This 70 years old American bomber was so unreliable and problematic that sometimes pieces of it
would just fall off.
It even dropped nuclear bombs on American soil … accidentally!
In case you haven’t figured it out yet, you do need to wear a gas mask when 8 of this
bombers engines are srarting up after using explosive charges.
But more importantly, when it comes to bombing adverseries, if they have air defences, this
bomber is obsolete, and has been for decades.
But why the B-52 is expected to outlive much newer B-1 and stealthier B-2 bombers is ... the
super duper missile and a whole lot of “luck”.
Seriously.
We have a…
I call it the super duper missile.
You heard it right, a super duper missile, that's what president Trump called it.
The missile at hand is the AGM-183 hypersonic missile that is currently in development.
But as of yet it's not really that “super duper”, quite the opposite actually.
The missile failed to launch during its first two tests, but on May 14th, 2022 it finally
did.
Third time’s a charm.
But what is not a charm is B-52’s nickname!
Commonly referred to as BUFF, which stands for BIG UGLY FAT F*CKER, the B-52 Stratofortress
was truly a “F*CKER” during its first few decades of service.
The list of things that went wrong with the B-52 is as long as its age: engine malfunctions,
hydraulics failures, ice build up, fuel leaks, metal fatigue, and structural failure…
just to name a few.
At least two dozen bombers were lost due to accidents outside of the combat zones, and
even more were lost during combat.
It kind of makes sense why BUFF is equipped with multiple ejection seats.
During its early years, BUFF was like today's F-35, but probably worse, if you take into
account the multiple nuclear accidents.
But today, the Big Ugly Fat F*cker is more of a Fellah, thanks to persistence of the
US Air Force to make this airplane nearly perfect.
The idea of the B-52 was conceived right after World War II, in 1945 and the contract to
build it was signed the year after, with its first flight taking place on April 15th, 1952.
In total, 742 aircraft of eight different versions were produced.
During the 1950s and 60s, B-52 bombers were the principial instrument of the United States
Air Force to obliterate the Soviet Union with nuclear bombs, if needed.
“Operation Chrome Dome” was a Cold War doomsday program that kept a dozen B-52 bombers
in the air 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, for 8 years!
The bombers flew outside of the Soviet Union’s borders to provide rapid first-strike or retaliation
capability in case of a nuclear war.
Chrome Dome started in 1960 and B-52s flew multiple routes over Alaska, Greenland and
Spain with the help of aerial refueling.
But it was during this operation that B-52s earned the second F in their nickname , when
they crashed five times, but with nuclear weapons onboard.
On January 24th 1961, 12 miles north of Goldsboro, North Carolina a B-52 broke up midair as it
suffered catastrophic loss of fuel.
As the crew ejected, two nuclear bombs fell to the ground.
In 2013 it was declassified, that one of the nukes almost went off, because 3 out of 4
triggering mechanisms had activated during the crash.
On march 14th, 1961, another B-52 ran out of fuel due to air crew failure to refuel
in-time as they were tired from their 24-hour long mission.
As the crew ejected and survived, four nuclear weapons crashed near Yuba City, California.
The weapons’ safety mechanisms worked and none of the bombs went off.
The next accident happened on January 10th, 1964 near Barton, Maryland.
It was discovered during a test that the stabilizer on the B-52s could snap off mid flight.
This particular B-52 landed back in one piece, along with this remarkable footage, but only
three days later the same thing happened to another BUFF that was carrying two nuclear
bombs.
During a severe winter storm, the vertical stabilizer broke off and the airplane crashed.
The nuclear bombs were later found relatively intact among the wreckage, with only 2 out
of 5 crewmembers making it out alive.
But the next two accidents happened outside of the United States.
On January 17th, 1966, a B-52 collided with a KC-135 tanker during aerial refueling.
As a result, three nuclear bombs fell down near Palomares in Spain.
One bomb fell into the sea, and was later recovered.
The conventional explosives of two nuclear bombs that fell on land, exploded, causing
a radioactive contamination of 500 acres with radioactive plutonium.
In the aftermath of the accident, the US government had to stop its practice of flying nuclear-armed
bombers over Spain and engage in a costly cleanup of the accident site.
In total, over 3 million pounds of radioactive Spanish soil had to be dug up, placed in barrels,
and shipped to the US.
The final crash during Operation Chrome Dome happened on January 21st, 1968, when a fire
inside the cabin forced the -52’s crew to eject near Thule Airbase in Greenland.
