How Long Can the B-52 Continue in Service?

imagine if you can a sopworth camel biplane which first saw service in 1917 during the first world war and then using the same aircraft in combat missions right up until the last days of the vietnam war in 1975. that's a service life of 58 years which also spans a massive change in aircraft technology now look at the boeing b-52 strato fortress aka the buff or big ugly fat fellow the last ones were built in the same year as i was born 1962 58 years ago at that age you would think they would have been retired long ago but with ongoing upgrades they could be in service till 2040 at a minimum and even pushing into the 2050s and possibly beyond that's a hundred years old so why would they keep them in service for that long and how are they going to make a very analog aircraft relevant in the era of digital warfare this video is sponsored by brilliant the us air force has gone through a lot of aircraft in its history with some coming and going within a few years and yet others like the c-130 cargo plane the a-10 warthog and the c5 galaxy which we spoke about in the last video having been around for at least 40 years and in the case of a c-130 for 64 years but none are likely to outlast the b-52 so what makes the b-52 so different that it should be kept going for so long why would they still use the same aircraft that was active in the cuban missile crisis of 1962 the vietnam war that flew 24 7 for eight years fully loaded with nuclear weapons around the soviet union then through both iraq wars afghanistan and more recently against isis pilots joked that if you flew one upside down chicken bones from saigon would fall out some of the air crews today are the children and even grandchildren of previous b-52 crews it's a true multi-generational plane they also joke that once they've flown their b1s and b2s to the boneyard they will get flown home again in a b-52 the irony of that is that it may turn out to be true step into the cockpit of a b-52 and you're stepping into a 1960s aircraft which flies like a 1960s aircraft and yet it's still here but it wasn't meant to be this way it was due to retire in 1996 which slid to 2000 then 2003 and eventually ended up at 2040 and now it's 2050 and may go even further into the future part of the reason is that it can still do the job it was designed for exceptionally well to drop bombs lots of them of every type that is available to the us arsenal and to do it almost anywhere air defense is allowing it's still also a major deterrent sending in the b-52s even it's just a fly around doom reconnaissance projects the power of the u.s military to both real and potential enemies another more pressing reason is that its eventual replacement the b-21 raider isn't expected to reach its initial operating capability until at least 2030 barring technical issues and cost implications which plagued earlier programs like the b2 and the f-35 and on the issue of cost the b-52 was bought and paid for a long time ago with the last b-52s being built in 1962 and those worked out at about 88 million dollars each in today's money compare that to the b-21 raider each one of those will cost in the region of 550 million with the total program cost including r d at 97 billion for what is believed to be about 135 aircraft but the final number has yet to be determined updating the b-52 will be expensive but nowhere near what developing a new aircraft would be but of course you will still have a 1960s aircraft but with lots of new electronics and engines the thing is no one has ever kept a frontline combat aircraft in service for what could be at least 80 years and is more likely to be a hundred years even so there have been a lot of changes over the years since the last b-52s were built it started out as a frontline high-altitude nuclear bomber but as air defenses improved in the soviet union it took on roles more suited to its capabilities and where the air defenses were less sophisticated but the days of carpet bombing like in vietnam and gravity drop nuclear weapons is over now it's more about using standoff weapons like cruise missiles at a distance or where more direct bombing allows precision guided ordinance is used there are also on any given day more b-52s available for immediate action than b-ones or b-2s giving up the b-52 would greatly lessen the long-range bombing capabilities of the usaf something which has diminished a lot since the end of the cold war they've even brought back ones from the boneyard to replace badly damaged or crashed ones in recent years the b-52's huge fuel capacity not only gives it a very long range of over 14 000 kilometers carrying 35 tonnes of bombs on one tank full it can also be refueled in the air giving it an almost unlimited range engine oil allowing that also allows it to loiter around at a safe distance but herein lies another problem the engines it uses are the pratt and whitney tf-33 eight are used on each b-52 two of which are placed together in four engine missiles two on each wing these were developed in 1958 and manufactured up until 1985 with over 8 000 being produced the 744 b-52s accounting for nearly 6 000 of them but since then engine technology has improved greatly becoming more powerful and more efficient so continuing to use 1950s tech engines is keeping the cost of running the b-52 high in both maintenance and fuel one of the problems about fitting newer more powerful engines is that it could create damaging stress on the wings and the airframes but wouldn't show up until after they were fitted there were no 3d computer models or stress simulators back in the 1950s and even now it's a difficult engineering balancing act to pull off matching the tf-33s closely in weight and size and still giving improved performance in economy without causing the wings to fall off replacing the engines and the wings together would push up costs dramatically there have been several attempts to re-engine the surviving aircraft as early as the mid 70s boeing looked at replacing the engines and the wings in 1982 pratt and whitney suggested replacing them with the pw 2000 engines in 1996 rolls royce proposed fitting them with rb2 11535s on a lease purchase scheme but that was rejected because the usaf was against leasing combat assets in 2003 and after the cost of maintaining the tf-33s had tripled in a decade a 4.7 billion dollar refitting program was looked at again with a proposed competition between rolls-royce rb-211 the pratt and whitney pw 2000 and the cfm 56 it was suggested that whichever engine was chosen a cost saving of between 11 and 15 billion dollars could be achieved and the b-52's range would be increased by 22 and lighter times could be tripled but this also went by the wayside in 2018 yet another engine refit program called the commercial engine re-engining program or serp was proposed and as of april 2020 pratt and whitney ge and rolls-royce were tasked with producing plans for supplying 608 new digital engines with service and spare support until 2050. the winner is supposed to be announced in may 2021 but in the current political and financial climate who knows what will happen another reason why the b-52 is still here is the design of the aircraft itself which has been described as both being over-engineered and yet under-engineered at the same time even 60 years later the condition of a remaining 76 aircraft's overall structure has stood the test of time in terms of the airframe itself it's over engineered all the planes still in service which are the later gmh variants still use the original airframe to a similar extent the flight controls like the yokes the seats the wings the flight control surfaces the linkages and the tail assembly are all the same as when they rolled out of a factory back in 1960 62. obviously they are well looked after with regular maintenance and any repairs are done as deemed necessary but there is also a lot of original 1950s design parts still there a testament to the designers to make something that would last however this is also a problem when it comes to sourcing parts which haven't been made for 60 years so visits to the boneyard and previously scrapped b-52s are a common occurrence so what about the under engineering well many planes are designed to make use of all the space available and often designed with specific equipment in mind sometimes which has been specially created for that aircraft in this case although the b-52 might be cramped and uncomfortable for the crews it had enough space and flexibility to allow for equipment updates the b-52 was designed and built when the world was analog and computers took up the size of a room since then the electronics have shrunk in size dramatically and the power of computers increased exponentially over time upgrades have been proposed when the general dynamics grumman ef-111 raven electronic warfare aircraft was retired in 1998 16 of the b-52hs were to be modified to give them additional electronic jamming capabilities but the program was then cancelled in 2005 then revived in 2007 and then cut again in 2009 all down to costs in 2013 the air force began a fleet-wide upgrade program called the combat network communications technology or connect to give the existing b-52s communication computing and avionics the first major upgrade in this area since they were built the cost of the connect program is 1.1 billion and funding has been secured for 30 aircraft with 10 per year being upgraded a new raytheon active electronically scanned array radar is also being proposed similar to that used by aircraft like the f35 giving an improved range and detecting a greater number of targets tests could start with this in 2023 the weapon systems are also in for an update to allow it to carry some of the air force's most advanced munitions with tests already being carried out with the hypersonic agm-183 air-launched rapid response weapon and the agm-86b long-range standoff missile which could carry conventional or nuclear warheads the conventional internal rotary launcher will also be upgraded to carry double the number of weapons and electronic counter measures are looking like they might be upgraded to keep in line with other aircraft but because it's considered to be a standoff platform and they wouldn't be entering high threat areas this is regarded as not as high priority as other systems after all these modifications the air force is looking to redesignate the buff as the b52j and this is likely to be the last such designation until they are finally retired but it's still amazing to think that by then the b-52s could have been in service for 30 years longer than it took to go from the first flight of the wright brothers in 1903 to the last manned mission to the moon in 1972 with apollo 17. as it looks likely the b-52 will probably be in service for maybe a hundred years that will be pretty amazing news to the original designers and engineers less alone in a world where planned obsolescence and an operational life of just a few years is the norm and seen as a way to increase sales but to keep the old tech running and upgrading it with new tech takes a lot of skilled personnel skills that have to be learned and one way you can build up your skills is to use something like brilliant for sponsors of this video brilliant is a problem solving website and app so you're not tied to the desktop and you can develop those learning skills anywhere basically brilliant breaks down complex problems into small easily understandable parts before putting them back together to show the overall conclusion there are loads of great interactive courses and daily challenges covering everything from math and logic to computer science and loads of other things in between this month they have a new course on the mind-bending subject of infinity what is it and how can we understand something that is bigger than the biggest thing we can count to or imagine this hands-on active learning approach is great for all of those curious minds of you out there who want to understand the world so if you want to support curious droid and get unlimited access to all of brilliant in-depth courses and learning head on over to brilliant.org forward slash curious droid to get 20 off of their annual premium subscription and to close the video i'd just like to say a big thank you to all of our patrons out there and their ongoing support

