Originally Posted by
roger4
<snip>
During this, one of the pair picked up a crew entry hatch warning light and declared an IFE and corresponding squawk of 7700. It landed safely and was met by the airfield rescue services.
</snip>
It's going to be quite interesting to see how well the B52s last. I know they're all pretty old already, and look to be carrying on indefinitely, but as they age then all sorts of things could crop up. There must be quite a lot of things on an aircraft that the original designers didn't necessarily determine a service life for because they were, so they thought, over engineered. But after 25, 50, 75 years of use, perhaps some of these things will start becoming a significant availability nuissance. I'm sure they've got a good grip on the aging of the airframe structure and everything to do with safe flight, but there's bound to be various items that could just wear out and hinder mission readiness.
Time will tell. Though these days efficiently dealing with problems like this is much easier than previously. The classic car world has been revolutionised by 3D laser scanners, 3D printing, CNC machining, etc, which has made parts reproduction very easy.
Any reports for someone finding a B52 crew entry hatch in their back garden?
(Apologies for the thread drift)