Buff upgrade
 

This is what the newly re engined buff may look like
https://www.airandspaceforces.com/ne...KA9umkaIJ-hae8

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....185dcb0463.jpg

cheers

Hmm, nacelles look higher and further forward; guess they’ll borrow MCAS from the 73Max! 😳

Incredible aircraft - first flight in 1952, less than 50 years after the Wright Brothers, last airframe produced 1962, and some of those airframes planned to still be in service in the 2050s, 100 years after the first flight!

German-designed engines on a B-52 - who'd have thought it ?

Pardon my ignorance , again it’s a real question: Does anyone know why they didn’t go for 1 , more powerful engine on each pylon?
I assume it’s simply that there isn’t an engine available with that much grunt but could someone enlighten me?

That would mean a total pylon/ wing redesign along with hydraulics, electrics etc along with flight testing for engine out performance etc.

They opted for swap 8 for 8 to minimise the changes required.

https://theaviationist.com/2022/09/2...nacelles-test/

https://www.airandspaceforces.com/ar...-for-the-b-52/

While USAF once considered four large-fan commercial engines instead, it stuck with eight to avoid substantial redesign of the wing, cockpit, and other components, and to minimize risk and delay.

Read it was a structural issue with the wing .

According to KenV (who seems to have abandoned this forum), a big concern with one engine per pylon was it messing up the ability to load/drop munitions from the wings.
Back around the year 2000 I was on a team that was looking at just that - replacing each two engine pod with a single PW2000 or RB211-535 (e.g. 757 engines). The potential improvements were massive - the increased thrust and better fuel burn meant greatly increased range, payload, and massive fuel costs savings. Just the savings in fuel made it look like a no-brainer with the reduced fuel burn paying for the costs of the re-engine.
Allegedly the USAF nixed it because they feared making the BUFF more capable would hurt their case for buying more B-2s (which of course didn't happen).

What sort of environment is the B52 meant to operate in these days? It's big and slow. A missile magnet?

It's a bomb truck. Most conflict areas don't have sophisticated air defenses and it can fly well above the range of ManPad type stuff. Plus it's a very good stand-off cruise missile platform.
No, it wouldn't last long against a proper air defense, but that's not where most of the action has been for the last 50 years.

This looks very much as though PIXAR is involved in the re-design...
Freeman

One of the main problems with the idea of four big fans, was the lack of rudder authority in the event of losing an outboard engine in a critical phase of flight .

Thanks all.
I did wonder re ‘just’ bolting on an RB211 etc , if only for the cost savings in maintaining 4 engines rather than 8.
How many are being converted & when’s it due in service?

Somebody must must have written a book about how the operating assumptions for the B-52 have evolved over the last 65 years. First it was a long range, high altitude nuclear deterrent. Then it became a long range low altitude nuclear deterrent, to avoid enemy radars. Remember the wrinkled skins that resulted from the low level turbulence? Then, it’s use in south Viet Nam was a huge change, high altitude conventional “dumb bomb” carpet bomber. When used over North Viet Nam, of course, it was high altitude again, but now in a highly defended airspace, and they took severe losses due to obsolete tactics (in spite of the excellent advise offered by the Thud and Phantom tactics shops). The next major combat use I can think of is the Gulf Wars (were they used over Bosnia?). They became high-altitude close air support (CAS) of all things, employing precision-bombs. Most of this time, perhaps still?, the Buff remained part of the nuclear deterrent triad, though I suppose in the latter years this depended on long range standoff munitions. How many times over the years were long range B-52 operational demonstrations used to send a warning to mischievous dictators?

General LeMay would be proud of what the Boeing Company of yesteryear was cable of building and it stood the test of time. It’s had a major role in Cold War for which it was built, and a much broader utility than imagined at first, for which the free world should be grateful.

Also for a time some were assigned to NATO for N.Atlantic Anti-shipping with Harpoon.

Delighted to see one come in across Sarf London during the recent deployment, sounded great even though it was throttled back during the descent...

If I ever made a movie, it would start with a few seconds of the opening sequence of Dr. Strangelove, then the camera would pull back and show that it was someone watching Dr. Strangelove on an iPad, and then further to show the he (or better she) was in the cockpit of a B-52 refueling from a KC-135. (I guess I'd have to work out how to explain movie watching during refueling.)

Many reasons why not, some alluded to above.

You could start by simply comparing the fan diameter of the F130/BR700 with that of any of the current big fans.

It's also highly symbolic - you send a B1 or a B2 no-one notices but a B-52... everyone knows what they are and what they represent.

The B-52 a Bomb Truck.....yes indeed for sure....it rains bombs...lots of bombs....and when you run them over a target in Three's.....it is very impressive.

During the Vietnam War those Strikes known as "Arc Light" Strikes....were announced by radio several ways so that other aircraft could avoid the target areas.

We would plot the coordinates on our paper maps (the only kind we had) with a start point and an end point then we knew where not to be.

Mis-plotting due to a transcription error could sometimes have rather interesting results.....like really startling results as the jungle in front of your erupted into smoke, flame, and airborne debris along with some interesting turbulence.

Landing ground troops to do a BDA and movement to contact with NVA troops that had been the target afforded some interesting sights and accounts of the devastation that could be wrought by the Arc Light.

Lots of nice trees got turned into splinters....and huge craters became cat fish ponds as a result too.

Probably the best example of the B-52 in those days as a Tactical Bomber was in its role in the breaking of the seige of Khe Sanh Marine Base.

Long video....the Buff's appear at Ten Minutes into the film.