long live the old dog.

I the BUFF lasts to 2045 it will be the longest serving piece of of Us Military equipment, beating the M1911A1 by 15 years.

Unblieveable and air frame 90 years old.

Absolutely amazing. Thank you for this!

bumpus gratis

Probably killed more commies than anything except the Browning .50 in its many incarnations....

Actually, other commies have killed the most commies in history. *g*

No, really. I'm older than most of these birds, and to think they might still be flying after I've long since, er, flown the coop, is simply amazing. As an engineer (dealing with a more ephemeral technology), my hat is off to the designers!

"They are known as Big Ugly Fat Fellows...

Well, that's not exactly how I remember it. But it did start with an f.

Big ugly fat fellows??Some VietNam vets the other night called the 'fellows' some other word: f#%!ks....tee hee!!

A magnificent piece of engineering-the only thing that might rival it for longevity is the C-130. Not that I'd be willing to bet on it.

Yes, long live the old dog, she's slated to soldier on after the B-1 is put out to pasture, IIRC. However:

Big Ugly Fat Fellows

The last "F" in "BUFF" does not stand for "Fellows" except in the most "polite" of company. It's another "F" word, usualy a verb, but converted to a noun by the standard addition of "er" or in this case "ers". :)

As an engineer (dealing with a more ephemeral technology), my hat is off to the designers!

Not only the designers, but the team of Boeing and Tinker AFB engineers, who have uprgraded, refurbished and generally improved the old babe. Only "bad" thing they did was to remove the stinger from her tail, a quad .50 on the older models and a 20mm M-62 Vulcan Gatling cannon on the -H's. A good look at some of the more recent changes, and a bit on those to come can be found at: B-52

Brings back memories. Getting the Drag Chute into its "nest" in the tail section was one bugaboo I hated (the thing weighs a TON, even when you use a winch to lift it).
Engine cowlings, once removed for maintenance, never fit right unless you FORCED them back in place.

Our squadron motto, un-PC of course, was "Pound It To Fit And Paint It To Match".

This photo shows the beast fully loaded with fuel. The wings are bending down with the weight of the fuel, and those extra wheels help support them until the lift is sufficient.

This photo shows the beast fully loaded with fuel. The wings are bending down with the weight of the fuel, and those extra wheels help support them until the lift is sufficient

Actually the wings pretty much droop like that even when not fully loaded with fuel. I've seen them in the depot at Tinker, completely defueled, still drooping away. When they do get airborne the wings take on a positive angle. The wing tips move over some unbelievable distance, 10s of feet IIRC. All that movement takes it's toll of course. The skin on the fuselodge is all wrinkled when the bird is parked, but streches out when it gets airborne. B-52 looks more like an elevator than an airplane when it takes off, depending on gross weight of course. You don't really notice it pitching up much, but sure is going up. Especially true until it gets out of "ground effect", meaning about a wingspan of altitude. The effect is partly just visual, since the wing has a different angle than the body, so the body can be level, while the wing actually does have considerable angle of attack (Angle between the air flowing over the wing, and the centerline (chord) of the wing itself.

I wonder how much of the structure of these airplanes has been replaced over the years. Is it like George Washington's hatchet? (Three new handles, two new heads)

They were more likely to use an M2 than a B52 doing it.... but why argue when we can all celebrate someone, anyone killing communists. *eg*

Much the same way I view urban crime.... if they are willing to kill each other I say "Why waste our ammo?"

When I was in high school in Northern Arizona (Fredonia), B-52 pilots would fly training missions right over the school. 3 or 4 planes would fly over at a time, several times every day. The big birds would fly so low it seemed you could almost hit them with a rock.

Nearly ever day they would fly over during baseball practice. We'd always stop whatever we were doing to watch. I have no idea where they were comming from, or where they were going but they were sure beautiful to see.

This went on for months until one day, one of them crashed in the Nevada desert. The flights stopped shortly after that.

A lot of stuff DOES get replaced, but you'd be surprised at how much "original equipment" there still is. Control surfaces, some avionics gear, instrumentation, stringers, extra crew seats: a lot of factory items still used.

I'd swear that the crew urinal ("P*ss can") has been around (unwashed) for about 40 years... :>D

On the other hand, the nose cowling may have been replaced (due to redesign of the radar/nav systems) several times.

Sheet metal specialists are always replacing popped rivets, repairing holes in the leading edge of the wings, and rebuilding engine cowling that we maintenance crews managed to break.

A lot of new instruments and special equipment have been installed as technology changes.

Holes in the wings? Caused by collisions with "semisolid foreign objects" -- militaryspeak for BIRDS.