The Mother of All Bombers...

[Alamo]

Nice flyby video. The pull-out at the end is awesome.

 

[Alamo]

Another cool BUFF fly-by:


Backstory:

”Look down.”

[Updated] That time a USAF B-52 Strategic Bomber did a fly-by below the flight deck of USS Ranger Aircraft Carrier - The Aviation Geek Club

That time a USAF B-52 Strategic Bomber did a fly-by below the flight deck of USS Ranger Aircraft Carrier

theaviationgeekclub.com

 

[Bugzilla]

There were bombers before the B-52, and bombers after the B-52, but I think the BUFF still holds the title of most awe-inspiring bomber ever built. The ones flying today are only a couple years younger than I am and are still badass looking. Me, not so much.

Via Strategy Page:

Stratofortress, the Stratocaster of Bombers!

 

[KellyinAvon]

The D-Models (Vietnam) were retired a long time ago.

The G-Models were retired after Desert Storm (32 years ago.)

The engines on the H-Models (current) were on the KC-135E and they were replaced on the 135s in the mid-90s.

I remember when the SLEP (service life extension program) for the BUFF was undergoing operational testing when I was at the 53rd Wing at Eglin AFB. I left Eglin 20 years ago this month.

Rolls-Royce here in Indy is making the new engines for the BUFFS... about damn time!!

ARC-LIGHTing the VC, standing on-alert with nukes, bombing the Iraqi Republican Guard until they surrendered to news crews in Desert Storm, providing close air support with precision weapons in OEF/OIF, show of force to the norks flying out of Guam.

On top of all that, at airshows it provides shade!!

 

[SnoopLoggyDog]

And we had our own Broken Arrow incident. Apparently there is a spot on the grounds where the debris was buried.

After the active duty left in 92, the buried B-58 aircraft site was dug up and all hauled away. There was also a munitions bunker in the bomb dump that was used to store the damaged physics packages after the incident. It too had residual radioactivity. It was torn down and hauled off to a hazmat site out West.

 

[actaeon277]

Maybe sent to Yucca mountain

 

[Alamo]

Another cool pic.
24 750lb dumb bombs can be carried on the underwing pylons.

The bomb bays were designed to carry nuclear weapons, and originally could carry only about 27 conventional bombs internally. During the Vietnam war, many of the D model B-52’s were converted under the “Big Belly” program to strictly conventional use and were able to carry 84 500-pound bombs in the bomb bays along with the 24 750-pound bombs under the wings for a total of 60,000 pounds of ordnance.

 

[bobzilla]

Another cool pic.
View attachment 285727 24 750lb dumb bombs can be carried on the underwing pylons.

The bomb bays were designed to carry nuclear weapons, and originally could carry only about 27 conventional bombs internally. During the Vietnam war, many of the D model B-52’s were converted under the “Big Belly” program to strictly conventional use and were able to carry 84 500-pound bombs in the bomb bays along with the 24 750-pound bombs under the wings for a total of 60,000 pounds of ordnance.

so one B-52 was the equivalent of 15 B-17's in WW2 or 5-12 B-29's and it could do it higher, faster and farther.

 

[Alamo]

So it’s going to be the J model:

It’s Official: The Re-Engined B-52 Will be the B-52J

As soon as they get new engines, B-52H bombers will be designated as B-52J aircraft, Air Force budget documents show.

www.airandspaceforces.com

 

[DoggyDaddy]

I like B-52s.

 

[KellyinAvon]

So it’s going to be the J model:

It’s Official: The Re-Engined B-52 Will be the B-52J

As soon as they get new engines, B-52H bombers will be designated as B-52J aircraft, Air Force budget documents show.

www.airandspaceforces.com

First off,

Secondly, HACM (Hack'em) is a cooler acronym than ARRW (Arrow)

One of the improved weapons the B-52 was supposed to get was the hypersonic AGM-183 Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW), but in the 2024 budget, the Air Force said it’s moving to “close out” the program after a couple more tests and shift its emphasis to the Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile (HACM).

