
The B-52 Just Keeps on Flying - dnetesn
http://www.airspacemag.com/flight-today/b-52-just-keeps-flying-180953933/
======
noir_lord
Once you have control of the airspace over your opponent then stealth takes a
back seat and what you want is a (relatively) low cost way to delivery large
amounts of ordinance over a long distance.

A Bomb Truck.

The B-52 does that better than anything else out there.

Throw in that much of the design was built with 50's technology originally
which meant when it was ripped out and modernised you had massive amounts of
space to play with which made upgrading them easier as well.

What is fascinating is that the law of diminishing returns was hit so quickly
after the introduction of the jet engines for sub-sonic bombers.

~~~
shard972
As far as I know there is no such things as stealth in aircrafts. If you are
using modern radar then you can spot any aircraft, even those new stealth jet
fighters that the US is about to start cranking out.

~~~
milspec
Sure there is.

Stealth capability isn't a boolean property. Intermittent detection isn't
enough to target an aircraft. Being able to track from the ground, with
numerous antennas and supercomputers, is much easier than tracking from the
limited-diameter head of a radar-guided missile.

~~~
shard972
Really?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_F-117A_shootdown](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_F-117A_shootdown)

~~~
trhway
as the joke goes, these missiles were very old - they were produced when there
were no stealth planes, and thus they didn't know that that plane was supposed
to be invisible to them.

~~~
engi_nerd
Some IRCM systems have historically encountered this same problem in their
development. Modern missiles were defeated, but very old missiles were
actually _attracted_.

It isn't really a joke so much as a humorous way to describe a nasty reality.

------
jackweirdy
So they’re trying to pay for them with PFIs. That didn’t work out well in the
UK for hospitals, schools, police stations or anything else they were applied
to. PFIs are perfect, though, if you want to let an external body decide what
you need and make you pay for more than 6 times the value of something that
doesn’t solve your original problem.

~~~
ceejayoz
Are you in the wrong thread?

~~~
phpnode
no, he isn't:

> "To go out and buy new engines for the B-52, you'd have a really hard time
> fitting that into our program, but that's why we're interested in a public-
> private partnership, which would be a different way to amortize those
> engines over time and pay for them in the savings that they actually
> generate, instead of paying for them out of savings that you hope for.

This sounds like a Private Finance Initiative as the GP mentioned

~~~
ams6110
So basically, asking GE or Pratt & Whitney to fit modern turbofan engines
upfront for free, and getting paid out of the fuel and/or maintenance savings
over time?

~~~
jackweirdy
That’s the idea, but it’s a profit making exercise for these companies. In
all, they charge far, far more than the up front cost.

Not to mention, they’ll charge based on an annual fee for every year the
engines are in service. And if there’s anything the original B52 taught us,
it’s that avionic hardware is in service for far, far longer than we estimate
when we buy it.

~~~
ams6110
I suppose, not knowing what "far, far more" actually is, that could be
appropriate. Typically, whether it's a loan or some kind of "partnership" when
you ask someone else to front the expenses for your project/purchase you end
up paying a lot more over time than if you had the cash in hand.

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chinathrow
Meanwhile new metal just does not cut it.

[http://www.jqpublicblog.com/the-little-fighter-that-
couldnt-...](http://www.jqpublicblog.com/the-little-fighter-that-couldnt-
moral-hazard-and-the-f-35/)

Among the crippling problems highlighted in the DOT&E report:

\- Software glitches disrupting enemy identification and weapon employment.

\- A redesigned fuel tank that continues to demonstrate unacceptable
vulnerability to explosion from lightning or enemy fire.

\- Departures from controlled flight during high-speed maneuvering, a six-
year-old problem that apparently will not be solved without sacrificing
stealth or combat capability.

\- Helmet issues fundamentally degrading pilot situational awareness.

\- Engine problems so severe they’re limiting sortie rates, impeding the test
schedule, and generating risky operational decisions.

\- Nightmarish maintainability issues leading to over-reliance on contractor
support.

~~~
VieElm
I don't really know of too many sophisticated military weapons that don't
require contractor support. The military doesn't really hire professional
engineers. The involved enlisted serve as maintenance crew and understand
basics and know how to read manuals and use tools, officers fly and command
things. Even the vocational schools for the enlisted that learn to do the
maintenance on such equipment are often taught by civilians. Engineering takes
a lot of schooling which would be on the level of an officer, but officers are
commanders. Officers are management, not usually individual contributors
except for maybe in the medical field where nurses are officers.

~~~
Jtsummers
Adding to my sibling post, the USAF hires a ton of professional engineers.
Many officers are engineers by education, though higher ranks are rarely
engineers by trade. Many LTs and Captains do engineering work, but career
progression is harder if they want to stay in it so they either switch or get
out and continue as a contractor or civilian after 4-10 years. On the civilian
side, there are many thousands of civilian engineers employed at the depots
and other locations, but not as often at the operating locations.

~~~
tsotha
Yeah, the Air Force wants all its officers to be "leaders of men" and not
technicians. They really ought to bring back the warrant officer track for
people with critical technical skills and no interest in management.