The crash caused the conventional weapons onboard to go off, dispersing theradioactive
materials from four nuclear bombs.
The following day, the US government ended the 24/7 Operation Chrome Dome due to inherent
risks, expensive clean ups and political scandals that followed.
As was evident during Operation Chrome Dome and also dozens more major and minor accidents,
the B-52s had a lot of problems.
The US Air Force spent decades sorting out all the issues by launching countless programs
aimed at fixing BUFF
The originally installed J57 engines proved unreliable, which caused the first fatal crash
in 1956.
The entire fleet was grounded.
Shortly after resuming service, fuel and hydraulics issues grounded the fleet yet again.
In the 1960s, it was discovered that when B-52s flew at low altitude, structural fatigue
was accelerated by a factor of 8.
Thus a “High Stress” program was launched to address this problem.
When the Air Force decided to store fuel in wings of B-52 models G and H, it resulted
in 60% increase in stress, meaning the wings had to be redone as part of the “ECP 1050”
program.
In 1966, longerons, avionics and fuselage skin had to be replaced.
All B-52s had to be reskinned again in 1977.
An even bigger issue was ice build up in the fuel system and numerous leaks in fuel tanks
that caused multiple crashes.
Worries about B-52 falling apart due to its multiple technical issues was a very real
threat.
The Air Force worried about the B-52s falling apart before they could even get a new bomber
in place.
But it wasn't just the plane, BUFF was so heavy that ramps and taxiways deteriorated
much faster than expected.
By the time most of the technical issues related to the B-52 fleet were resolved, the advances
in Soviet Union’s air defenses, especially surface-to-air missiles, or SAMs and interceptors
had made BUFF obsolete.
They could no longer fly directly into Soviet Union’s territory and drop gravity nuclear
bombs.
But this turned out to be very “lucky” for BUFF.
Even though XB-70 and B-1A were much faster and more capable bombers, they too were now
voulnerble to Soviet air defences.
There was no point in pouring money into these programs anymore.
So Valkyrie and B-1A were canceled, and B-52s kept flying!
The Pentagon instead poured money into Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, Submarine Launched Ballistic
Missiles and cruise missiles with nuclear warheads such as AGM-86 which could be launched
far away from Soviet airspace.
The second “lucky” development for the B-52 was the Vietnam war, during which, they
were converted into giant flying dump trucks, raining conventional bombs on enemy positions.
Specifically, BUFF underwent modification “Big Belly”, which increased its capacity
of 500-pound bombs from 27 to 84.
The internal weapons bay allows for better fuel efficiency, because a full load of bombs
under the wings wil increase fuel consumption by 30%.
BUFF is capable of carrying up to 70,000 pounds of weapons and has a typical range of 8,800
miles without the need for aerial refueling.
Its top speed is 650 mph and a maximum altitude of 50,000 feet , although it never flies that
high with its belly fully loaded.
By 1966, B-52s were dropping 8000 tons of bombs in South vietnam every month.
It was in Vietnam where B-52s earned a reputation of being a dreaded bearer of death and destruction.
But it wasn’t all smooth for BUFF.
During the Vietnam war, Americans officially lost 15 of them, although Vietnamese claim
they shot down at least 34.
During the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the 90s and 2000’s, BUFF was equipped with
precision-guided munitions that could be fired from outside of the enemy's anti-air defense
systems.
Alternatively, once the enemys air-defenses had been neutralized, BUFF could perform a
bombing run, as it happened during the Gulf War.
In fact, one of the reasons for keeping B-52s around was using them in low intensity conflicts
where the enemy doesn’t possess modern air defenses.
Going back to the early 80s, things were not looking so good for the future of B-52s.
The Advanced Technology Program, the very program that resulted in the B-2 Spirit Stealth
bomber, was secretly going full steam.
Designed to penetrate dense air defenses due to its low radar cross-section, B-2 was America’s
ticket to fly into Soviet territory again.
“Goodbye BUFF”, you would think!
But it would be almost two decades before the B-2 would enter service.
This meant that B-52s were to remain in service and provide nuclear deterrence using the new
AGM-86 cruise missiles that had just entered service.
War games suggested that BUFFs equipped with nuclear cruise missiles would be a credible
threat to the Soviets until 1985.
But there was a problem.
In the early 80s, it was estimated that if the B-52 fleet were to launch a cruise missile
attack, only 75% of them would survive the Soviet defenses, and that survivability percentage
kept decreasing as the Soviet technological advancements continued.
So President Reagan resurrected the B-1 Program as a Long Range Combat Aircraft project.
