Posted on 09/25/2021 8:26:23 AM PDT by BenLurkin
Rolls-Royce (OTCPK:RYCEY, OTCPK:RYCEF) is awarded a contract to provide upgraded engines for the U.S. Air Force's B-52 bomber fleet in an award that could grow to $2.6B, the Department of Defense announces, beating out General Electric (NYSE:GE) and incumbent Pratt & Whitney (NYSE:RTX).
Rolls-Royce was given an initial six-year $501M base contract to supply 608 engines for installation on the Air Force's 76 active-duty and reserve B-52s, which could grow to $2.6B if all options are exercised
(Excerpt) Read more at seekingalpha.com ...
The 52 ....8 engines. Its what the 52 needs.
Just like plants; plants need Brondo....cuz of the electrolytes.
That’s like…………more than 2 engines per plane.
Well a B52 has 8 engine per plane
Hell people surprised the B52 is a multi engine aircraft with 8 engine
The B36 had 10..
6 turning 4 burning
6 piston engines 4 jet engines
And the ground shook when they took-off.
“Australian sub deal” — yep, I figured that was a big factor.
Thanks. That top photo is interesting not only for the engines, but the two gatling gun pods at the front of the fuselage. Was it being considered as a replacement for the A-10?
(just kidding)
Barring accidents, most people have eight fingers and two thumbs.
Why do they not build these anymore or even have a replacement for a new B52?
Well, considering the B52 was originally developed in the 1940s, technology can only extended life so far and it is considerably out of date at this point
So!
Now a moslem nation is going to be building our B-52 engines...
What could possibly go wrong?
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!
8 per plane !
“8 engines per plane”
Going back some years, there was discussion of reconfiguring B-52’s with 4-6 engines. Improved engine design, technology and fuel mixtures would enable such a change. Not in that loop so that’s the extent of my recamemry.
In 1962.
The B52 has eight engines.
I think you will find two engines per pylon. And 2 pylons per wing.
“...the B52 was originally developed in the 1940s, technology can only extended life so far and it is considerably out of date at this point...” [Spacetrucker, post 110]
The original B-52 was designed in 1945. First flight was in 1952. Production aircraft ran through models B,C,D,E, and F.
Major redesign was undertaken in the mid-1950s. Production aircraft were G and H models. So much was changed that engineers have often remarked that G and H were different aircraft. The only interchangeable items were the corporate labels on the control columns.
The last D model (black painted undersides, used extensively in SEA) were inactivated in 1983. B, C, E, and F models had been inactivated earlier.
G models remained active until 1991. After seeing action in DESERT STORM, they were hurriedly inactivated as part of wide-ranging DoD reorganization that (among other actions) stood down Strategic Air Command and placed the fighter pilots in charge of everything in the Air Force. A great many were cut up in compliance with the arms reduction treaties that had been concluded with the USSR.
H models are the only B-52s still active.
The B-52’s longevity can be attributed to several factors: superior design, engineering, and manufacture; overbuilding of airframe components to assure adequate safety margins, generally more beefy in the days before advanced structural analysis techniques made feasible by computerization; large interior space to permit installation of newer subsystems, primarily electronic; superior USAF maintenance; historical accident; disinclination of the public to spend money on manned systems in the strategic deterrent role.
With upgrades in software and hardware, they still fulfill a critical defense role, and its planned replacement was cancelled due to missile development fulfilling its main role, and the catch-up Russians only built a small fleet to compete with that planned replacement, the XB-70 (a beauty, yet to bomb people as necessary:
From .wikipedia.org
The North American Aviation XB-70 Valkyrie was the prototype version of the planned B-70 nuclear-armed, deep-penetration supersonic strategic bomber for the United States Air Force Strategic Air Command. Designed in the late 1950s by North American Aviation (NAA), the six-engined Valkyrie was capable of cruising for thousands of miles at Mach 3+ while flying at 70,000 feet (21,000 m).
At these speeds, it was expected that the B-70 would be practically immune to interceptor aircraft, the only effective weapon against bomber aircraft at the time. The bomber would spend only a brief time over a particular radar station, flying out of its range before the controllers could position their fighters in a suitable location for an interception. High speed also made the aircraft difficult to see on radar displays and its high-altitude and high-speed capacity could not be matched by any contemporaneous Soviet interceptor or fighter aircraft.
The introduction of the first Soviet surface-to-air missiles in the late 1950s put the near-invulnerability of the B-70 in doubt. In response, the United States Air Force (USAF) began flying its missions at low level, where the missile radar's line of sight was limited by terrain. In this low-level penetration role, the B-70 offered little additional performance over the B-52 it was meant to replace, while being far more expensive with shorter range. Other alternate missions were proposed, but these were of limited scope. With the advent of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) during the late 1950s, manned bombers were increasingly seen as obsolete.
The USAF eventually gave up fighting for its production and the B-70 program was canceled in 1961. Development was then turned over to a research program to study the effects of long-duration high-speed flight. As such, two prototype aircraft, designated XB-70A, were built; these aircraft were used for supersonic test-flights during 1964–69. In 1966, one prototype crashed after colliding with a smaller aircraft while flying in close formation; the remaining Valkyrie bomber is in the National Museum of the United States Air Force near Dayton, Ohio.
he data from the XB-70 test flights and aerospace materials development were used in the later B-1 bomber program, the American supersonic transport (SST) program, and via espionage, the Soviet Union's Tupolev Tu-144 SST program
The Soviet competition for the B-52 is the The Tupolev Tu-95 which entered service with the Long-Range Aviation of the Soviet Air Forces in 1956 and is expected to serve the Russian Aerospace Forces until at least 2040. The Tu-95 is one of the loudest military aircraft, particularly because the tips of the propeller blades move faster than the speed of sound.
The Russian Tupolev Tu-22M (Russian: Туполев Ту-22М; NATO reporting name: Backfire) is a supersonic, variable-sweep wing, long-range strategic and maritime strike bomber developed by the Tupolev Design Bureau in the 1960s... Significant numbers remain in service with the Russian Air Force, and as of 2014 more than 100 Tu-22Ms are in use...The Tu-22M suffered from widespread maintenance problems during its service with the Soviet forces. These stemmed from poor manufacturing quality. The engines and airframes in particular had low service lives...On 17 November 2015, as part of the Russian military intervention in the Syrian Civil War, Russia used 12 Tu-22M3 bombers to hit targets in Syria
“(maybe I should read the article?)”
But then we’d know something about it. What fun is that?
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