The Boneyard at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona.
Posted on 02/19/2015 8:02:37 AM PST by C19fan
The Air Force is working to get a B-52 bomber back into service after it sat collecting dust for seven years at the famous Boneyard at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona.
On Feb. 13, the B-52H—with the serial number 61–0007—left the desert for its new home with the 2nd Bomb Wing at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. This is the first time the Air Force has “regenerated” one of these bombers from the Boneyard back to active duty.
(Excerpt) Read more at medium.com ...
The B-52 is like Cockroaches ,they’ll be around Forever ,LOL
The Boneyard at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona.
We need to compete with Ivan to see which Cold War era bomber lasts the longest the BUFF v. Bear.
The B-52H’s are still around because they’ve been rebuilt so much the crews that flew the original B-52H’s built in 1960-1962 would not recognize the inside of the planes now on the flight line. And even less so if the proposal to re-engine the B-52H planes with four General Electric F103 (the military version of the CF6-80) jet engines become reality.
Upper middle I see a bunch of A-10’s.
Please ping me to aviation and aerospace articles. Thank you.
If you want added to or removed from this ping list, please contact EveningStar or Paleo Conservative.
The only bad part of a re-engine is no more black smoke coming from those B-52s at takeoff. :0
The B-52 is a large, heavy plane. I’m always amazed to see them lumbering up there in the sky. It is still an impressive sight.
After setting for so many years, I bet the ground crew has a major time fixing cracks in the skin.
We found that after a B-52 would set on Alert for several months, then be flown, and new cracks would be everywhere.
I’d like to see a few hundred B-52’s fly over Raqqa, and flatten it into rubble like Dresden.
From the end of the runway, they look like a large moth with their wings nearly touching the ground. Landing gear on the wing tip keep the wing barely off the ground.
As It moves forward and gains speed, the wings rise, then the body rises. A magnificent sight!
I still remember when the wind patterns would shift in the winter at Castle AFB and there would be an alert and whole strings of B52’s would take off right over our house in Merced. It still can give me chills. Impressive plane.
Heck, I flew them at Minot a decade later. This was about the that some serious upgrades and modifications began. I don’t recognize most of the stuff at the Nav and RN stations.
The AF, in its infinite wisdom, passed up on some serious electronic, structural, and power plan changes in the mid 1970’s because by the end of that decade the BUFFs would be totally replaced by the B-1s. R I G H T !!!
Can you get into the Boneyard with a military ID? Can the public get in?
They had some really cool stuff there.
I actually witnessed the guillotine chopping a wing off on one of the tours. It was sad. All that money to build them, and they were chopping them up. Not only that, but even historically significant B-52s (NASA related, or otherwise) were being chopped.
I think the tours are run out of the Pima Air Museum now (at least they were in March of 2003, when I last visited).
Wow - I had no idea the Boneyard was so big!
Just saw that they offer tours to the public. Can’t get off the tour bus but it would still be pretty cool.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.