Channel: Curious Droid

Views: 947,839

Rating: 4.9464092 out of 5

Keywords: b-52, boeing b-52 stratofortress, tf33, how long can the b-52 go for, oldest bomber, 100 year old plane, paul shillito, curious droid, b-52 re-engine, pratt and whitney, boeing, rolls royce, ge, pw2000, rb211-535, cfm56, bomber, heavy bomber, air force, b-52 bomber

Id: tRT5g_50Iik

Length: 14min 49sec (889 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 30 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/wildadragon]

It'll keep going all the way to the Love Shack baby.

[u/Motokid600]

Good to see a Curious Droid video here. Dude does a great job and his shirt game is on point.

[u/olafthebent]

Just repair the rusted tin roof

[u/Gastrophysa_polygoni]

1. The B52 is staying in service for this long for much the same reason sharks haven't really changed all that much over millions of years: once you land on a winning design, further improvements yield increasingly smaller returns on investment, leading to a kind of evolutionary sweet spot.

2. That shirt is magnificent.

[u/xtremepado]

Fun fact: "B-52" is the acronym for sedation given to aggressive patients in the emergency department.

B - Bendadryl 50mg ; 5 - Haloperidol 5mg ; 2 - Lorazepam 2mg

The cops will rush the person and hold them down, then a nurse will run up and slam the syring into the person's arm or thigh. They fall asleep within a few minutes and are out cold for several hours.

[u/ssshield]

"Bogies Hell! Them's bandits!"