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B-52s Still Dominate U.S. Fleet 

After 60 Years

  Glance down from the ageless expanse of blue sky into the cockpit of the Air force’s largest bomber, and the panorama is decidedly more dated — banks of steam gauges quiver abovealuminum levers built during the Eisenhower administration, obsolete knobs and dials unused indecades gather dust And much of the rest of the mammoth !"#$ bomber is %ust as antiquated&acuum tubes have been replaced with microchips, and the once"standard ashtrays are gone !uteight engines along the wings still connect to the cockpit by yards of cables and pulleys, and thenavigator often charts a course with a slide rule

  '(t’s like stepping back in time,) said *apt +ance Adsit, $, the pilot -e banked left to start amock bombing run, wrestling a control yoke forged decades before he was born .ime had

stripped it entirely of paint '( love the !"#$,) *aptain Adsit said '!ut the fact that this is stillflying is really insane) A few minutes later, his onboard navigation computers crashed .he first!"#$ bomber was built more than /0 years ago, but in the absence of a reliable replacement, the %ets are still used by Air 1orce pilots today .he !"#$ is an Air 1orce plane that refuses to die2riginally slated for retirement generations ago, it continues to be deployed in conflict after conflict (t dropped the first hydrogen bomb in the !ikini (slands in 34#/, and laser"guided bombs in Afghanistan in $00/ (t has outlived its replacement And its replacement’sreplacement And its replacement’s replacement’s replacement

  Air 1orce commanders are now urging the 5entagon to deploy !"#$s in 6yria '7e’re ready,we’re hungry, we’re eager to be in the fight,) said *ol 8ristin Goodwin, who commands the

6econd !omb 7ing at !arksdale Air 1orce !ase in +ouisiana, where about half of the bombersare based 9ow in its /0th year of active service, the bomber is slow, primitive and weigheddown by an infamy lingering from the carpet bombing of &ietnam in the 34/0s !ut :/ !"#$sstill make up the bulk of the ;nited 6tates’ long"range bomber fleet, and they are not retiringanytime soon .he next potential replacement — the +ong <ange 6trike !omber, which has yetto be designed — is decades away, so the !"#$ is expected to keep flying until at least $0=0 !ythen, taking one into combat will be the equivalent of flying a 7orld 7ar ( biplane during theinvasion of (raq in $00>

  .he unexpectedly long career is due in part to a rugged design that has allowed the !"#$ to gonearly anywhere and drop nearly anything the 5entagon desires, including both atomic bombsand leaflets !ut it is also due to the decidedly underwhelming %ets put forth to take its place .he?$> million !"3! +ancer first rolled off the assembly line in 34 with a state"of"the"art radar" %amming system that %ammed its own radar .he ?$ billion !"$ 6pirit, introduced a decade later,had stealth technology so delicate that it could not go into the rain '.here have been a series of attempts to build a better intercontinental bomber, and they have consistently failed,) said 2wen*ot@, a professor of security studies at the assachusetts (nstitute of .echnology '.urns outwhenever we try to improve on the !"#$, we run into problems, so we still have the !"#$)

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  2fficially, the !"#$ is called the 6tratofortress, but flight crews long ago nicknamed it the!;11 — a colorful acronym that the Air 1orce euphemistically paraphrases as !ig ;gly 1at1ellow .oo outmoded to be a stealth bomber, the !"#$ has become the anti"stealth bomber — aloud, obvious and menacing albatross (t has pummeled armored divisions in (raq, and has laid

thunderous walls of destruction over .aliban positions in Afghanistan '.he big plane was verygood,) said one beaming 9orthern Alliance commander in $003 (n more recent years, it hasflown only what the Air 1orce calls 'assurance and deterrence) missions near 9orth 8orea and<ussia (n $03>, when *hina claimed disputed airspace over the 6outh *hina 6ea, a pair of !"#$s soared through in defiance '.he !;11 is like the rook in a chess game,) said a% ark !urley, the co"pilot for the training mission over the Great 5lains 'Bust by how you position iton the board, it changes the posture of your adversary)

  !ut the usefulness of the large bomber — and bombers in general — has come under questionin the modern era of insurgent wars and stateless armies Even after millions of tons of bombswere dropped in far corners of the world, most foes targeted by the bomber, including those in

(raq, Afghanistan and &ietnam, ultimately prevailed 7hen the first of the top"secret %ets rolledoff the assembly line in 34#=, the Air 1orce’s chief of staff proudly called it 'the thing that’sgoing to keep that <ed fellow in his place) .hroughout the 34#0s, widespread fear of a 'bomber gap) with the 6oviet ;nion prompted the Air 1orce to churn out more than :=0 of the swept"wing bombers at a then"unprecedented cost of around ? million each .he last was built in34/$

The aging B-52s require intensive maintenane.

