Up front I want to say that I know nothing about bombers. I am a total civilian. So this may seem like a really dumb question.
Why are we keeping B52s.
To a dumb civilian like me. You are supporting a 50 year old air frame with 8 small jet engines. Those engines are probably hard to get spare parts for.
To me a B52 is essentially a transport plane carring bombs.
Compare it with just buying commerical aircraft. Pick any Boeing aircrat passenger jet. B7x7 etc. (you pick the one you want) Put a bomb rack on it. put air
refueling capability. Put electonics on it
You got easier maintenance, maby better fuel performance, I do not know impact on radar visibility. Its subsonic but so is a B52
I know there is a reason to keep the B52s. I am not trying to be a smart A$$. Please educate me.
Question from a total novice
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 crazy yank |
Question from a total novice |
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Posts: 139 (14-Mar-2008 03:42:15) |
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emc |
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Posts: 3573 (14-Mar-2008 04:38:36) |
Aircraft engines are supported for a very, very long time, so getting spares for the engines on the B-52H is not likely to be difficult. Hell, getting spares
for R-1830's is not terribly difficult.
Bombing aircraft are rather specialized, so converting a Boeing 7?7 to a bomber is probably not practical. The B-52's are being kept because of a perceived* need, a need which isn't of sufficient value to replace them. I'd also bet the high-time B-52 has much less flight time than the bulk of the 747 fleet. * There's a tendency on this board to defend all weapons systems by ad verecundiam or ad hominem arguments. Whether the B-52 is needed -- and in my opinion, US security would not be undermined if all the B-52's were recycled as cookware, and all the ICBM silos were filled with concrete (I'd leave the ballistic missile submarines) -- the legislative and executive branches of the US government seem to think so. |
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taschoene |
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Posts: 4164 (14-Mar-2008 13:30:23) |
We already own the B-52s, so they're much cheaper than buying new airframes for the same mission. To convert an airliner into a bomber is a lot harder
than you would expect. External bomb carriage isn't going to match the B-52's capacity, so you need an internal bay. Unfortunately, that need to sit
very near the center of gravity, which is usually occupied by the wing carry-through structure on modern airliners. Cut that and you have a serious structural
problem. There are workarounds (bombs in external gondolas, etc), but it starts to become a very complex project -- probably easier to do a clean-sheet
design. Which is, of course, what the Air Force is doing anyway. The plans call for a new bomber -- probably subsonic and only somewhat stealthy -- around
2018 (realistically, push that to 2025).
The engines are surprisingly a non-issue, since there are literally hundreds of very similar engines that were pulled off KC-135 tankers and C-141 transports that it can use as spare parts sources for the bombers. If those weren't available there are numerous re-engine proposals that would be much easier than building a new aircraft.
Last Edited By: taschoene
15-Mar-2008 21:49:04.
Edited 1 times.
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lynn1212 |
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Posts: 632 (15-Mar-2008 18:11:12) |
in regard to usefulness the B-52 has proved very useful in roles that were never envisioned when it was designed. its worked out very well as flying artillery
for ground support given permissive airspace and as a sea control or patrol bomber it has few equals. one 52 loaded with smart weapons can do more damage in
one mission that whole wings could do even 25 years ago. its a deadly weapon that will be around a long time.
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Michael Hoddy |
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Posts: 164 (15-Mar-2008 18:31:48) |
There was a proposal to replace the B-52 TF33 engines with 4 modern Rolls-Royce RB-211 engines per aircraft. This was rejected by, I seem to recall, GAO, on
the grounds that the cost of performing the upgrade would not be substantially offset by the reduced costs from increased fuel efficiency and a lower
maintenance profile. Plus, as was mentioned above, there are LOTS of TF-33 spares sitting around from other aircraft.
