Posted on 10/27/2014 6:48:59 AM PDT by C19fan
The U.S. Air Force is taking a serious look at overhauling the nearly 60 year-old B-52 bomber—including a new engine for the ancient plane. The question is not whether it makes sense, but why it hasn’t been done before. The answers include poor planning, budgetary procedures that defied economic logic, and at least one bone-headed accounting error.
The B-52 first entered service in the mid-1950s. Putting new engines on the “Buff,” or Big Ugly Fat (cough) Fella, became a possibility after 1978, when the commercial airplane business launched two modern engines, the Rolls-Royce RB.211-535 and the PW2000. Unlike the first generation of high-bypass engines made for the 747, they were the right size for the Buff, with four new engines replacing the original eight. Pratt & Whitney published a study in early 1982 that showed that the re-engined airplane would fly farther and need less tanker support.
(Excerpt) Read more at thedailybeast.com ...
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The problem with going to four engines on the BUFF is that the control surfaces can’t handle the asymetric stresses of an engine out scenario.
To add, modern computer systems can, possibly, mitigate this by varying the thrust of the remaining three engines to provide some control. Like what that DC-10 crew did years ago trying to get into Sioux City after the hydraulics all failed.
That’ll put an end to the joke;
There’s a story about the military pilot calling for a priority landing because his single-engine jet fighter was running “a bit peaked.”
Air Traffic Control told the fighter jock that he was number two, behind a B-52 that had one engine shut down.
“Ah,” the fighter pilot remarked, “The dreaded seven-engine approach.”
You would think that by now metal fatigue would be an issue in the B-52 after 60 years. Too bad we don’t invest in building a new version heavy bomber without all the bells and whistles like stealth. Couldn’t a basic civilian plane like the Boeing 777 be adapted as a heavy hauler?
Having grown up on Barksdale AFB, a BUFF with 4 engines just wouldn’t look right. But I’d like to see it.
A young guy in an F-16 fighter was flying escort for a B-52 and
generally being a nuisance, acting like a hotdog, flying rolls around
the lumbering old bomber. The hotdog said over the air, “Anything you
can do, I can do better.”
The veteran bomber pilot answered, “Try this hot-shot.”
The B-52 continued its flight, straight and level.
Perplexed, the hotdog asked, “So? What did you do?”
“I just shut down two engines, kid.”
Or another ending..
After the kid asks “what did you do?” the B-52 replies:
“Got up, stretched my legs, went to the restroom, and got some coffee”
We should build a new B-52 type bomber. Essentially a bomb sled capable of delivering 50,000 lbs. of ordnance into an area where we have air supremacy and no advanced ground-to-air systems are present. It should be capable of a 5,000 mile unrefueled combat radius. Subsonic with efficient high-bypass engines. Forget about stealth and concentrate on aerodynamic efficiency. Integral electronic warfare with EO/IR, SAR, and laser targeting suites.
Not a strategic nuclear delivery platform, but rather a tactical heavy bomber. Of course, the USAF would have to call it an F-52 or whatnot in order to pretend that they don't fly attack missions.
You shouldn't talk about the Mrs. that way ;)
Come on!! Aren’t the frames getting fatigued by now. B52s used to loiter outside Russia with nuclear weapons. Before we had our extensive missile defense set up. That was wear and tear on the frame
I know many who will never go to the Daily Beast. Here is extreme detail.
http://www.acq.osd.mil/dsb/reports/ADA428790.pdf
B-52 ping.
Unlikely. Commercial jets are not designed to have bomb bay doors.
The truth is that compared to more advanced bombers, the B-52 is like a diesel semi-truck bomber. However, in howsoever long, what the Air Force has *needed* more than advanced bombers, are diesel semi-truck bombers.
Sure, having some advanced bombers is hunky-dory. But more importantly, the Air Force needs work horses. Cargo aircraft that carry bombs.
So instead of perpetually refitting B-52s, we should have a whole new production line of workhorse, lower tech bombers, to be produced at a quarter of the cost and four times the number.
Wouldn’t a cargo plane with bomb bay doors cut in the fuselage have the same structural problem as a converted airliner? Somehow, you have to make up for all of the longitudinal members that have been removed. Although, skipping to the end of your post - the idea of a new subsonic tactical bomber might make sense for some roles.
“B52s used to loiter outside Russia with nuclear weapons. Before we had our extensive missile defense set up. That was wear and tear on the frame.”
The “Iron Dome” airborne alerts were cancelled long ago after a number of Broken Arrow incidents. The remaining B-52’s are younger than that and have fewer logged flight hours than a typical airliner even half as old.
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