Author Topic: If the Air Force Loves the B-52 Bomber So Much Why Not Build New Versions?  (Read 853 times)

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Online rangerrebew

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October 13, 2024 

If the Air Force Loves the B-52 Bomber So Much Why Not Build New Versions?

The U.S. Air Force’s B-52 Stratofortress has flown for seven decades and could serve until 2050, but the idea of building new B-52s is impractical.

by Peter Suciu Follow PeterSuciu on TwitterL
 
What You Need to Know: The U.S. Air Force’s B-52 Stratofortress has flown for seven decades and could serve until 2050, but the idea of building new B-52s is impractical.
 
 
-While Russia has resumed production of similar bombers like the Tu-95 and Tu-160, the U.S. ceased B-52 production in the 1960s.

-Rebuilding the necessary infrastructure and production lines would be costly and unnecessary.

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/if-air-force-loves-b-52-bomber-so-much-why-not-build-new-versions-213074
The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee that, from different causes and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth.  George Washington - Farewell Address

Online rangerrebew

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If gender change can be accomplished simply by thinking about it, why can't a B-52 be made into a stealth aircraft just by thinking about it? :whistle:
The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee that, from different causes and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth.  George Washington - Farewell Address

Offline AL

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If the 52's have been in service for 70 years then somebody got something right,  why is it impractical to build more?  No doubt they would cost more these days but something as time proven at these things are it might be a good investment.  Take money earmarked for Ukraine and spend it on something of tangible value.

Offline corbe

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   Boeing is too corrupt now to replicate the Geniuses that designed, planned and built the BUFF.  I climbed up into one on my base being WRM Supply clerk in 73.

No government in the 12,000 years of modern mankind history has led its people into anything but the history books with a simple lesson, don't let this happen to you.

Offline Fishrrman

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Don't let Boeing build them.
Give the job to Elon...

Offline Wingnut

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It is hard to believe that over the last 50 years some fool in the dod hasn't tried to kill the BUFF.  The asshats never see the big picture.
You don’t become cooler with age but you do care progressively less about being cool, which is the only true way to actually be cool.

Offline PeteS in CA

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IIRC, production of the B-52 ceased in the early 1960s. Most of the documents for the B-52 are on paper, while modern manufacturing processes use CAD (computer) documentation. For a system as complex as the B-52, that's a huge barrier to restarting production. There probably is a substantial amount of unique tooling that would have to be recreated as well.
I am not and never have been a leftist.

If, as anti-Covid-vaxxers claim, https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2021/robert-f-kennedy-jr-said-the-covid-19-vaccine-is-the-deadliest-vaccine-ever-made-thats-not-true/ , https://gospelnewsnetwork.org/2021/11/23/covid-shots-are-the-deadliest-vaccines-in-medical-history/ , The Vaccine is deadly, where in the US have Pfizer and Moderna hidden the millions of bodies of those who died of "vaccine injury"?

Millions now living should have died. Anti-Covid-Vaxxer ghouls hardest hit.

Offline Kamaji

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IIRC, production of the B-52 ceased in the early 1960s. Most of the documents for the B-52 are on paper, while modern manufacturing processes use CAD (computer) documentation. For a system as complex as the B-52, that's a huge barrier to restarting production. There probably is a substantial amount of unique tooling that would have to be recreated as well.

It's probably more a lack of the tooling, dies, and other machinery needed to build these things than it is availability of design documents themselves.  Even if they're all paper, so long as a complete set of paper documents exists, that could be computerized in a reasonable period of time, but that would still leave all the missing tooling, which was probably all recycled by the end of the 1970s.