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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..
This is exactly why 60 year old tech is still flying as a bomber. Air power is still king in conventional warfare, and once you've sent in your fleet of high-tech air-superiority and multirole/ground-attack fighters to clean out the AA threats, all you really require next is a very large flying tube that holds a lot of bombs. Hence, the B-52 is still around. You don't need a fancy stealth bomber because penetrating enemy airspace is better left to smaller stealthier craft - or you ignore the airplane altogether and use a cruise missile.
If you think about it, the B-2 is the real antique here. The B-52 is just practical.
The basic model is now 60 years old, the oldest flying ones 50 years. But that doesn't make them 50-60 year old tech. The models will have received many modifications over time; look at the commercial Boeing 737 airliner with it's many sub-versions and modifications. A newly delivered model looks quite different from the first model, and that's just the outside.
On the inside, all the electronics will have been retrofitted several times over by now. Newer radios, navigation systems, etc. They all have GPS now, which didn't exist when the first B52 flew. Engines too, if only because they wear out over time. And then you will use a more modern, better engine to put in place of the old ones. Ongoing modernisation.
By the way, one of the main specs of an aircraft is it's top speed. The faster you are, the faster you can get in, do your job, and get out, outmanouvring a slower opponent in the meantime. However there is this thing called the sound barrier, limiting most aircraft to about 85-90% of the speed of sound. To go radically faster you need a radically different design of the plane, and a lot more engine power (so burning more fuel), for a generally smaller payload. The same for the B-52, it's speed is limited by the sound barrier, and any newer heavy bomber will have the same problem.
This also explains why, over the last 40 years or so, commercial aircraft have not received any speed increases (the Concorde being an exception - and underlining the problems of breaking the sound barrier).
Western freedom:
Decades of defense by B-52's
Murdered one day by a quartet of 757/767's
Carrying X amount of bombs to target Y doesn't change much over the years
At a given altitude and given airspeed and given mission size / bomb weight, there's an optimum airframe shape. That shape is the B-52. You could make a new bomber to do the same mission. It would look exactly like a B-52.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
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."
That shape is the B-52.
No, that shape is Chuck Norris. He just lets the B-52 have all the glory.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
> But that doesn't make them 50-60 year old tech
Good point and well said.
But as for the airframe ... as long as they can confirm that the fuselage is sound and in good shape, there's no reason why they can't continue to fly. The truth is, even before computer modeling, the "best" shapes for both subsonic and supersonic craft were pretty well determined. They had to use wind tunnels and physical modeling to arrive at (for example) the familiar-looking rounded nose, the swept wings and so on. What the computer models do nowadays is (a) confirm that the people who came up with these basic airframe shapes in the 50's were surprisingly good[g] and (b) add refinements. Unless you're building a completely-new design (such as a stealthed aircraft), the tried-and-true designs that were arrived at in the 50's and 60's work just fine.
Take a look at an older 707 and compare it to the latest Dreamliner. The planform looks quite similar. The newer design uses composites and other enhancements, but unless you're looking closely, the shape of the airframe is quite similar on both. Why mess with success?
(In fact, with commercial aircraft, it's common to develop a basic design, then introduce subsequent models that "stretch" it for more seating, or change engines for better performance. Why re-invent the wheel?)
Cogito, igitur comedam pizza.
Nope. Remove the flight crew. Drones will do this work. I would not be surprised to see the BWB/X-48 be developed and then used for such a mission. The advantage is that it would require a fraction of the fuel, while being able to carry a bigger load. Add a small band of drone fighters around it and issues solved.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
That shape is the B-52. You could make a new bomber to do the same mission. It would look exactly like a B-52.
Utter tosh. The B-52 configuration was designed in a hotel room using 1940s aerodynamics and material knowledge. Even in the early 1960s it was easily out-performed by RAF V-bombers which could cruise past at Mach 0.96 and 20,000 feet higher. As well as operating from airfeilds half the length and twice the elevation.
A modern design would probably be a blended-wing. Or a Vulcan.
Not precisely- most certainly it would have at most four turbofans (much more fuel efficient), a full - flying (split, indepedendent) elevator and rudder (avoiding the wacko landing gear configuration or at least allowing greater adjustment and manuverability), more extensive ECCM and SEAD capabilities. It would also probably be cancelled as the USAF would fill it with composite materials which drive up production costs, new instead of proven commercial engines and so on. Also, without an asshole like Lemay in charge, it's tough for anything to make it through the system these days. Something as reliable and straightforward as the B52 wouldn't have a chance- just a a replacement for the A-10 doesn't have a chance.
The B-1 Lancer has nearly double the bomb load of the B-52, higher speed and better stealth. Also the B-1 has excellent loiter times so it can sit near a target area and when a high priority target is identified, accelerate in at high speed and take out the target with a heavy bomb load in minutes. Unfortunately all this increased capability has a tradeoff of increased complexity, and from what I hear poor and low cost construction, so costs and maintenance time are greatly increased.
I was an Air Force brat (my father flew KC-135 and KC-10 tankers, "flying gas stations") and we were stationed at Barksdale AFB in Louisiana, a major B-52 base. I can confirm that I have heard from airmen the same things you have stated. B-1 has some excellent qualities, but cost of operation is not one of them.
Initially created to be a low-level penetrator capable of delivering (relatively) low-yield tactical nuclear payloads deep into the heart of the USSR (thereby avoiding setting off Russian ICBM early alert systems that a ground-based missile launch would cause), with the end of the Soviet Union the B-1's primary mission was diminished/removed. At that point, cost of running the damn thing (various sources put the amount at roughly twice that of the B-52 per flight hour) makes the BUFF (Big Ugly Fat... ahem) a smart choice for supporting ground troops, etc, with conventional JDAMS, at least for the US's current engagements.
If Cold War-era threats ever rear up again (and there are a few countries who could still pose these types of challenges), the B-1 and B-2 will be the strategic platforms of choice. In conventional engagements, the B-52 has proven to be far more than simply adequate.
For conscience is the wound, and there's naught to staunch it
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!
Utter tosh. ...
I like the phrase "utter tosh" and want to use it more in conversation.
Except it would do worse, because there's over 60 years of collective knowledge centered around the construction, maintenance and flying of B-52s, whereas whatever new hotness comes out will have its own little quirks.
It's the same reason why big software re-writes never work; the old software is old and convoluted because it's had to solve problems you'd never think of the first time around.
-Big as a whale
-Seats about 20
-About to set sail
Yeah, they totally scribbled it on the back of a napkin during lunch. Only thing is, that lunch lasted something like five years and six different configurations (some using turboprops) and involved wind tunnel testing, which must have been really hard to set up in that hotel room. I would be surprised if 1960s designs didn't outperform it, but it did hold speed records in the 1950s.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
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!