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B-52s: The Plane That Refuses To Die
HughPickens.com writes: Dave Phillipps has an interesting article in the NY Times about B-52's and why the Air Force's largest bomber, now in its 60th year of active service and scheduled to fly until 2040, are not retiring anytime soon. "Many of our B-52 bombers are now older than the pilots who fly them," said Ronald Reagan in 1980. Today, there is a B-52 pilot whose father and grandfather flew the plane. Originally slated for retirement generations ago, the B.U.F.F. — a colorful acronym that the Air Force euphemistically paraphrases as Big Ugly Fat Fellow — continues to be deployed in conflict after conflict. It dropped the first hydrogen bomb in the Bikini Islands in 1956, and laser-guided bombs in Afghanistan in 2006. It has outlived its replacement. And its replacement's replacement. And its replacement's replacement's replacement. The unexpectedly long career is due in part to a rugged design that has allowed the B-52 to go nearly anywhere and drop nearly anything the Pentagon desires, including both atomic bombs and leaflets. But it is also due to the decidedly underwhelming jets put forth to take its place. The $283 million B-1B Lancer first rolled off the assembly line in 1988 with a state-of-the-art radar-jamming system that jammed its own radar. The $2 billion B-2 Spirit, introduced a decade later, had stealth technology so delicate that it could not go into the rain. "There have been a series of attempts to build a better intercontinental bomber, and they have consistently failed," says Owen Coté. "Turns out whenever we try to improve on the B-52, we run into problems, so we still have the B-52."
The usefulness of the large bomber — and bombers in general — has come under question in the modern era of insurgent wars and stateless armies. In the Persian Gulf war, Kosovo, Afghanistan and the Iraq war, the lumbering jets, well-established as a symbol of death and destruction, demoralized enemy ground troops by first dropping tons of leaflets with messages like "flee and live, or stay and die," then returning the next day with tons of explosives. In recent years, it has flown what the Air Force calls "assurance and deterrence" missions near North Korea and Russia. Two B-52 strategic bombers recently flew near artificial Chinese-built islands in the South China Sea and were contacted by Chinese ground controllers but continued their mission undeterred. "The B.U.F.F. is like the rook in a chess game," says Maj. Mark Burleys. "Just by how you position it on the board, it changes the posture of your adversary."
The usefulness of the large bomber — and bombers in general — has come under question in the modern era of insurgent wars and stateless armies. In the Persian Gulf war, Kosovo, Afghanistan and the Iraq war, the lumbering jets, well-established as a symbol of death and destruction, demoralized enemy ground troops by first dropping tons of leaflets with messages like "flee and live, or stay and die," then returning the next day with tons of explosives. In recent years, it has flown what the Air Force calls "assurance and deterrence" missions near North Korea and Russia. Two B-52 strategic bombers recently flew near artificial Chinese-built islands in the South China Sea and were contacted by Chinese ground controllers but continued their mission undeterred. "The B.U.F.F. is like the rook in a chess game," says Maj. Mark Burleys. "Just by how you position it on the board, it changes the posture of your adversary."
Shirley, that'd be Big Ugly Fat Fucker. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
sag
Simply updating the design with brand new materials is often as big a job as producing an all new design, as the current design is based around the strength, stiffness and capability of the material used - changing that material means revisiting every aspect of the design to ensure that the new materials characteristics handle all the stresses, loadings and movements without issue.
No. Thats not the problem the post is referring to.
The reference you're missing is that the rain actually damages the coating on impact when flying at speed.
So the rain literally damages the stealth capabilities of the aircraft. Make a couple flights in the rain and you'll light up like a blinking christmas tree on radar even on a clear sunny day.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
There are a few examples of engineering projects where everything went right, or at least better than expected. [...]. The Panama canal has it too. Can you think of any others?
More importantly, can we make everything work like that?
The Panama canal bankrupted thousands of French investors, killed thousands of workers, and ruined Gustave Eiffel's reputation for the rest of his life.
There are two reasons the USAF don't reengine the B-52 (and it has come up several times) - first is the fact that there is still a significant parts stockpile of engines already bought and paid for which are next to worthless on the open market, and secondly is the fact that by going from four engines on a wing to two, you have to drastically change the single engine out characteristics of the aircraft, which means a bigger tail to compensate etc.
The USAF tankers and utility aircraft (E-3, RC-135s etc) have been reengined because they spend a lot more time in the air than the B-52s, and generally operate off of the standard USAF operational budget, whereas the B-52s typically operate under specialist budgets per conflict except for training flights.
"but never got used for that mission"
I don't believe that's accurate. Straight from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
During the first Gulf War, the A-10 destroyed "more than 900 Iraqi tanks, 2,000 other military vehicles and 1,200 artillery pieces". Although 4 were shot down by missiles, it had "flew 8,100 sorties, and launched 90 percent of the AGM-65 Maverick missiles fired in the conflict.".
Although the stats are pretty impressive, I hear mixed things from soldiers who had to rely on it for close air support. Some were displeased with it not having supersonic capabilities.....their argument was that it was better to have an F-16 or F-15E that could arrive at the battle much quicker. The other argument was that it was better to have a huge bomber, such as the B-52, that could loiter over a combat area for an extended period of time, and drop precision guided munitions as needed. The flip side is that the A-10 is much more durable than an attack helicopter, which is the Army's main method of providing close air support.
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