes us on air superiority once these fail, and subsequently, if the b2 fails, and as do our guided missiles, drones, etc. We have ICBMs capable of glassing our enemy.
We figured out after various political treaties and the fact that no side can win in a nuclear war, no country wants to get glassed, and we have proven twice already that we are not afraid of using our nuclear arsenal when things only begin to get bad. Thus, any country capable of sparking a war that involves aircraft, and the means to take out high altitude bombers, is likely to not attack. (ironically leaving countries with inferior technology the capability to attack us, and subsequently drain us better than any large military could)
in short, the b-52 doesn't need an improvement, maybe retrofitting, but it does what it needs, as we have plenty of supplementary technologies that negate the need to do so.
Comparing the cost of B-52's and B-2's isn't really fair, they were built with very different political requirements.
The B-52's were made with WW3 in mind, and the basic MAD mission would have been to send hundreds of bombers across the USSR in the hope that most of them would reach their target. During all-out nuclear war it wouldn't matter too much politically if 20-30% of the bombers didn't make it back home, as long as the others scored a hit.
The B-2, however, is designed with the assumption of a much higher survival rate, and no politically embarrassing lost/captured crews. This basically requires that you have a few very expensive aircraft, as opposed to lots of cheap ones.
In other words, the B-2 is much more expensive because it puts a much higher value on the lives of the crews.
You mean this?:http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2788329&cid=39698633
That's just some poor confused soul not knowing the difference between Love Shack and Rock Lobster.
However it was posted earlier and 'Rock Lobster' was in the text of the post...
Today's B-52 only vaguely resembles the original version of itself. The original B-52 flew on hydraulic systems controlled by mechanical computers, on inputs from pilots reading analog gauges.
Today's B-52 has been retrofitted with the most advanced fly-by-wire control systems, avionics, engines, radars, communications, and ordnance delivery systems money can buy - all of which can be obtained from multiple sources, which is why it can still be built for $70M, as opposed to the no-bid, single source, $3B B-2.
About the only thing it has in common with its ancestors is that it's still a tin can with 8 scrolls that can rain fire and death from 40,000 feet.
In other news, the B-52's from 'Love Shack' fame, are still going strong after 36 years..
You're forgetting to add the additional cost of a hammer and screwdriver. :)
I was reading about the flight safety record of the pilot flying this B-52 bomber. These incidents were recorded of him breaking flight safety regulations.
Over the ridge he is within 1 metre of the ground, which prompted his own flight crew to complain. Notice how the photographers get lower on his second pass.
The steep banks were waaaaaay beyond the manufacturers guidelines. When he puts the plane into a steep climb and does a wing-over (from memory) you see what looks like contrails from the wing tips, it's actually aviation fuel coming out of the fuel tank vents as he flips the plane over - fighter aircraft sure B52 bomber, not a good idea.
In the final moments when he looses control consider that he crashed the aircraft within 20 meter of a nuclear weapons bunker, that's the reason it was a no fly zone. This was his wing commanders retirement flight who didn't want his other crew aboard while he witnessed for himself what this guy was doing. His family were watching as he failed to eject.
fyi
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
How about 60 years of western freedom, which was guaranteed by things like this?
With apologies to Gandhi, "it would be a good idea."
Your freedom is largely illusory and continually slipping away.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Freedom fries, the food for free people with free minds!
We have always been at war with _________
Putting aside your politics for the moment -- let's just say that I disagree with you -- this is about a well-designed and enduring piece of technology. I can admire the technical excellence of a something without liking what it was used for, or who used it. I can, for example, still appreciate the robustness and shallow learning curve of the AK-47 without being a Marxist -- and by the way, that weapon has almost certainly killed more people over those 60 years than the B-52 has. The ideal nerd should be able to look at a high-tech device and have some part of his mind thinking "whoa, that's freakin' cool!" right up to the moment that it kills him.
"The Greens lynched a hacker in Chicago. Last month, but I think the body's still hanging from the old Water Tower."
Holy crap, that must be loud.
The lowly B-1-B is now the weapon of choice for Afghanistan because its higher speed allows a single plane to be used to cover the country end to end.
B-52s, A-10s, F15, F16s all saw heavy use and cost a tenth or less than the modern high tech planes. Now look at the track record for next generation aircraft. B-1 never saw a day of service, after years of testing the B-2 finally saw light use in the first gulf war and more in the latest, F-22 not a day of service. These aircraft cost 400 million to 3 billion. The military keeps insisting they need the latest and best but once they get them they rarely use them. Another plane that cost a fortune and took forever to see service was the Osprey. They finally saw service in the latest wars but development started before a lot of people on this site were born. Better to focus effort and limited funds on aircraft that actually get used. Most of these next generation aircraft were pork barrel projects. That's why they were never able to kill the Osprey. The Senator whose home state had the contract fought every attempt to shut down the program so billions were wasted.
