The last B-52 came off the production line in 1962. Although they are old they have been well maintained, are relatively reliable and still have have a lot of airframe life left, I think the USAF plans to fly them out to about 2040 as of right now.
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The BONE headed to the boneyard?
- Thread starter Flash
- Start date
The last B-52 came off the production line in 1962. Although they are old they have been well maintained, are relatively reliable and still have have a lot of airframe life left, I think the USAF plans to fly them out to about 2040 as of right now.
As you might expect there is a pretty heated thread running over at base ops on this subject....check out post #38 for a Buff drivers perspective on air frame life.
http://www.flyingsquadron.com/forums/index.php?/topic/17207-b-1-on-chopping-block-again/page__st__20
http://www.flyingsquadron.com/forums/index.php?/topic/17207-b-1-on-chopping-block-again/page__st__20
Whoa, and I thought we were a bit scrappy sometimes. Good stuff.
Interesting insight from someone who ought to know, still seems like the better of the two choices though, even if it is one ugly mofo.
The Buff guy seems spot on. At least his old airframe still carries weapons. Flying the living shit out of planes in an attempt to jealously guard your community's piece of the pie seems to be endemic across the services. No one wants to be the guy who says "no, we can't do that. our planes are too old and weren't designed for that kind of abuse."
Read a little further down and dug up this little gem: "And to think of the things we'll continue to waste money on while cutting the AF to the bone (no pun intended) like US Forces Korea, Army forces in Europe, etc."
Some of our brethren in light blue don't get it. You can't hold territory, stop 200,000 screaming north koreans, or beat an insurgency with airpower alone.
In the book Skunkworks (http://www.amazon.com/Skunk-Works-P...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1277856334&sr=1-1) Ben Rich wrote that Carter cancelled the B-1 after being briefed on the F-117 program. His view was that a stealth aircraft, even with a much smaller payload than a big-winged bomber will be a better weapons platform.
Reagan hadn't been read into the F-117 program yet during the campaign and since Rockwell was based in California, his state, he promised to keep the B-1 program alive.
I've never heard anyone refute this statement, but it is interesting that the aircraft that caused the cancellation (along with being way over budget and behind schedule) was retired before the B-1.
Reagan hadn't been read into the F-117 program yet during the campaign and since Rockwell was based in California, his state, he promised to keep the B-1 program alive.
I've never heard anyone refute this statement, but it is interesting that the aircraft that caused the cancellation (along with being way over budget and behind schedule) was retired before the B-1.
I hope not, it truly is an amazing aircraft. Try topping this in person: http://www.airliners.net/photo/USA---Air/Rockwell-B-1B-Lancer/1231856/M/
They dont want to get it. The sit in complete and utter disbelief that there isnt money to dump into a multi billion dollar program designed on denying the Soviet Air Force the ability to project air power over Europe and that the money is being funneled to rebuild uparmored humvees for the 3rd and 4th time and buy more MRAPs for the guys driving down MSR Tampa trying not to get blown up.
magnetfreezer
Well-Known Member
Ask the RC-135 guys (or the T-39 pilots for that matter) how many times their airframes have been stripped down and rebuilt. Sometimes you need both quickclot to prevent bleeding out in the next 10 minutes and chemo to knock out the cancer that'll kill you in 10 years; unfortunately when <insert country with real military here> activates the tumor, the lesson to the political system/public will come at the cost of American lives, just as the need to maintain an effective COIN capability within the military has been learned the hard way.
Dude I share the ramp with guys flying a 35 year old Scout Helicopter that was never designed to be operated for as long or at the gross weights it does operate as and was only ever considered in interm aircraft. Im not saying they're all ignorant but it sure does seem like I will hear insane ideas about winning ground wars with Air Power and the only reference that they can ever give me of that working is Bosnia.... and Last I checked there were US Army troops deploying their on a routine basis.
As something of a tangent, my academic advisor is a retired CW4 who had the pleasure of flying the afore mentioned interim scout helicopter. Though he's been out for nearly ten years, he still seems to bring up how much he he dislikes the Kiowa at least on a weekly basis.
I agree 110%w/ magnet: The AF could junk half its B-52 fleet & still have all the grape bomb-droppers it'll ever need. The B-1 is a viable penetrating, long-range bomber that could be used if we ever have to go against a sophisticated air-defense system again. Makes too much sense to ever work.
Well, let's see: we've got 21 B-2s & 187 (delivered & on-order) F-22s. What do you send in after those are used up? Certainly B-1Bs before you launch the aluminum clouds.
(Correction: 20 B-2s - they lost one on Guam a few yrs ago)
(Correction: 20 B-2s - they lost one on Guam a few yrs ago)
magnetfreezer
Well-Known Member
(data from open sources)
B-2: we only have 20 of them, can carry 80x500LB or 16x2000LB weapons; in addition, much of the B-2 is (by necessity) very highly classified which makes it difficult to integrate into a package. In addition, the stealth capability, critical technology, and high cost makes them a national asset so the powers that be are necessarily reluctant to place it at risk/wear it out in day-to-day ops.
B-1: dropped ~30-40% of the JDAMs in the sandbox despite flying around 1% of the sorties, radar and sniper pod for targeting, can carry 84x500LB or 24X2000LB class weapons, loiter time measured in hours, excellent at low level as well as high speed (quicker you can get from the CAS orbit to troops in contact the better). Auto terrain following radar lets the crew fly low level in 100% IMC.
B-52: the nuclear procedures incidents over the past several years were partially due to the continual conventional deployment taskings eroding the ability of the force to focus on nuclear ops. Boomer crews are dedicated to a nuclear mission, for example, not taking several weeks off every few months to drive riverine patrol boats. In addition, as the referenced baseops thread states, the BUFF is getting long in the tooth as well. Fewer sensors for the dynamic targeting necessary for CAS. Slightly less payload (70K vs 75K for the Bone).
All 3 airplanes have much greater endurance than fighters - gas delivered by a tanker is much more expensive than gas pumped on the ground; in addition, the greater weapon capacity allows a greater time on station (24 vs 3-4 JDAM max for a fighter/84 unguided MK82 vs ~28 MK82 for A-6E vs ~6-9 for a fighter). The extra sensors and crew allow better mission management for some tasks as well.