  Even as the bombers were being assembled, defense officials were planning their replacement,

 but each plan was undone by its own complexity 1irst was a nuclear"powered bomber able tostay aloft for weeks Ctoo radioactiveD, then the supersonic !"# with dartlike wings CkeptcrashingD, and then the even faster !":0 Cspewed highly toxic exhaustD '.his was high"tech,futuristic stuff, but because it was so futuristic, the pro%ects ran into problems,) said ancyailes, an Air 1orce historian A front"page story in .he 9ew ork .imes in 34// said all !"#$swould need to retire by 34:# because they would 'be too old to continue beyond that point) !utno viable alternative emerged 

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  (n 34$, 5resident <onald <eagan warned, 'any of our !"#$ bombers are now older than the pilots who fly them) .oday, there is a !"#$ pilot whose father and grandfather flew the plane<eagan rushed production of the !"3, which was designed to fly fast and low beneath enemydefenses (t was expected to replace the !"#$ in the 3440s, but in a prelude of future problems,the first !"3 unveiled in 34#, in front of a crowd of >0,000, failed to start Fesign flaws and

engine fires sidelined the plane during the 5ersian Gulf war and have limited its capabilitiessince

An instrument !anel in a B-52. The ne"t !otential re!laement for the #om#ers is still $ea$es a%a&' so the B-52 is

e"!ete$ to (ee! fl&ing until at least 20)0. *re$it +$mun$ D. Fountain for

  9ext came the !"$ stealth bomber in 344: !ut the !"$, with its delicate radar"evadingcoating, had to be stored in a climate"controlled hangar to be effective, and its sensors at firstcould not tell a storm cloud from a mountain (t soon became known as the ?$ billion bomber.he !"#$ became a technologically humble — but still frighteningly effective — stand"inAlthough the fleet was designed as a nuclear retaliator, it began bombing the countryside of 6outh &ietnam in 34/# <ebutting claims that !"#$s were missing most of their targets, one pilotsaid at the time, '7e’re doing a lot more than killing monkeys and making kindling wood out of the %ungle) A 9ew ork .imes correspondent interviewing him marveled that the bombers werealmost a decade old, 'yet the mechanics keep them flying)

  (n 34:$, during the so"called *hristmas bombing, wave after wave of !"#$s destroyedsections of -anoi in 9orth &ietnam, killing hundreds of civilians and prompting nationwide protests and international condemnation !ut the bombers were far from done (n the 5ersianGulf war, 8osovo, Afghanistan and the (raq war, the lumbering %ets, well"established as a symbolof death and destruction, demoralied enemy ground troops by first dropping tons of leaflets withmessages like 'flee and live, or stay and die,) then returning the next day with tons of explosives

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,aintenane at Bar(s$ale Air Fore Base. The B-52s no% have om!uters' #ut !ulle&s still onnet engines along the

%ings to the o(!it.

  .he Air 1orce is trying to change the image of the !"#$ from indiscriminate carpet bomber to precision weapon +aser"targeting pods attached to the wing of many of the bombers in recentyears allow them to drop guided 'smart) bombs (n recent years, the big bombers circling highabove Afghanistan acted as close air support '7e’re as accurate as a fighter,) said +t *ol 6arah-all, a !"#$ pilot who flew missions over Afghanistan 'And sometimes %ust the sight of the !"#$ is enough to end the fight .he enemy %ust takes off) 7hile its weaponry has been upgraded,the rest of the plane can look like a midcentury museum exhibit Ground crews scouring theaging frames for rust often find graffiti in hidden nooks by previous generations — a recentdiscovery, perhaps commenting on the age of the planes, featured primitive cave"style animal

 paintings -owever, despite intensive maintenance, the planes’ ages are starting to show 2n arecent training flight out of !arksdale Air 1orce !ase after three days of rain, leaks in a bomber left the seats soaked and the control panel glistening 2ne engine refused to start, then somewiring shorted '.his is really the full !;11 experience,) the co"pilot said with a patient grinas the maintenance crew scrambled to fix problems '!ut once we get airborne, we’re usually28)

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The #om# #a& of a B-52 as the !lane !re!are$ to ta(e off in to#er from Bar(s$ale Air Fore Base in ouisiana.

  A few minutes later, the bomber with a crew of five roared into the sky and banked toward its

mock bombing target in .exas (n a dark den beneath the pilots, two weapons officers chartedtheir position and calculated bomb runs Among their toolsH rulers and stopwatches -alfwaythrough the mission, their aging navigation system crashed .hen it crashed again +t 9icole7hite, >3, a weapons officer with her hair in an unruly bun and an energy drink sitting next toher slide rule, called the pilot on the radio '7e have a computer that is potentially catawampus,)+ieutenant 7hite said '7hat does catawampus meanI) said a%or !urley, the co"pilot, with alaugh '*ray"cray,) she responded 1or several minutes as the computer rebooted, the bomber flew, relying on its original 34#0s technology of charted maps and line of sight

  (mpressions of the bomber have proved almost as lasting as the %ets themselves At the entrance to