More like a decade at best. ICBMs became the main method of getting nuclear weapons to their targets. Bombers rapidly became unusable due to advances in air defence. Instead they were relegated to taking part in various conventional wars against inferior enemies, none of which were necessary to guarantee western freedom.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I thought they were old when I was flying them in the 80s and 90s (they were). One of the navigators in my first squadron said his father had been a B-52 navigator. A couple of years ago, I ran into a former neighbor, whose son joined the same Cub Scout den as my son way back when. He said that little Cub Scout I remembered had just upgraded to B-52 aircraft commander (my old job) in that same squadron.
That's three solid generations, and apparently, there's time for at least one more.
And lets not forget that the B52 was designed by engineers using slide rules -- and not finite element analysis shaving things to their theoretical minimum. They designed something big and stout out of stuff they knew a lot about... (I think that was the right phrase). Wan't that long after the Comet disasters showed the impact of metal fatigue on airframe integrity, after all. These things have almost the same kind of design elegance as a Kalashnikov -- and the multiple refits show that the design has really held together. I am happy for all the modern designs that are polished as computer models before being instantiated into material -- but the durability of these old designs compared to the fragility of modern military planes is worth contemplation. Just because an approach is new does not make it automatically better.Something worth thinking about, no matter how unfashionable.
At this point, the B-52 will be 100 years old before a viable replacement can be rolled off the assembly line and deployed. Heck, they might prototype and cancel 2 or 3 replacements before a real replacement will be produced.
Yeah, I thought the article was about the rock group. I suddenly felt old, very, very old. Fortunately, it's not that bad. I'm just old.
Some years back here on slashdot someone was posting a flame about "being a dinosaur from the 256 color era" and I was like "uhm... I grew up with the Commodore 64 and it had 16 colors". When you're older than the dinosaurs at 24, the scale is pretty much blown. Old and getting older, lol.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
"are no longer in the US Air Force inventory" ... "they are still on active duty"
So... the air force uses them, but has no idea how? They send them on a mission then can't account for how the mission was accomplished? They have missions that are cancelled due to lack of aircraft when in fact they have these extra B-52s off the books?
Is this some weird military phraseology that only makes sense in the US?
I do think that we could see B-52's get additional upgrades, notably:
1. An updated version of the Pratt & Whitney PW2000 series engine, probably uprated to 42,000 lb. thrust. Four of these engines will replace the eight P&W TF33's now used on the B-52H.
2. More electronics upgrades--made easier by the fact the plane is big enough to accommodate them.
3. With more powerful engines, we could see B-52's carry heavier bomb loads and still fly longer ranges.
The 8 pack they have on their now is a tad outdated and hardly fuel efficient compared to what's now available on the Boeing 787 or C-17.
ROCK LOBSTER!
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
exactly! with that NDAA law the gov recently passed is ripe for abuse, the gov can now murder or put anyone in prison without probable cause, i refuse to silence myself out of fear of the government, i will speak the truth about the world around me and if the gov wants to murder me or put me in prison for speaking the truth about the injustices and violations of human rights i see then so be it, at least i will go to my grave with a clear conscience
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Despite what the author of this article might have you believe, the B-52 is not magical. "The B-52's feat of longevity reflects both regular maintenance and timely upgrades"? Bull.
The B-52's feat of longevity reflects two things: 1) the shift to ICBMs as primary mechanism to ensure mutually assured destruction in the cold war 2) the miserable failure of the USAF to solicit new bomber designs that don't cost orders of magnitude more than the B-52.
If the USAF had ever solicited designs to replace the B-52 with something *modestly* better, using cost as a priority, the B-52 would be long gone, and there would be a more capable aircraft in it's place. The fact that there's no need for such a plane does not make the B-52 magical. It's a pustule that's lanced regularly, that's all.
Did anyone else read this and think it meant the band, The B-52's? I mean, Fred Schneider is looking kind of old, but geeze.
They are probably running out the time to use on them. Eventually they will break/wear out. Then they will start upgrading. Remember they are already pushing 50-60 years old each for the whole plane. So they probably fly whatever it is until the rated time runs out and change it out then. And then if they can fix it they will. Much cheaper to fix a few bolts than replace a multimillion dollar engine... Notice how fuel savings does not even come into the picture there? They are not really concerned about it. When it comes time to upgrade they will. THEN fuel savings will come back to the forefront.
