B 52 Buff - The B-52: This is the plane the Air Force can't say goodbye to. The Air Force recently decided to extend the service life of the B-52 into the 2040s. At this point, some of the B-52s were approaching an incredible 90 years old, which would make the planes older than whoever flew them. Credit: US Air Force photo.
When the first B-52 bomber took off on June 29, 1955, at Castle Air Force Base, California, for Air Force General Curtis LeMay's Strategic Air Command, little did they know it would mark a century of service.
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Nicknamed the "BUFF" or "Big Ugly Fat F—er," the eight-engine jet played a key role in everything from the Cold War to the Vietnam War, Desert Storm and the Global War on Terror, and even the Ukraine . .
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When flying in a pair of cells — or a group of three B-52s in formation — and loaded with 1,000-pound bombs, the bombers could leave a swath of destruction a mile long and half a mile across. width.
The Air Force currently operates 76 of them, with two returning to service in long-term storage at an Arizona facility called the "boneyard."
It took two decades of debate to get the B-52 upgrade plan to this point, but the Air Force finally decided to extend the B-52's service life into the 2040s, with new engines, upgraded avionics , defensive gear, brakes . , sensors and ejection seats, reports of National Interest.
You know what they say, go big or go home, and that's what the USAF plans to do, if they can get Congress to loosen its purse strings.
Boeing B 52 Stratofortress Long Range Strategic Bomber Stock Photo
The Air Force has estimated the cost of extending the B-52's service life — including re-engineering and other capability upgrades — at about $32 billion.
Pratt & Whitney, General Electric and Rolls-Royce all proposed engine types for the B-52 effort. The Air Force said it will test the new engines on two B-52s in 2022, select a contractor in 2026 and complete the re-engineering project in 2034.
"If the Air Force's plan holds, the B-52 will approach nearly a century of service by 2050," wrote reporter John Tirpak of Air Force magazine.
"To keep the plane flying, the service plans to equip each B-52 with new engines, which are expected to be easier to maintain and pay for themselves in just 10 years."
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The B-52 also featured prominently in the 1964 Cold War classic "Dr. Strangelove," in which rogue Air Force Brig. General Jack D. Ripper (played brilliantly by actor Sterling Hayden), sends an entire fleet of bombers to attack Russia, based on "Wing Attack Plan R."
The latter is an attack plan that can be launched without presidential approval, if Washington is hit and destroyed.
Director Stanley Kubrick originally planned the film as a drama, but as he and writer Terry Southern explored the subject, it lent itself more to comedy.
Add the genius of British actor Peter Sellers, who played three roles in the film, and Slim Pickens as the big bold B-52, who was thought to go to the "main" target, and you have a classic film that still stands. now a.
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The scene where Pickens, playing Major Kong, reveals the contents of a post-nuclear survival kit during their mission to bomb the Soviet Union remains one of the coolest pieces of comic book cinema.
Although the Air Force has denied that such a thing could happen, we need only look at the revelations in the recently published book "Peril," by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, which reveal that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Mark Milley, broke the chain of command to prevent a frustrated President Trump from starting a war with China.
Notably, in 1966, the famous Hollywood actor and veteran of World War II Air Force Reserve Big. Gen. Jimmy Stewart, flew his last combat mission in a B-52 over Vietnam — a 12-hour, 50-minute "Arc Light" bombing mission with the 736th Bombardment Squadron, 454th Bombardment Wing.
Brigadier General James M. ("Jimmy") Stewart, USAFR (center) with the crew of a B-52F Stratofortress, at Anderson Air Force Base, Guam, February 20, 1966. (US Air Force photo.)
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Stewart flew 20 dangerous combat missions as a B-24 pilot, wing commander or squadron commander, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross with two Oak Leaf Clusters, The Air Medal with three Oak Leaf Clusters, and the French Croix de Guerre and Palm.
