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from the can't-seem-to-make-a-better-mousetrap dept.
Dave Phillipps has an interesting article in The New York Times about B-52's and why the Air Force's largest bomber, now in its 60th year of active service and scheduled to fly until 2040, are not retiring anytime soon. "Many of our B-52 bombers are now older than the pilots who fly them," said Ronald Reagan in 1980. Today, there is a B-52 pilot whose father and grandfather flew the plane.
Originally slated for retirement generations ago, the B.U.F.F. — a colorful acronym that the Air Force euphemistically paraphrases as Big Ugly Fat Fellow - continues to be deployed in conflict after conflict. It dropped the first hydrogen bomb in the Bikini Islands in 1956, and laser-guided bombs in Afghanistan in 2006. It has outlived its replacement. And its replacement's replacement. And its replacement's replacement's replacement. The unexpectedly long career is due in part to a rugged design that has allowed the B-52 to go nearly anywhere and drop nearly anything the Pentagon desires, including both atomic bombs and leaflets. But it is also due to the decidedly underwhelming jets put forth to take its place. The $283 million B-1B Lancer first rolled off the assembly line in 1988 with a state-of-the-art radar-jamming system that jammed its own radar. The $2 billion B-2 Spirit, introduced a decade later, had stealth technology so delicate that it could not go into the rain. "There have been a series of attempts to build a better intercontinental bomber, and they have consistently failed," says Owen Coté. "Turns out whenever we try to improve on the B-52, we run into problems, so we still have the B-52."
The usefulness of the large bomber — and bombers in general — has come under question in the modern era of insurgent wars and stateless armies. In the Persian Gulf war, Kosovo, Afghanistan and the Iraq war, the lumbering jets, well-established as a symbol of death and destruction, demoralized enemy ground troops by first dropping tons of leaflets with messages like "flee and live, or stay and die," then returning the next day with tons of explosives. In recent years, it has flown what the Air Force calls "assurance and deterrence" missions near North Korea and Russia. Two B-52 strategic bombers recently flew defiantly near artificial Chinese-built islands in the South China Sea and were contacted by Chinese ground controllers but continued their mission undeterred. "The B.U.F.F. is like the rook in a chess game," says Maj. Mark Burleys. "Just by how you position it on the board, it changes the posture of your adversary."
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2015, @04:11PM
They could have built something on the B-7xx airfame, but their wouldn't have been enough
pork for Boeing in just doing that, or enough sexy new tech.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2015, @04:19PM
That is the problem. Money and career advancement.
We have several of these sorts of planes. Ones that thru the course of history have show to be pretty good at the specific mission they were designed for (for example the A-10).
We keep trying to make these single purpose designed planes do multi roles. They fail at that then get relegated back to the particular role they were originally designed for.
We should look to the air frames that have served us well and build on those. Then look to the failures and figure out what not to do.
We have a survivor bias going on as well. So we need to be careful. However, it seems one of the big things needs to be 'its simple and sturdy'.
But we will get yet another jet that does nothing very well (f-35). But makes lots of money for a bunch of people who dont need it.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by edIII on Wednesday December 09 2015, @09:41PM
Sounds like it executed its mission role perfectly.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by mcgrew on Wednesday December 09 2015, @10:20PM
It's spelled THROUGH, you fucking moron. Learn the language or go away!
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2015, @11:57PM
It's either way ADHD dude... http://grammarist.com/spelling/through-thru/ [grammarist.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 10 2015, @02:51AM
I am going to go thru the trouble of feeding you troll. Why do I care what you think about how I write?
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday December 10 2015, @06:43AM
Can someone point out the offending piece of illiteracity? I am not seeing it. I trust grew, and I grammar nazis, but I don't see it.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Saturday December 12 2015, @08:19PM
"Thru" is not a word. It's THROUGH. I expect that illiteracy on facebook, but not on a nerd site where I expect folks to at least have at least finished high school.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 5, Funny) by bob_super on Wednesday December 09 2015, @04:27PM
> They could have built something on the B-7xx airfame, but their wouldn't have been enough
Well.. no.
Really really not.