!arksdale, a retired !"#$ from &ietnam sits on display 2n a sunny fall morning, a former officer from the

6outh &ietnamese 9avy named 5huoc +uong stood taking photos of his wife in front of the hulking plane,which had dropped tons of bombs on his country — bombs that still explode unexpectedly in farm fields,

killing and maiming people =0 years after the war ended 9ow /4 and retired, living in assachusetts

after fleeing his homeland in 34:#, r +uong, said he was not surprised to see !"#$s still flying

'American technology is super,) he said '(t’s a great plane (n &ietnam we didn’t use it enough .hat’s

why we lost)

+volution of the B-52' From

To!-Seret ,arvel to Fl&ing Fossil

.he !"#$ bomber is the longest"serving ;nited 6tates military aircraft (n its /0 years of serviceas a nuclear bomber, it became a symbol of both dread and assurance — it was the thing thatcould end civiliation and would prevent the end from occurring Although it never fought in thenuclear war it was designed for, it has fought in nearly every other war since its creation

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After the Air 1orce announces that it wants its next bomber to be a %et, !oeing engineers quicklyredesign its latest propeller bomber over a weekend in a hotel room, producing a >>"page proposal and a sweptwing balsa wood model that becomes the ;nited 6tates Air 1orce’s mostenduring plane After testing, the first !"#$ enters service in 34##

Boeing engineers eorge Shairer' left' 3aughn Blumenthal' ,a&nar$ 4ennell' +$ ells an$ Art *arlson

$isusse$ the $esign of the B-52' %hih entere$ servie in /55.

/56

A !"#$ drops the first hydrogen bomb from a plane in a test over the !ikini (slands .hough the bomb misses the target by four miles, the plane gets away safely and the ="megaton explosion ishailed a success

A h&$rogen #om# lit the s(& a fe% seon$s after it %as release$ over Bi(ini Atoll on ,a& 2/' /56.

/60

!"#$s begin $="hour nuclear deterrent flights across the globe, with several nuclear"armed bombers in the air at all times (n the next year, two !"#$s crash carrying nuclear bombs, one in*alifornia and one in 9orth *arolina 6afety systems keep the bombs from detonating, thoughlater investigations suggest that most of the safeguards failed

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The 6-man re% of a Strategi Air *omman$ B-52 Stratofortress #om#er !artii!ate$ in a !ratie alert in /60.

/65

!"#$s begin bombing enemy positions in 6outh &ietnam, trading their nuclear mission for carpet bombing runs over the %ungle .hey dropped mile"long walls of explosions so powerful that theywere felt in 6aigon

A B-52 Stratofortress $ro!!e$ a string of 50-!oun$ #om#s over a oastal target in 3ietnam in to#er /65. *re$it

Unite$ States Air Fore

/61

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After two more nuclear"armed !"#$s crash, scattering radioactive debris over sites in 6pain andGreenland, the Air 1orce ends continuous flights of nuclear"armed !"#$s *rews are instead puton $="hour ground alert

re(age of a B-52 #om#er near 4alomares' S!ain' in 7anuar& /66.

/2

ore than 300 !"#$s bomb 9orth &ietnam during the so"called *hristmas bombing inFecember .he attacks, which level swaths of -anoi and kill hundreds of residents, are meant to push the 9orth &ietnamese into peace negotiations 9orth &ietnamese troops shoot down 3# !"#$s during the 3$"day campaign A peace accord is signed a month later

3ietnamese !eo!le arrie$ vitims of the Amerian air rai$s on 8anoi an$ 9orth 3ietnam in Deem#er /2.

//

After the fall of the 6oviet ;nion, !"#$s are taken off nuclear alert for the first time in decadesAs part of the 6trategic Arms <eduction .reaty with <ussia, the Air 1orce publicly cuts thewings off >/# bombers ost of the remaining !"#$s are switched to a conventional mission and begin completing bomb runs over (raq during the 5ersian Gulf war

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A B-52 too( off from :.A.F. Fairfor$ in +nglan$ in Fe#ruar& //.

200/

After the 6ept 33, $003, terrorist attacks, !"#$s fly over Afghanistan, dropping laser"guided bombs and long strands of gravity bombs on .aliban forces .he planes stay in theregion, providing close air support, until $00/ .he big bombers also destroy enemy positions during the invasion of (raq in $00>

+astern Shura fighters %athe$ as B-52s #om#e$ an area of the Tora Bora mountain region in Afghanistan inDeem#er 200/.

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!"#$s regularly fly what the Air 1orce calls 'assurance and deterrence) missions near <ussianand *hinese airspace, acting as a loud and visible reminder of the ;nited 6tates’ military might

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A B-52 #om#er in to#er at Bar(s$ale Air Fore Base in ouisiana' %here a#out half of the Air Fore;s #om#ers are

#ase$.

J6ourceH 9ew ork .imes K Fave 5hilipps K Fecember #, $03# LLM

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