Colour? Ha!
Sounds like bullshit to me.
I hauled AGE (Aerospace Ground Equipment; power generators, lights, air condistioners, etc) to the BUFs in 1973-4 at Utapao AFB in Thailand. B-52s were commonly known as BUFs -- Big Ugly Fuckers. They certainly were ugly, ugly as in REALLY mean looking.
I got to Thailand 4 days before the congress' mandated end to the bombing, and one took off every thirty seconds from when I got there until the deadline. I thought they were trying to drop as many bombs as they could before the cutoff time, but I later met a man who'd been stationed there five years earlier, and one took off every thirty seconds the whole year he was there.
I was stationed at Beale in California after coming back to the states, and had the best job in the world. It was to take a pickup truck, make sure it was full of gas and everything worked, then play pool, read, play pinball, watch TV while waiting for Armageddon, when I would drive the pilot to his BUF to nuke Russia.
There were more BUFs there than I could count. Every one of them was loaded with nuclear ordinance.
I always referred to Beale as Armageddon Air Force Base.
More interesting were the SR-71s at Beale, they had nine of them. The only louder sound I ever heard was a space shuttle taking off. Watching from a mile away, the ground shook as it shot down the runway, did a wheelie, and looked like a bottlerocket taking off.
The military has some amazing tech.
Free Martian Whores!
I am not so sure of this. Into the late 70s and early 80s, B-52s were being retrofitted as cruise missile platforms (my dad worked on the guidance systems). I have no way of knowing whether this was just another boondoggle, or if this was intended to be a (second) credible deterrent to an overwhelming first strike (have B-52s with cruise missiles in the air, they survive, they launch retaliatory cruise missiles from a safe distance).
Sure, it's a great plane. Yadda, yadda.
Personally, I hope that we find our way to a world of common abundance and tolerance among all societies. Then we can stop treating weapons that have the ability to wipe out mankind as like they are some kind of gee whiz project from Popular Mechanics. I'd rather we all spent our time making love and going to our kids little league baseball games.
Just a shame they didn't drop bombs on every last commie before they invaded America.
Memories of the cold war. You kids may not remember, but for a while there we and Russia were in a Mexican-standoff where if either of us had pulled the trigger it would have been the end of all life on Earth. On the bright side though, we didn't have to worry about being selected for an anal probe when going to the airport. You know. "The Good Old Days."
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Commodore 64? 16 colours? Luxury! When I wur a lad we had ZX81s, and pixels were black & white, and we had fewer of those than the "favicons" that browsers show in the address bar for a website! ;)
I use Friend/Foe + mod-point modifiers as a karma/reputation system.
Wait, you had video output?
When I read the headline I thought, "No way the B-52s have been around for 60 years! No way the music group that gave us Rock Lobster and Love Shack are *that* much older than me"
I did. And I was like "wait, I thought they just celebrated their 30th anniversary, not 60th."
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
Well, amen to that. But at the same time, the government could ALWAYS murder or put anyone in prison without probable cause, the only difference is that now they can do it legally. This is what the libertarians have always been banging on about. The government that can serve all your needs can serve you for dinner.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
One of my college buddies flew in B-52s back in the '80s and '90s. He said that more than once they landed with pieces missing from the plane. The B-52 may be an excellent, timeless design, but they need to make some new ones and scrap the old ones.
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
Colour? Is that the metric spelling of color?
Black AND white? We only had black! Those were dark days, I tell ya.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Good enough rant until this:
Probably you've been convinced that you're just and moral. Likely, as some of your enemies, you will speak in terms of a religious or quasi-religious body, such as "Jesus" or "the free market".
This is a straw man. You don't like a particular faction in the US, so you judge the country. Imagine condemning the Netherlands for Geert Wilders and associates, or the UK for the EDL hooligans, or the entirety of Europe for its growing body of anti-muslim/anti-immigration supporters. Would you do that?
In other words, their attitude should be something like this?
If the pilot's good, see. I mean, if he's really... sharp, he can barrel that baby in so low, you oughtta see it sometime, it's a sight. A big plane, like a '52, vroom! There's jet exhaust, flyin' chickens in the barnyard!
(reference)
I am officially gone from
I'm celebrating being the rainer, rather than the rainee.
Vietnam Veteran / Former Postal Worker -- Use Caution When Taunting!
A military pilot called for a priority landing because his single-engine jet fighter was running "a bit peaked".
Air traffic control told the fighter jock that he was number two behind a B-52 that had one engine shut down.