Because of the way someone setup the universe's gravity drivers, heavy bombers need to have a belly that open wide around the plane's center of mass. Oddly, that's the exact same spot where the dumb commercial aircraft manufacturers decide to put those wing things.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Knowledge Troll on Wednesday December 09 2015, @05:00PM
Because of the way someone setup the universe's gravity drivers
Oh you sound like you are still running Physics 7 or Physics 8.1 - the cloud is shoving Physics 10 down your throat like crazy for a reason.
In the early access program there's an update for Physics 10 that adjusts the vector of gravity from pointing at the center of the earth to pointing at Microsoft corporate headquarters. In a few days everyone will wake up and start being sucked into the MS vortex.
Progress!
Oh yeah you'll need all brand new planes for this. No problem though just rent a new one from your carrier.
(Score: 4, Funny) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday December 09 2015, @06:54PM
...adjusts the vector of gravity from pointing at the center of the earth to pointing at Microsoft corporate headquarters. In a few days everyone will wake up and start being sucked into the MS vortex.
And like usual they create a giant security hole. Now all we have to do is throw bombs really high into the air....
(Score: 4, Informative) by Thexalon on Wednesday December 09 2015, @05:03PM
The scam is actually more sophisticated than that. It goes something like this:
1. One of the favorite air force contractors (e.g. Boeing) builds a really nice aircraft that is better than anything anybody else has.
2. After a while (typically a decade or two), we sell some of these aircraft, or at least some of the technology behind them, off to our allies. After all, they're on our side, and we want to make sure that our allies can beat the Russians and Chinese and such.
3. The air force goes to Congress and says "Everybody else has what we have. In order to remain in a leadership position, we need something better." Congress agrees, for reasons that include bribery, bringing home the bacon, and just plain being duped.
4. The air force goes to their favorite contractors and has them design and build an even nicer new aircraft, and the gravy train continues.
The classic result of this sort of stupidity is the F-35, a plane that has cost $400 billion and currently has flown precisely 0 combat missions.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 4, Informative) by frojack on Wednesday December 09 2015, @07:01PM
Cute story, but totally non-germane, and mostly wrong.
The B-52 was never flown by anybody other than the US. So your entire scenario fails at your second point.
Boeing has only been a favorite of the Pentagon for large bombers, and they have always had a difficult time wining fighter or small tactical bomber contracts, until they decided to BUY the companies that were winning those contracts. Far more combat aircraft types were built by Grumman, McDonnell Douglas, and General Dynamics, Convair, and Lockheed. Boeing seems to have restricted itself to large tankers and bombers of yesteryear.
The Airforce has always been running to keep ahead of the Russians, not to keep ahead of allies we've sold planes to.
Multi-roll aircraft like the F35 and the FA-18 were never the Pentagon's idea. That nonsense was pushed on them by Congress.
So just about every claim you made was wrong or somehow twisted.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 10 2015, @06:46AM
So your entire scenario fails at your second point.
Gawd, I hate it when that happens!
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2015, @06:14PM
Actually that is what they are doing for the KC-46 (new aerial tanker). It is based on the 767.
(Score: 5, Informative) by frojack on Wednesday December 09 2015, @06:37PM
They could have built something on the B-7xx airfame, but their wouldn't have been enough
pork for Boeing in just doing that, or enough sexy new tech.
Wrong. Utterly so.
The B-52 had already been designed, tested, and entered service 6 years before the first B-707 airframe entered testing.
70,000 pound Bomb load of the B52 was in addition to the fuel load needed to carry that payload anywhere. The 707's payload is just 44,000.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Wednesday December 09 2015, @10:02PM
To take the wise guy approach: I'm somewhat glad they did not use a B-7xx airframe, because the B-52's maiden flight was in 1952, and the first 707 flew in 1957. The Cold War was developing over that timeframe, and the B-52 was a cornerstone to the American Air Force.
There is plenty of Pork in DoD contracts, but the B-52 is probably a decent example of a peacetime design that went correctly. The debate today would more accurately be modernize the B-52 or move to a new airframe around 2037 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2037_Bomber/ [wikipedia.org]).