In essence, the B-1 Lancer became a stop-gap bomber between the vulnerable B-52s and the
future B-2 stealth bombers.
While 100 new B-1 bombers were being built between 1983 and 1988, Soviets introduced
new technologies: the SA-10 missile, the MIG-31 interceptor and an Airborne Early Warning
aircraft.
By the time the last B-1 rolled out of production, the US Airforce concluded that the B-1s were
as vulnerable to the Soviet Air Defenses as the B-52s.
And yet, another lucky development happened that kept BUFF alive.
As a result of collapse of Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the Pentagon reduced
the number of procured stealth B-2 bombers from 132 … to just 21.
This meant that there were not going to be enough B-1s and B-2s around to replace the
B-52 capabilities.
Moreover, as part of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia, the B-1’s would no longer
carry nuclear weapons.
That left the nuclear role just for B-2s and B-52s.
Great news for BUFF … except that as part of that same treaty, 375 B-52s had to be destroyed
as well.
Many BUFFs were cut into 5 pieces using a 13,000 pound steel blade dropped from a crane.
By the time everything was signed and done, the United States was left with just under
100 B-52s.
While ICBMs and SLBMs are primary systems for delivering nuclear weapons, BUFF is still
retained for nuclear missions.
Because it can be quickly launched in a crisis, and quickly called back mid flight if senior
officials conclude that a presumed nuclear threat has been falsely identified.
This is something that missiles cannot do.
At least not yet.
Roughly 40 B-52H bombers are currently assigned a “deterrence role” as part of the nuclear
triad.
70 years later, BUFFs are still kicking around.
Even after a rocky start they proved to be reliable..
Now, they just work, all problems have been fixed, maintenance has been worked out, so
it makes sense to keep them around.
In recent years, BUFF’s availability has been over 60% compared to B-1s and B-2s.
B-52 costs about $70,000 per hour to fly, roughly half of B-2, but a bit more expensive
than B-1.
Being a missile truck that launches missiles from far away, means speed and stealth is
of lesser importance.
New missiles that are currently in development can strike from thousands of miles away.
This will transition B-52s to an exclusively over-the-horizon stand-off missile launching
role with the help of AGM-183A ARRW hypersonic missiles and Long Range Stand-Off nuclear
armed air-launched cruise missiles.
LRSO missiles can hit targets in excess of 1,500 miles away.
The US Air Force plans to procure at least 1,000 nuclear armed missiles.
The Super Duper Missile, AGM-183A, will employ a rocket booster that will launch it into
the upper atmosphere at five times the speed of sound.
Then the unpowered glide vehicle will accelerate up to Mach 20 as it falls to the ground and
strikes high value targets using its kinetic energy.
BUFF “has good bones”.
B-52H, the last variant produced, spent most of its service life on the ground, alert for
nuclear operations, and so its airframe has many thousands of hours of service life left.
But not its engines.
The Pentagon is replacing 608 engines on 76 BUFFs as well as purchasing 42 as spares,
at a total cost of $2.6 billion dollars.
The Rolls Royce F130 engines will replace the old Pratt &Whitney TF33 engines that are
approaching end of life.
The Air Force is looking at 25 to 30% better fuel efficiency and as much as a 40% increase
in range with these new engines!
The new F130 engines can operate for 30,000 hours or more, meaning that an engine installed
in the late 2020s, might still be running into the 2090s.
The youngest B-52 currently in service rolled off the production line in 1962.
But it wouldn’t be fair to call it a 60-year old plane.
In many ways, BUFF is younger than airplanes made in the 1980s and 90s.
Every four years, BUFFs spend a few months at the Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma,
where the aircraft's panels are removed, everything is inspected, and repaired as needed.
They also get re-winged, re-skinned, and re-tailed every now and then, thanks to the abundance
of spare parts in the Boneyard!
BUFFs get new upgrades too.
Be it new wiring, radios, sensors, and even a new radar.
Internal Weapons Bay Upgrade completed in 2017 featured a 66% increase in weapons payload
as a result of using digital interface and rotary launchers.
An upgraded communication system, called CONECT, allows the crew to collect real time intelligence
data for situational awareness, and even re-target an in-flight missile.
So BUFF becomes a bomber plus an airborne command and control airplane.
In 2018, the US Air Force announced that 62 B-1s and 20 B-2 stealth bombers will be retired
by the 2030s, while retaining B-52s along with at least 100 new B-21 Raiders.
BUFF is currently expected to stay in service well into the 2050s.