15 ms·

The B-52 was designed in a hotel room over one weekend

264 points by vinnyglennon 4y ago

steele 4y ago
In the love shack, baby
georgeecollins 4y ago
On one hand this implies that the B-52 has been useful all this time-- and to some extent it has in different roles. But on the other hand, when the U-2 was shot down in 1960 it could never perform the role it was designed for. Since then the Air Force has sought different planes to fill that role and different roles for the B-52. In that sense B-52 is like the battleship designs of WW1 that fought in WW2 and onward. Not sticking around because they are so effective but instead sticking around because they are dead ends.
fest 4y ago
To anyone who's wondering how is such a feat possible: it's covered in the first few chapters of Dan Raymer's Aircraft Design. Reading it made me appreciate (again) the "old" way of knowledge sharing- books and publications. I'm amazed that it's so under-appreciated tool nowadays.
- lbriner 4y ago
  Agreed. There is an obvious downside to how cheap it is nowadays to "publish" something, whether on social media, in a blog or in something resembling a book, we are now surrounded by low-quality content and it can be hard to tell the good from the bad. Another benefit of books and magazines is that you have an instant idea of how relevant the information is, "Electronics Weekly 1970", possibly not the latest best advice on using microcontrollers!
hedora 4y ago
This discussion reminds me of the USS Hornet aircraft carrier museum in Alameda (near Oakland). It took 54 weeks to design, build and deloy it. It's a museum now; highly recommended. They have some Apollo stuff too. Four years from concept to first flight for the B-52 is impressive. The "over one weekend" claim (which the body of the article refutes) is annoying.
- themadturk 4y ago
  To be fair, the Hornet was the fourth Essex class carrier, so much of the design work was already done by the time the Hornet was launched (just a couple of months after the Essex and her two "older" sister ships). Commonality of design was what helped build and launch these wartime ships so quickly.
WalterBright 4y ago
Kelly Johnson (Lockheed Skunkworks) was given the task of designing and building the first American jet fighter prototype in 180 days. He did it in 143 days. Designed and built.
smm11 4y ago
Grew up in Omaha, on the flight path for planes landing at Offutt Air Force Base. Had a B-52 fly over a few times an hour, 24-365 the entire time (pre-1991).
rkapsoro 4y ago
People might enjoy this, Mark Rippetoe's interview of his friend Scott Davison, about his experience as an Air Force B-52 pilot for many years. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTphnQFkI5E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTphnQFkI5E
GeorgeTirebiter 4y ago
The B-52s were designed in Athens, GA in 1976 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_B-52%27s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_B-52%27s
sdze 4y ago
Analogous to the agile manifesto. You only need 3 guys to develop an enterprise-class application.
jonahhorowitz 4y ago
Why hasn't the B-52 ever been updated to use a high-bypass turbofan like the GE90 (777), CF6 (747-4), or GEnx (747-8)? It seems like it would be an easy win for efficiency and maintenance.
hackeraccount 4y ago
Interestingly - Isaac Hayes wrote and recorded The Theme To Shaft over a weekend too. (OK I can't find a source for this - beyond him saying he wrote the lyrics in 20 minutes- but I swear I read that some place)
ThinkBeat 4y ago
and so far, every enormously expensive next generation bomber meant to replace the B52 have not been able to do so. The B52 Stratofortres was introduced in 1955 qty 744 The B-58 Hustler was introduced in 1960. (not to replace B52). qty 116 The FB-111A / F-111G was introduced in 1968 * qty 76 The B-1 Lancer was introduced in 1986 to replace the B-52. qty 104 The B-2 Spirit was introduced in 1997 to replace the B-52. qty 21 The B-21 Raider to be introduced in 2025 to place the B1 and B52. qty 6 +?? * The FB-111A was a strategic bomber version of the F-111 for the USAF Strategic Air Command. With Air Force's Advanced Manned Strategic Aircraft program proceeding slowly, and concerns of fatigue failures in the B-52 fleet, the service needed an interim bomber quickly
keepquestioning 4y ago
Reminds me of COVID vaccine being designed in a weekend! Let the geniuses work!
lnxg33k1 4y ago
I think Americans are slightly sick in the brain, the guy was talking about dropping bombs like normal people would talk about putting two cubes of sugar in a coffee What has to happen in a human brain that you get so detached from the reality that you can talk so normally and in a chitty chat way about means of destruction
- systemvoltage 4y ago
  I am not going to engage with your glib, bigoted and uninformed take; but instead, ask you to consider watching, with an open mind, a brilliant presentation by Luckey Palmer (Anduril) about what happens when society gets a wake up call for defense: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nK0NfL2M5L4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nK0NfL2M5L4
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - lnxg33k1 4y ago
    But what bigoted and uninformed, how could a question about an article be uninformed, I could get a wake up call for defense and still understand that destruction is destruction and that there are some people like me under those bombs and talk about it with a bit of sadness, instead of acting like I am talking about coffee machines. You should just play less the victim considering sufference you've caused to the world, and be a bit more human and understanding that once the powerful in both sides are taking out, what's left is people like you, so that's where my "sick in the brain" comes from, you show no remorse whatsoever
mikece 4y ago
Some of the most successful programs are designed either by one person or a small group of designers who were given the autonomy to do their job. This story reminds me of the origin story of the American GPS system which was designed over a holiday weekend by three engineers. If you want projects to work then give a small, qualified group the room to make decisions and turn them loose. If you want to give the appearance of doing something for years on end then assemble endless committees and design reviews (like the F-35, Ford Class carrier, DDX-21, etc).
- hef19898 4y ago