"Ah", the pilot remarked, " the dreaded seven-engine approach".
Candygram for Mongo!
1) I get the impression that OP followed traditional American values but left because he saw few others had them any more. It's not great he left. It's disheartening.
2) Abandoning some venture out of principle is not the same thing as "can't make a business". When certain geniuses who worked on the atom bomb decided that they'd crossed the mark, was the problem that they couldn't or that they thought they shouldn't?
3) If you think it's a lie/troll, why respond with argument? Sounds like you're angry at the truth so you lash out with e-violence: "punk your ugly lying face" indeed.
OP, I hope we get better and you feel like you can come back to America some time soon.
Had me going a second...I thought it was the ghost of Major Kong posting about that ride from a B-52.
Well, I've got me a plane
and its as big as a whale
and its going to set sail!
The 8 pack they have on their now is a tad outdated and hardly fuel efficient compared to what's now available on the Boeing 787 or C-17.
I would have to guess that re-certification of an airframe with new engines must be hideously expensive because you almost never see them do it. Maybe the military can get around FAA certification in some cases, but in most they tend to agree to fall under the jurisdiction of the FAA. Certainly civilian aircraft tend to be designed from the ground up with a few variants of engine available. Smaller planes will sometimes come out with new engine options. But larger transport seem to stick with what they have when they were designed, even if the engine wears out. You can still to this day see 737s with the old cigar tube style engines. I would bet they aren't originals, but when it came time to replace the engines, the older 737 models were certified with that engine, and that is the one they went with. Modern 737-800 and -900s have monster engines on them compared to the older models, but you can't just tack a new engine on.
All that being said, it would be awesome to get some more modern engines on the B-52, if only to save our hearing, and some oil. But when you go from 8 60's era engines to 4 modern ones, it's clearly not just the engines that are changing. The whole control system will have to change, the engine monitoring, the linkage, fuel delivery systems, cowlings, plumbing and a plethora of other components.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
In both Battlestar Galactica series, both fictional ships were very very old. This sort of reminds me about that.
Reading the prices in the original post triggered Bill Maher's rant in my head over and over again how the U.S. spends more on "defense" than the rest of the world combined. Ugh, at the same time he has guests on his show like Regan's David Stockman who thinks the entire U.S. economy could collapse like Greece within a year.
Do we really need to be spending 70 million to 3 billion dollars for bombers?
The journalist Fareed Zakaria believes that lack of spending on education, lack of spending on infrastructure and a loss of the saving ethic are the real reasons the U.S. economy has declined over the past few decades.
Maybe it is time to use some of the military budget to pay for things that make money.
The USAF likes the BUFs because they need so little training to fly. Who cares if you can't do 12 Gs in a B-1, if you can steer a cow and monitor four jets you are golden.
That's right folks, our trillion dollar defense rests on an airplane maintained because the USAF can't be bothered to train decent pilots.
Be afraid. Be VERY afraid.
Let us take a page from Dale Brown and build the B-52s he envisioned. Now THAT would scare the hell out of our enemies! http://www.megafortress.com/newsletter/mega32.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictional_military_aircraft#EB-52_Megafortress
So the fail is in using innocents to protect oneself, and perhaps also in the decision to bomb
This is why you're NOT supposed to use 'innocents' to shield military targets; per the geneva conventions and law of war, as long as the attacking military is targeting a valid military target, any damage to non-valid targets such as non-combatants and other protected targets like schools, hospitals, and churches is simply 'collateral'. Even if the munition misses.
The USA does go 'above and beyond' and introduces the concept of proportionality. We're not going to hit an Infantry Fighting Vehicle(IFV) parked next to a schook with a 2k pound bomb. The famous story is that when Saddam parked some tanks next to a school, we pulled up some training bombs, basically the same steel shell but filled with concrete rather than explosives, stuck the fancy guidance package on them, and dropped those on the tanks. A live 2k bomb would have been cheaper and surer, but would have also taken out the school, which was deemed disproportionate.
I don't read AC A human right
Because you are living Free in a western country you should be happy we had those weapons of Mass destruction. Or chances are that you would have be under communist rule.
The Cold War, made sure that both sides were too afraid to go after each other. Yes the Cold War created some problems, however for the most part they were the lesser of two evils.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
But then it would not be LOUD :-) And it would look goofy with high bypass turbo fans rather than the current turbo jets.
I grew up around Dobbins AFB in Marietta GA. Lockheed (now Lockheed Martin) manufactured C-130s and did work on C-5s at a plant next to the airfield in the 70s and 80s.
