From what I read, the last B-52 was delivered in 1962!!!
Astounding that they haven’t found a good replacement.
If nothing else they should recognize that, like the F-16, 18, 15 and 10, it just was perfectly suited for its task and MAKE SOME MORE.
I am sure someone with more info and less opinion that I will stop by to explain why I am so very, very wrong.
B-52s will be used until 2040 (or so), at which point they will have been replaced by the B-21 Raider.
I won’t.
I watched one take off from Wurtsmith Air Force Base, Oscoda Mi. Airbase show in the 70’s.
*LOUD* even from the far airstrip.
Black smoke from all engines.
I will never forget it.
The B36 could carry WWII era 26,000 lb Grand Slam bombs. Built by Wallis of dambuster fame. B52 should be able to do the same since early nukes were that heavy. B1 as well - they have a longer bomb bay.
Diameter of the MOAB?
“From what I read, the last B-52 was delivered in 1962!!!
Astounding that they haven’t found a good replacement.
If nothing else they should recognize that, like the F-16, 18, 15 and 10, it just was perfectly suited for its task and MAKE SOME MORE.
I am sure someone with more info and less opinion that I will stop by to explain why I am so very, very wrong.” [Freedumb2003, post 3]
Several follow-ons to B-52 have been designed, built and tested; the public didn’t want to pay for them. It keeps on, due to great engineering, solid workmanship, imaginative adaptations, and dumb luck.
Neither the F-16 nor the A-10 are the world-beating super-planes many think they are.
The F-16 can out-G any manned aircraft, but this is of no value in action because no human can stand that much G-force without going unconscious. (At any rate, air combat has not been conducted that way since before 1938). Its range is so short it can barely take off before running out of gas, and it’s so small it cannot haul enough munitions to the target, to make much of a difference.
The A-10 was a workmanlike design for 1970, but becomes more obsolescent every day: the air defenses it will have to encounter have not stood still, and more sophisticated systems are becoming more widespread all the time. Its GAU-8 30mm gun - which aficionados never fail to express their love for - is actually the least-effective, shortest-range system on the airframe. It was designed before both revolutions that have transformed avionics - modular and digital - and cannot be modified to accept newer systems.
“Making some more” is a fool’s errand. Warplanes are not like nuts or bolts, nor even automobiles. No one builds airplanes they way they did 40 (nor 60) years ago: cheaper materials and methods are now universal. And sturdier, longer-lived airframes are the result.
All the original tooling was taken to bits long ago. Re-creating the production machines would cost more than an entirely new system. More critically, no one today knows how to do the job: all the aerospace workers who made these machines are retired. Or they’ve have passed on, in the case of the B-52H.
The public loves national defense, but insists it can be had on the cheap. Not possible.