From the 1950s to the late 1960s, LeMay, a laborer says he now faces ethical questions about his devastating bombing of Tokyo during World War II (which killed 100,000 and left a million homeless ), established a policy of sustainability. B-52s are in the air 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
This way, the fleet will never be caught on land. After the late 1960s, nuclear-equipped B-52s were kept fully loaded and ready to fly, with crews on alert and within flying distance of the aircraft until the end of the Cold War in 1991 .
Despite its size, the large bomb was extremely flexible. Flying at speeds of more than 400 kilometers per hour at an altitude of only 500 feet, he can evade radar, fly over the contours of the world, and deliver his weapons.
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LeMay successfully pushed for the development of larger tanker planes with greater in-flight refueling capabilities that would give his bombers unprecedented global reach.
B-52 operations are like "flying through a museum," said 27-year-old Carlos Espino (call sign "Loko") who is based at Barksdale Air Force Base in northwest Louisiana.
His squadron, the 20th, was known as the Buccaneers. The patch on his right shoulder depicts a ship dropping a bomb, Popular Science reported.
"It has a lot of redundant systems," Espino added. "So if one system fails, there are many other systems to back it up."
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US Air Force B-52H bombers over the Pacific Ocean during a training mission. The strategic bomber entered service in 1955. Credit: USAF photo.
The most difficult maneuver, he said, was precisely positioning the plane and a tanker in the sky to receive more fuel. "By the end of the air refueling, you're literally sweating."
The plane may be big — its 185-foot wingspan and 159-foot length make it bigger than a 737, and smaller than a 747 — but crew space is spacious.
Behind and below the cockpit is a small submarine-like compartment, sometimes lit in red, where two others sit: a radar navigator and an aircraft navigator.
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If something happens that requires an airborne evacuation from the plane, the ejection seat inflates down instead of up, which is only safe if the plane is more than 250 feet above the bridge.
Right behind it, there's a urinal, but ideally, nobody poops on a B-52, even if the mission takes hours. Imodium can help.
The reason BUFF has lasted so long is the way it was designed in the first place, Gen said. Timothy Ray, head of Air Force Global Strike Command.
When the B-52 was built in the early 1960s, "you could do some precision engineering and precision manufacturing, but efficiency was not the driver," he explained.
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Giving each B-52 eight new engines and other upgrades required a budget of about $130 million per plane, Ray said.
The new B-21 Raider will be more expensive to buy, which is why the fleet of tomorrow must be a mix of old and new. In addition, the B-52 is a metal bird already on hand, which is another reason to keep it running.
Since its first combat in Vietnam, the B-52 Stratofortress has unleashed more destruction than any other aircraft. Credit: USAF Photo.
In 2018, the Air Force announced it would retire 62 of its 1980s-era B-1Bs and 20 new B-2 stealth bombers no later than the 2040s, while the newer B-52 will continue to operate with at least 100 new B - 21 stealth bombers.
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"Despite their age, B-52s have high mission capability rates, can carry a wide variety of weapons, and can be effective," Tirpak wrote.
"Even in a difficult battle, the B-52 can still launch missiles beyond enemy air defenses. It is the only American bomber capable of launching nuclear cruise missiles, and will initial platform for the new Stand-Off Long-range missile. . The range.”
Essentially, a single B-52 could cause the destruction of a dozen Hiroshima couples, an effect of apocalyptic proportions.
Tirpak said the B-52H still flies with the same TF-33 Pratt & Whitney engines that have powered the type since 1962, but the modern engines are more reliable and cheaper to operate.
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The purpose of replacing the engines was to improve the B-52's fuel efficiency by at least 20% while maintaining its ceiling and takeoff performance.
The B-52H with the TF-33 engine can also carry 35 tons of bombs and missiles up to 4,500 miles without aerial refueling at a top speed of 650 kilometers per hour.
Member of the 128th Air Refueling Wing, Milwaukee, Wisc. refueling a B-52 Stratofortress during training. (U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Thomas J. Sobczyk)
By comparison, the B-17G, the workhorse of America's bombing raids in WWII, could only carry about 9,600 pounds of bombs.
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