My internal company newsletter (DynCorp Int'l) announced that the rebuild contract for delivery of one WB-57 is complete. All three made a formation presentation over Houston after the customer took custody of the aircraft from our hangar. Godspeed, NASA!
For a 70 year old aircraft, it didn't take a whole lot of modification to add power, reassemble and retrofit new tech. It was literally pulled straight from "celebrity row" in Tuscon after having sat there for 40 years. Some of you have stood in front of the old 927 as a museum piece!!
When DynCorp Int'l sent me to Afghanistan from 2010-2011, I observed 928 operating out of KAF, parked in the CIA hangar at the end of the runway if it wasn't taking off. This new variant has advanced battlefield imagery systems, and serves as a long-range data hub "overlord" which is why a flight path is almost routinely loops over loops over a predetermined combat sector.