New commercial engines for the B-52 bomber

[MistWolf]

I am certainly not an aviation technology/maintenance expert, but while they certainly do inspections how the hell do you make sure the wings don't fall off with something that old? They are basically bomb-trucks these days (and good at it), so I just have to think that 60+ year old airframes gotta be getting a little flimsy here and there.

The B-52s have already experienced critical cracking in the wings, fleet wide. It's been addressed and you can bet an inspection procedure has been put in place.

Also, if cracks or bad rivets are detected does that deadline the aircraft permanently? i.e. can they essentially re-attach a wing if it needs "reinforced"?

Rivits are easy to replace and the B-52 and cracks can be repaired or the parts replaced. The fleet has already been through a few beef ups and it's likely will be again.

I doubt this program will extend the life of the B-52 for 20 years. After this, we can expect B-52s for another 50 to 75 years, maybe more.

The US keeps upgrading and extending the service life of F-16s and A-10s. The F-16 was designed as an interim aircraft with a limited life. It's now served three or four times that life. The A-10 has been relegated to the dustbin of history many times. In fact, it was supposed to be replaced by the F-16 three decades ago.

You can expect the B-52 to be around for a long time. Soon, a grey haired Air Force Colonel will be pointing out the BUF (only one F) is older than the great grandfathers of the pilots flying them.

[Diamondback]

Not to mention that one of the first things Reagan did was have new wings put on the best 100 D-models to keep them as carpet-bombers. Me, I woulda taken the opportunity to upgrade them to the G/H longer-range "wet" wing rather than stick to the original, but...

Skins can easily be replaced, the main area of concern is the structural members: frames, ribs and longerons and especially the main spars (these last have to be cut as part of the demilling process in museum birds).

[ABNAK]

So there are "upgrades" and large-scale repairs (like a wing for instance) that are technically possible in 2021 to keep these flying eh? Rather impressive. Seriously.

[Diamondback]

Rewinging and reskinning is nothing new... it was done in the '80s, and the only thing holding it back from being done more often is money and will.

Personally, had I been managing the B-52 program from Day One as soon as the books closed on producing one model, say the transition from the "second gen" C/D models to the third-gen E's and F's, as the earliest A's and B's ran out their clocks I would have had them remanufactured up to the D spec; then once the F's gave way to the "fourth gen" short-tail G's and H's rework all of the tall-tails worth keeping up to the F-model spec.

[ABNAK]

Rewinging and reskinning is nothing new... it was done in the '80s, and the only thing holding it back from being done more often is money and will.

Personally, had I been managing the B-52 program from Day One as soon as the books closed on producing one model, say the transition from the "second gen" C/D models to the third-gen E's and F's, as the earliest A's and B's ran out their clocks I would have had them remanufactured up to the D spec; then once the F's gave way to the "fourth gen" short-tail G's and H's rework all of the tall-tails worth keeping up to the F-model spec.

Shows you what I know about that stuff! I would have thought those level of repairs would be so major that it wasn't A) worth it, or B) safe to fly afterwards.

I like some of the tech info that gets brought up here!

[Diamondback]

Shows you what I know about that stuff! I would have thought those level of repairs would be so major that it wasn't A) worth it, or B) safe to fly afterwards.

I like some of the tech info that gets brought up here!

For the most part it's less a question of "CAN it be done" than "Is it WORTH the cost to do so." Give me a Boneyard B-52G and a DARPA credit card and I will show you some hair-curling next-level shit... but by the time I'm done it might be cheaper to just buy a brand-new B-21 Raider since I'm going to pillage that program for every little bit of helpful technology I can. PACER PLANK, the mentioned rewing, was only for a hundred cherrypicked D's, the best remaining airframes of the model, and even then they were only meant as a stopgap until sufficient Bones became available to move the G's and H's from nuclear alert to carpet-bombing. (I find it absurd that the B-1s and B-2s don't have Permissive Action Links or the other specialized equipment required for nuclear payloads... what kind of frickin' RETARDS are running this outfit?!)

The bird a prof and I white-papered back in college... well, if you've ever read any of Dale Brown's novels we took the idea of the Old Dog and pushed it as far Dialed To Eleven as ca. 2001 technology and even some emergent concepts of the day like network-centric warfare and the SDB would conceivably go. Total rebuild with carbon-fiber and composites to lighten and strengthen the airframe, uprated GE90s for half a million pounds of thrust available, a new "cranked" wing more like the old British Victor in planform with more internal fuel, additional underwing hardpoints and converting the tiptanks to combined ECM/weapons pods...

[SteyrAUG]

So as much as I know a lot about a lot of things...I'll be honest...I had zero idea that B-52s were even still in service at all anywhere. I assumed we retired these late 80s and I have a passing interest in military aviation.

The things you learn. I seriously believed that once the stealths were online that replaced B-52 and ICBMs took up the rest of the slack. I thought AC-130s were the oldest thing still flying.

So is the B-52 the largest plane we currently have flying?

[SteyrAUG]

If they keep this up the B-52 will have a longer front line service life than did the 1911.

It really will kinda be like a Sopwith Camel flying CAS missions early 80s in terms of perspective.

[Diamondback]

So as much as I know a lot about a lot of things...I'll be honest...I had zero idea that B-52s were even still in service at all anywhere. I assumed we retired these late 80s and I have a passing interest in military aviation.

The things you learn. I seriously believed that once the stealths were online that replaced B-52 and ICBMs took up the rest of the slack. I thought AC-130s were the oldest thing still flying.

Ed Wells, George Schairer and their design team really knew what they were doing with that bird... today's birds were ordered in FY 1960 and '61, delivered around '65-'66. The first two prototypes were ordered in '49 (c/n's 49-230 XB and 49-231 YB, among the first things earmarked for the USAF Museum before that worthless waste of oxygen and viable organs bitch married to LBJ got a burr up her ass about "scrap as many of those ugly old relics as we can."

[Slater]

So as much as I know a lot about a lot of things...I'll be honest...I had zero idea that B-52s were even still in service at all anywhere. I assumed we retired these late 80s and I have a passing interest in military aviation.

The things you learn. I seriously believed that once the stealths were online that replaced B-52 and ICBMs took up the rest of the slack. I thought AC-130s were the oldest thing still flying.

So is the B-52 the largest plane we currently have flying?

The physically largest plane continues to be the C-5 Galaxy cargo plane. I believe some were upgraded to the C-5M configuration.