Main upside would have been an increase in range, but I'm not sure the B-52 fleet really needed that. The airframe is proven, not heavily stressed by the mission profiles it typically now flies (mid-to-high altitude interdiction with JDAMs, and standoff cruise missile launching), there is a logistics pipeline already in place that has been functioning for about a half-century, and it's a very well-known quantity. Replacement with a modern airframe at this moment in time would not substantially improve any of these attributes except for possibly maintenance, which would be offset by all the other acquisition and operating costs incurred. |
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emc |
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Posts: 3579 (15-Mar-2008 18:57:10) |
lynn1212 wrote: Note that I didn't say that the B-52 wasn't useful; I said that I didn't think it was needed. And please don't regale me with all of its
past exploits; I'm not arguing that the B-52 wasn't (and isn't) a useful aircraft.
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Craiglxviii |
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Posts: 27 (28-Mar-2008 00:34:18) |
EMC... it's not only R-1830's that are easy to source for. R-2800's, R-980's- in a previous job I was the buyer for a cargo airline supporting
a whole range of 1930's- 1950's transport aircraft from both sides of the Atlantic. I was astounded as to the availability of spares, both mechanical
and electrical, for everything from Waco biplanes to Lancs to Dragon Rapides...
Sir Humphrey: Minister, Britain has had the same foreign policy objective for at least the last 500 years: to create a disunited Europe. In that cause we have fought with the Dutch against the Spanish, with the Germans against the French, with the French and Italians against the Germans, and with the French against the Germans and Italians. Divide and rule, you see. Why should we change now when it's worked so well?
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Craiglxviii |
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Posts: 28 (28-Mar-2008 00:39:32) |
Interestingly enough, bomb-racking up a civilian airliner as mentioned above may have provisionally happened. When Concorde was designed- a friend of mine
worked on the design team- a number of longerons were designed to take a considerable direct payload, almost as if they were designed to act as supports for a
bomb bay.
Sir Humphrey: Minister, Britain has had the same foreign policy objective for at least the last 500 years: to create a disunited Europe. In that cause we have fought with the Dutch against the Spanish, with the Germans against the French, with the French and Italians against the Germans, and with the French against the Germans and Italians. Divide and rule, you see. Why should we change now when it's worked so well?
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emc |
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Posts: 3609 (28-Mar-2008 04:40:48) |
Craiglxviii wrote: CraigLXVIII, it would be really difficult to surprise me. When I worked for one of the US propeller manufacturers, they were still providing support for
the original propellers on DC-3's
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bager1968 |
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Posts: 2872 (28-Mar-2008 04:57:23) |
Craiglxviii wrote: Well, that puts it into the "designed in at the start" category, now doesn't it? Something from the magazines... in the early 1970s, I believe (I got it from another discussion forum):
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flyingdutchman1980 |
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Posts: 42 (28-Mar-2008 15:57:50) |
emc wrote: IIRC I recently read the bulk of the B-52's only has around 16 000 flight hours. The B-52's are rated to be able to get to 28 000 hours; so
they're only just over halfway...
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emc |
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Posts: 3612 (28-Mar-2008 16:54:07) |
iirc, the average flight time for currently active 747's is about 100,000 flight hours. Yes, commercial aircraft are used as close to 24/7 as is possible
(sometimes too close; Southwest Airlines apparently neglected their maintenance to keep aircraft flying). I remember reading a story a few years ago (it was
in a trade publication, but not AvWeek) of a 727 that accumulated something like 700 flight hours in a month. It was
exceptional; I suspect that average for the aviation industry is about 450 to 500 hours per month, which is probably more than the average peacetime
annual flight time of most US military aircraft.
A airliner in revenue service would probably use up 28,000 hours of airframe life in less than 5 or 6 years. |
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CliffS |
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Posts: 502 (28-Mar-2008 22:08:56) |
emc wrote: In Australia, Ansett Airlines went broke through trying to support a fleet of superannuated B-767s as though they were new. As airframes age, the
maintenance periods come closer together. Ansett found they couldn't afford the downtime with their tight schedules - for either the 767-200s or their
737-300s. The planes were just falling apart, and passenger confidence was severely eroded. The Civil Aviation Safety Authority grounded several aircraft
after maintenance-related incidents, and Ansett could no longer function. Of course, a big fuel price rise also played a part in this sorry tale. Even QANTAS
were hanging on by their fingernails about 7 years ago.
