Posted on 09/22/2013 6:31:05 AM PDT by Kaslin
I could be wrong. but I believe you could mount one engine from a Boeing 737 to a B-52 and have more thrust than all of the engines they currently use combined.
Personally, I think the author is ill-informed. The comment “still has vacuum tubes” is indicative of little actual research for the article. In truth, most of the electronic systems in that aircraft have been replaced and/or upgraded.
Mount an engine or install an engine?
B-52engines = 37,000
737 engines = 27,500
That's been tried, with a 747 engine, IIRC. Worked fine, but why spend the money to change engines when there were thousands of spares available?
The B52, M2, and M1911 are the best investments ever made by the US Gubbmint. If everything worked as well my taxes would be 1% or less.
Not quite.
The B-52H has eight Pratt & Whitney engines that produce 17,000 pounds of thrust each.
Total thrust is 136,000 lb.
The two engines on the original Boeing 737-100 had a thrust of 14,000 each.
The two engines on the newest version, the 737-800, produce 27,300 pounds of thrust each.
Total thrust is 54,600 lb.
I wouldn't be surprised if there were vacuum tubes throughout the B-52 as they resist EMP much better than most modern electronic systems.
Add the C-130 (almost as old as the B-52 in original design) and the Voyager spacecraft please. Sometimes things just do click into place. Note, however the common root - military!
Two P & W 4068’s would work just fine or 4 of their new Geared Turbo-Fan
It was a test bed for the JT-9 that Pratt was getting ready for the 747. Got to see it fly as a kid over the Connecticut River ( at low altitude even ) flying out of Westover I think...
The writer implied the use of vacuum tubes as representative of dated technology. I maintain that the electronic systems don’t have to still be vacuum based to be EMP hardened.
If you were to look at the manufacturing base that would be required to maintain vacuum tube technology widely used in the 50s and 60s like the ones my daddy and me used to take to the tube tester at the drug store, the costs would be ridiculous and unsustainable.
The only type of tube-based technology left would only be those associated with transmitter tubes (klystrons, Traveling Wave Tubes, or CRTs), and even the CRTs would have been replaced with LEDs screens, etc....
The Air Force has been on a constant maintenance sustainment program for that and many other aircraft, just to keep it within the realm of keeping them flying at all.
I remember a report some years ago. that the Russians still maintained vacumn tube radios for post-nuclear exchange comms.
Our grandfathers had refined a lot of technology by the time the transistor appeared.
There is something to be said for sturdiness and reliability.
I spent 3 weeks working at Offutt AFB, Omaha, NE in August. The pilots I met flying the KC 135’s said they were all younger than the planes.
I Hope that electronic systems don't have to still be vacuum based to be EMP hardened. Otherwise, the first multi- megaton nuclear detonation occurring over this country will put us all back into the stone age.
It seems Democrats and Greenies want to take us there, regardless of EMP....
“In truth, most of the electronic systems in that aircraft have been replaced and/or upgraded.”
Several times. The B-52 is kinda like the ax George Washington used to cut down the cherry tree. “It’s the original ax you see laying there, just has three new heads and five new handles”. Well, I thought it was funny :)
That is true....outside of the frame and skin...it is not the same as before... (even those have been upgraded as needed)
“
That’s been tried, with a 747 engine, IIRC. Worked fine, but why spend the money to change engines when there were thousands of spares available? “
Agree. And, you’re right four 747 engines were indeed tried and as you stated worked fine, better fuel efficiency and performance actually. I don’t know why the conversion project was never implemented but glad it wasn’t. There’s something about that big ole honking BUF bellowing exhaust out of eight engines that gives it a certain bad @$$ image that I like. Just wish it could still burn 60’s vintage jet fuel. Let me tell you, that dude really looked bad bellowing all that black smoke out of those eight engines when taking off. There were no mosquitoes around the runways in those days, lol!
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