I remember getting tires replaced at a shop that was ~700 meters from the threshold of the active runway... tire shop, US-41, Dobbins fence, perimeter road, overrun area, runway. Looked up to see a C-5 floating in on final. It was quiet, quite, overhead (LOUD), loud, quiet.
A week later, I'm a mile from the runway and hear jet noise louder than the C-5 at 500 ft... look up and around for what is making the noise. There is a B-52 way up there -- not even in pattern. Must have been at least 3k ft up.
No. or maybe yes. It is, however, the CORRECT spelling of colour.
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
Yep. Ricky is definitely NOT "still going strong." :(
If the pilot's good, see. I mean, if he's really... sharp, he can barrel that baby in so low, you oughtta see it sometime, it's a sight. A big plane, like a '52, vroom! There's jet exhaust, flyin' chickens in the barnyard!
Wow. I watched "Strangelove" for the umpteenth time a couple of weeks ago. When George C. Scott delivers that line, I'm transported back to the early '60s, when a BUFF flew low over my yard north of Amarillo. It was magnificent and terrifying (not to mention LOUD).
It's not just B-52. There are a lot of military "platform" planes that are quite aged but very functional used for a lot of various tasks.
Notably it's the same across the globe. UK still uses older frames for much of it's air force, russians still use their TU-95s extensively and so on. The planes of that period just seem really robust and functional, even by modern standards.
It is essential tool in the US armoury. I hate to think how many bombers would be shot down by the fiendish Evil Muslims (TM) armed to the teeth with devilish, devilish I say, AK-47s if not for this stealth shape..
I saw them in 1980; they were an awesome band.
Unless you mean the Allies combined forces, I am not sure what you mean by "our army" - quite a few different nations fighting there in France and Germany. I'm guessing you mean the US? one of several nations' armies fighting to liberate France in 44 and 45. None of them did it on their own.
Neither extreme is particularly useful. The function of a technological tool doesn't discount the "coolness" of its longevity, at least for an audience of a site that promises "news for nerds."
On the other hand, perpetuating the myth that the actions of the American military have always been conducted to ensure Western freedom insinuates that, if it were not for the B-52s dumping more bombs on Asia during one Cold War operation than were dropped in all of WWII, then Americans would now be speaking Vietnamese.
Did anyone else read this and think it meant the band, The B-52's? I mean, Fred Schneider is looking kind of old, but geeze.
He is also 60. I just checked...
most of our bombing will be vai drones to take out other drones. It will be a Drone War.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
On reflection this was a bit too far to be funny. I apologise
It always amuses me when (U.S.) Americans are completely ignorant of British (and Canadian) spelling of words.
I once worked in a team of 4 developers and one day one of them was reading an article and commented "Hey, they spelled "organization" wrong. They used an 's'." I replied, "No, that just the British spelling." All three of my teammates were utterly amazed that I could know something like that, which itself was even more amazing to me.
I would comment that people should try reading books, but in fact, it occurs to me now that I probably read more non-American English on the web simply because it's so easy to access international content. e.g., A friend of mine here in Virginia blogs about U.S. politics for the Daily Mail.
Anyhow, it just amazes me that these kinds of things get complained about.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
I never used the mythical Zed-X. Are you telling me it had less than 16x16 resolution? That doesn't seem right.
The TRS-80 could do 128x48.
I first used Apple ][s and wrote a simple game... I think I have the source code printed out somewhere. Later at Virginia Tech in the fall of 1982, I discovered the computer lab in the library that had IBM PCs that only had monochrome cards and for a short while were still running DOS 1. A couple years later the PCs in the labs all had CGA capabilities. At the time I wrote a graphics editor using a hacked text mode with the block characters in the >128 range that you could use to draw in 16 colors (woo!) with a resolution of 160x100. Fun times.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
It was so cool when the original artists performed the parody.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
"'At that point, why not aim for the centennial mark?'""
arbitrary dates are a horrible way to do engineering.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
May the B-52's continue to fly and bomb our Great nation's Enemies for another Thousand Years!!! May the righteous bombs smash our enemies into a finely ground paste of bloody pulp! Might makes Right! And We are ALWAYS right! Praise the baby Jeeeezeus and the Unitederd States of America!
Is Hugh Pickens any relation to Slim Pickens, who famously rode the nuke at the end of Dr. Strangelove?
It could display 24x32 graphics characters, where each graphics character was 2x2, so 64x48 effectively. It's not at all unusual for favicons to be 64x64, so yes - less resolution than a favicon. ;)
I use Friend/Foe + mod-point modifiers as a karma/reputation system.