~~~
engi_nerd
The world needs more of a "warrant officer track" in general, IMO.

------
velodrome
The USAF is looking to re-engine the fleet. It will be interesting to see how
this affects fuel and range.

[http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/once-again-the-usaf-is-
look...](http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/once-again-the-usaf-is-looking-to-
re-engine-its-b-52-fl-1685747978)

~~~
wl
Why is there the emphasis on keeping the B52 an eight engine aircraft?

Edit: A increase in minimum runway length and a decrease in payload capacity
don't seem like the right answers in light of past four engine proposals that
improved both specifications (the replacements had over double the thrust)
while delivering even more fuel efficiency.

~~~
Someone
I would guess they want the ability to take off and land on relatively short
runways, and, as indicated, they want to reuse existing engines.

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dirktheman
They might not be the most economical choice, but for nostalgia's sake: I love
the fact that these dinosaurs are still in service. A service history this
long is not totally unheard of: the U-2 spy plane was introduced in the same
year as the B-52, and is still in active service today.

Fun fact: the Russian counterpart of the B-52, the TU-95 'Bear' (1956) is also
still in service today.

This does make me wonder why they cancelled the service of planes like the
A-10 warthog. There's simply no replacement, and unlike strategic long-range
bombers there is still a need for planes like this on a 21st century
battlefield.

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jkot
I thought B-52 will be replaced by F-35 :-}

~~~
fnordfnordfnord
Definitely! The B52 is way obsolete and the F35 can do everything it can do,
only faster and better, and stealthier! /s

~~~
foobarian
How did you manage a blank username???

~~~
fnordfnordfnord
It's not blank, you just can't see it yet.

~~~
jerrysievert
i don't understand. i can totally see the username. does that mean i can see
the ... whoa.

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CapitalistCartr
When I was in Tech school we used to play in the training Buffs at lunch time.
They are so big and clunky looking. When they taxi down the flightline, it
looks like they couldn't manage anything. Until they get up there; then
they're beautiful.

~~~
coldcode
I remember reading a story where some engineers calculated that the B-52
should not be able to fly.

~~~
Agathos
Perhaps it's powered by bumblebees.

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nickhalfasleep
The B-52's were built by people who had experience building and tweaking the
bombers of WWII. The practicality of the B-52 stands as a shining example of
the scary efficiency of war when people put their minds to it.

~~~
chiph
Because Boeing's engineers had experience in production-oriented bomber
building (Ford gave them that at Willow Run, where they were building a
completed B-24 each hour¹), they knew not to gold-plate their design. Create
the minimum that will do the mission, and make it easy to service & repair.

¹
[http://www.strategosinc.com/willow_run.htm](http://www.strategosinc.com/willow_run.htm)

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slowmovintarget
Makes me want to dig out my copy of _Flight of the Old Dog_ .

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seniorsassycat
There were a lot of weird errors in the article.

> tur- boprop-powered XB-52 > missilessiles

~~~
peteretep
Conversion artifacts from an original typeset article

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benihana
> _This reasoning was based on the assessment that the cost of fuel wasn’t
> that high, but the service forgot that B-52s are voracious users of air-to-
> air refuel- ing. By the time the gas comes out of a KC-135 tanker’s boom,
> the delivery cost has increased by a factor of 15_

How is this kind of oversight even possible?

Also, this is the crap that got copied onto my clipboard when I tried to copy
that quote:

    
    
        Read more: http://www.airspacemag.com/flight-today/b-52-just-keeps-flying-180953933/#ixzz3V90kF6sx
    
        Read more: http://www.airspacemag.com/flight-today/b-52-just-keeps-flying-180953933/#2mI866OqRKfEWivD.99
    
        Save 47% when you subscribe to Air & Space magazine http://bit.ly/NaSX4X Follow us: @AirSpaceMag on Twitter
    

Fucking obnoxious.

~~~
Turing_Machine
"How is this even possible?"

It doesn't seem at all implausible to me. Running a KC-135 and a crew of 4-8
to deliver the fuel at altitude isn't going to be cheap.

JP-8 fuel appears to cost around $3.00/gallon at ground level, so a factor of
15 would be $45/gallon delivered.

JP-8 has a density of about 0.8 kg/l, or about 6 lb/gallon.

Civilian airline fares are somewhere in the neighborhood of $0.20/seat-mile.
If you SWAG the weight of a passenger at 200 pounds, that's about
$0.001/pound-mile. Now figure that the fuel might have to be flown 5,000 miles
(possibly in multiple trips) That's $5.00/pound, times 6 pounds per gallon
would give $30.00/gallon delivered (at commercial airline rates).

Now figure that this is all military and $45/gallon actually starts to look
pretty cheap.

Edit: I think you edited your post. I assumed you were wondering how the cost
could go up by a factor of 15. Now it looks like you're asking how this kind
of mistake could happen. That's a different issue. :-)

