[ImJustAnotherOkie]

Can anyone answer why they kept the 8 engine configuration. EMF Hardening?

[Cletus.D.Yokel]

Air Porn!

[Prospero]

These airframes aren't fifty years old. They're sixty years old.

Redundancy and fuel efficiency - range and altitude flexibility over deep targets, survivability - credibility in the eyes of a potential enemy.

A strategic bomber that just happened to be nearly perfect as a long-range cruise missile platform.

I love these aircraft.

[Psalm 73]

Eight engine configuration is a proven design for the B-52, have not heard of a rational reason (or plan) for changing it.

That said, I thought this was interesting:
"...equipping a B-52H with CONECT requires nearly 7,000 man-hours to complete, or approximately nine months per aircraft."

7K man-hours sounds like a near-complete aircraft rewire.

[Blood of Tyrants]

Probably the difficulty and expense of reconfiguring the aircraft electrical and hydraulic and fuel systems to do four engines instead of eight.

[Elsiejay]

Dumb question: Was there a 16-engine experimental heavy assembled ca. 1950?

[NormsRevenge]

Ya lose six engines, ya still got two to get ya home. :)

[ExNewsExSpook]

Believe it or not, it’s a matter of cost. Boeing offered to re-wing and re-engine the B-52 fleet a few years, but the Air Force decied it would be cheaper (long term) to keep the Buff in its original, eight-engine configuration.

I was told the cost for the program would be $2-3 billion. However, there are still a lot of TF-33 engines on Buffs and C-141s in the boneyard. The Air Force has been canibalizing those for years, and it’s one reason they haven’t looked at the re-engine option very seriously.

However, the supply of engines/parts at the boneyard is not unlimited, and there would be tremendous savings in going to a four-engine model with better fuel efficiency and greater thrust.

[Freeport]

It has to do with the design loads of the airframe. Changing the load at the wing attachment points, causes the structure to behave differently than it was designed for.

The two engine per pylon weighs X much, produces Y amount of thrust, D amount of drag, L amount of lift (yes the nacelle shape produces lift), M amount of yaw moment, and L amount of pitch moment. Any change needs to stay in an envelope around each of those quantities.

Any that fall outside that envelope and the structure reacts very differently. i.e. The wing can fatigue faster or flutter (BAD) can result.

On top of that, the cost of changing out the H engines would be more than the airframes are worth according to the last time re-engining was looked at... and we need those bombers.

So we're stuck with them as they are for now.

That help?

[longtermmemmory]

Valerie jarret keeps 8 engins because two of them are homosexual engines....

[Moonman62]

Can they still fry chickens in the barnyard?