 

[KellyinAvon]

I like B-52s.

I never could get the Baileys and Grand Marnier to layer right.

 

[DoggyDaddy]

I never could get the Baileys and Grand Marnier to layer right.

View attachment 286732

Oh man, I had almost forgotten about those B52s!

 

[Gunmetalgray]

New engine will never need an overhaul... And all the MRO shops respond

 

[actaeon277]

New engine will never need an overhaul... And all the MRO shops respond

View attachment 286770

I thought it was... never need to be removed for an overhaul

 

[KellyinAvon]

New engine will never need an overhaul... And all the MRO shops respond

View attachment 286770

Must not have any moving parts.

 

[Alamo]

New engine will never need an overhaul... And all the MRO shops respond

View attachment 286770

I thought it was... never need to be removed for an overhaul

Actaeon remembers.

This is one of the key drivers of the program. The TF-33 engine currently on the B-52 has Mean Time Between Overhaul of only 1500 hours, and it costs millions per engine to do an overhaul on the old beasts.

The new engine, the F-130, is based on the RR BR 725 which powers Gulfstream 650 and 650 ER. Rolls Royce has delivered at 1000 BR 725s to Gulf Stream since 2012. (And Rolls-Royce has been producing the 700 series of engines since 1995). So there is a very well documented maintenance history, and the MTBO for the BR 725 is about 10,000 hours.

Guess how many flying hours are left on the current B-52H wings?

Approximately 10,000 to 12,000 flying hours.

Add a flying rate of 350 to 400 hours per year per aircraft, that takes us out to the 2040s, at which point the wings will be at the end of their flying life.

So effectively the engines should never need to be removed for overhaul. That doesn’t mean they’ll never be removed for some kind of repair, and that’s why there are spares in the contract. But as far as scheduled maintenance goes, the engine should never need to be removed from the wing. This is a huge savings in maintenance cost, and may contribute to higher availability and reliability of the B-52, which is already the most reliable bomber we have, much better than the B-1 and the B-2. And its possible that the B-52 will be retired earlier, which would also fit within the MTBO of the F130 engine.

Also take note that the Air Force wants to retire 15 of the existing 31 E-3G AWACS and 12 of the 16 E-8C JSTARS as soon as possible (this tear and next) with the others to follow. There are concerns that neither of these will be survivable in future peer conflicts, but I think the immediate driver is that they also have poor availability rates due to maintenance issues because of their age. In particular they both use TF-33s, just like the B-52H. It’s not worth re-engining them, because the functions they perform can be moved to smaller, stealthier platforms as well as satellites. The faster the Air Force can divest itself of all the TF-33 engines the more maintenance money it will save.

(There will be a stopgap measure for the E-3G; the Air Force plans to take some of the money saved by retiring, 15 of them to buy the E-7 Wedgetail airborne warning and control aircraft developed by the Royal Australian Air Force. It’s a 737 with a fixed AESA radar antenna on its back. But the long-term solution is intended to rest on fusing data from satellites and sensors on the other aircraft, e.g. the F-35 and stealthy drones.)

 

[IN New Guy]

I've got just shy of 3000 hours in the Buff, quite a bit of it as Instructor time. It's one heck of an airplane.

 

[Shadow01]

The west can write history however it wants, carpet bombing civilians is sad.

I haven’t read any books that told the countless stories of those civilians standing up to the tyranny of the nazis. I can only conclude they were actively supporting the genocide being perpetrated by those same nazis. Nothing sad about the acts of the Allied military during WWII.

 

[KLB]

I haven’t read any books that told the countless stories of those civilians standing up to the tyranny of the nazis. I can only conclude they were actively supporting the genocide being perpetrated by those same nazis. Nothing sad about the acts of the Allied military during WWII.

He was banned back in 2020.