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emc |
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Posts: 3613 (28-Mar-2008 22:37:53) |
CliffS wrote: Well, a bunch of US airlines just got caught in major maintenance screw-ups. Part is, no doubt, due to years of lax oversight by the FAA (much as I dislike
Bush & Co, I think the problem goes back to the Carter Administration), and part is doubtless due to managers who are less concerned with safety than the
bottom line.
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JBG.historypolitics... |
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Registered Member
Posts: 31 (29-Mar-2008 00:05:21) |
"Compare it with just buying commerical aircraft. Pick any Boeing aircrat passenger jet. B7x7 etc. (you pick the one you want) Put a bomb rack on
it. put air refueling capability. Put electonics on it"
Crazy Yank, we've had delays on our AEW aircraft which are just 767s with a radar on top and electronics put in. If not designed to allow such large changes a commercial aircraft being converted to a bomber would require serious structural changes. The logic is superficially attractive but a transport aircraft would be a better bet than a commercial passenger jet ( think MOAB being dumped off the back of a C-130 or C-17 ) but the best bet is a platform designed from the start with the necessary structure. As to the age, well a front-line aircraft like the B-52 being at best around 46 years old is counter-intuitive, isn't it!! Three generations of the same family could have flown the same aircraft, coming up on 4 generations! Jonathan |
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bager1968 |
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Posts: 2873 (29-Mar-2008 06:50:10) |
emc wrote: Pressurized aircraft (commercial airliners, bizjets, etc) have both a "flight-hour" and a "pressurization cycles" rating. Many aircraft have reached the end of one without reaching the other, and it is hard to explain to a business-school-educated manager-type why that 60,000 flight-hour B737 (used exclusively on the LAX-San Fran route) has to be grounded permanently, while another of the same model (used exclusively on the LAX-Honolulu route) can keep flying with over 100,000 flight-hours. |
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Michael ODonnell |
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Posts: 1933 (29-Mar-2008 15:16:10) |
The cycles versus flight hours also explains why short-haul aircraft are heavier than longer ranged aircraft (for a given size). The short-haul aicraft have to
take into account the more frequent pressurisation cycles, plus more take-off and landing cycles, and will therefore have a stronger (and heavier) structure.
There is a lot that goes into the design of an aircraft, you have to match the design to the requirements of the role, not the other way around. While there
may seem to be similarities between passenger airliners and bombers (large size, long range, heavy payload), there are so many differences that there has been
(to date) no real attempts to use civil airliners as heavy bombers.
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emc |
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Posts: 3615 (29-Mar-2008 20:19:11) |
Michael ODonnell wrote: iirc, there were a couple of attempts in the 1930's, which usually failed miserably
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Alexius55 |
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Posts: 249 (31-Mar-2008 17:01:37) |
On the other hand, many Russian airliners were based on heavy bombers, including the Tu-104 (based on the Tu-16 Badger) and the Tu-114 (with the wing and
engines of a Tu-95). The 104 even kept the bomber's glazed nose!
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emc |
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Posts: 3618 (31-Mar-2008 18:51:43) |
...and Boeing's 307 and 337 were largely based on the B-17 and B-29, respectively. The 707 (actually, the 367-80) used a lot of technology developed for
the B-47 in its design.
And I seem to remember something called the "York..." Be that as it may, I think calling the Tu-104 or Tu-114 successful commercial aircraft is a considerable stretch. And when Boeing was selling their piston-engined airliners, their competition (mostly Douglas) was actually selling their piston-engined airliners, which had very little direct military influence, at a profit. |
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pukalshik |
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Registered Member
Posts: 9 ( 1-Apr-2008 09:18:53) |
I think Hawker Nimrod based on De Havilland Comet passenger aircraft is a better example here.
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