  More like the initial design concept was defined over a weekend. The actual detailed design, even for highly successful programs like the F-117, took much longer. Nobody ever designed an aircraft for serial production over a weekend, not even back when planes were build out of canvas and wood. EDIT: After reading the article, what Boeing did back then was the same thing as Boom coming up with a rendering and a high level design concept over the weekend. Also, back then times, and technology, were different.
  - sidewndr46 4y ago
    I think the point being made is that many projects start as an idea that is then brought into the prototype phase, iterated upon, and then is complete whenever the project delivers a significant increase in current capabilities compared to the current systems. This in contrast to the F-35 project which apparently decided all the capabilities up front and then has went about designing an aircraft to somehow reach all those goals. Whether or not it will is a subject of ongoing debate. It also somehow has wound up making 3 different airframes. A good example of this would be Soviet copies of the B-29 & the V-2. In both cases there was pressure to "build our own that is better". Apparently Stalin got involved in both cases and demanded that a way be found to produce a domestic copy first, then learn from that, & produce a domestic design next. Not sure how accurate that is, but it seems to have worked out. Soviet long range bombers & Soviet missile systems are certainly nothing to scoff at.
- jansan 4y ago
runjake 4y ago
The first prototype of the B-52 may have been designed in a weekend. The B-52 of today was iteratively designed over decades and the current H models are entirely different planes than earlier models (although structurally very close to the G model). Another HN commenter mentioned GPS being designed over a holiday. But we spent years and years in the military debugging GPS and making it functional. Claiming that something was designed in a day is good clickbait, but it completely discounts the years of blood, sweat, and tears it took to get to the product that people have in their head.
- cs702 4y ago
  The OP is emblematic of the "cocktail-party level of understanding" that leads people to discount how hard it is, and how much blood, sweat, and tears it takes, to build anything complicated, like a plane: https://danluu.com/cocktail-ideas/ https://danluu.com/cocktail-ideas/
  - bombcar 4y ago
    It also downplays the absolute skill you need to be able to do even the “weekend session” and get something that’s workable - anyone can doodle a design in a weekend and even make changes to it, but getting one that’s actually a workable foundation requires people who know what they’re doing.
- noneeeed 4y ago
  An overnight success that was years in the making...
- NoFactualActual 4y ago
  Seems like a language thing—I'd distinguish the initial "design" from the iterative "engineering". Of course, you could describe the latter as design, too, but it's an ambiguous word (like most words). The people taken by this clickbait aren't going to care which word is used.
- parineum 4y ago
  > The first prototype of the B-52 may have been designed in a weekend. Not even that is true. Here's the timeline from the article. > In July of 1948, Boeing received a contract from the still-new U.S. Air Force to design and build a new heavy bomber. ... > So when Boeing’s three-man presentation team arrived at Wright Field Air Force Base on October 21, 1948 ... > Warden suggested to the Boeing team that they do away with their design and come back to him with a new one that included turbojet engines ... unbeknownst to Warden at the time, Schairer happened to be carrying some work he’d already done on the possibility of a jet-powered bomber in his briefcase, giving him just enough of a foundation to think a redesign might be possible ... >The next morning, which happened to be a Friday, the Boeing team returned with their newly jet-powered B-52 design, only to find that Warden remained unimpressed. ... > The two soon joined Schairer, Wells, Carlsen, and Blumenthal in the increasingly cramped hotel room, pouring over sketches and quickly-scribbled mathematical computations. Computers wouldn’t become a common facet of aviation design for decades to come. It was up to these six men and their witts to design an entirely new bomber… and they had just 48 hours to do it. .. > By Sunday, the team had compiled a full proposal that they turned over to a local stenographer to type up a clean copy. By Monday morning, they arrived back in Warden’s office with not only a fully-realized 33-page B-52 proposal but a silver, hand-crafted, 14-inch model of the bomber itself. Warden immediately took to the weekend design. So, July -> October 26th (Monday morning) 4 Months isn't bad at all but it's not quite the 4 days suggested in the headline.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
segfaultbuserr 4y ago
The B-52 design proposal was done in a hotel room over one weekend, the actual engineering took at least 3 years, including "670 days in the wind tunnel". That is not to say the weekend hotel proposal was not an impressive accomplishment in itself, it was. But there's a difference between laying out a software architecture and writing code. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_B-52_Stratofortress#Design_effort https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_B-52_Stratofortress#Des... > On Thursday, 21 October 1948, Boeing engineers George S. Schairer, Art Carlsen, and Vaughn Blumenthal presented the design of a four-engine turboprop bomber to the chief of bomber development, Colonel Pete Warden. Warden was disappointed by the projected aircraft and asked if the Boeing team could come up with a proposal for a four-engine turbojet bomber [...] By late Friday night, they had laid out what was essentially a new airplane. > [...] On Monday, Schairer presented Colonel Warden with a neatly bound 33-page proposal and a 14-inch (36 cm) scale model. The aircraft was projected to exceed all design specifications. > [...] During ground testing on 29 November 1951, the XB-52's pneumatic system failed during a full-pressure test; the resulting explosion severely damaged the trailing edge of the wing, necessitating considerable repairs. [...] The XB-52 followed on 2 October 1952. The thorough development, including 670 days in the wind tunnel and 130 days of aerodynamic and aeroelastic testing, paid off with smooth flight testing. Encouraged, the USAF increased its order to 282 B-52s.
- Tangurena2 4y ago
  Coincidentally, I was watching a YouTube video last night about the YB-60. This was a version of the B-36 with the same jet engines as the B-52. And the aircraft lost in a competition with the B-52 because the Boeing jet was just plain better than the Convair jet. Boeing did a very good job. I don't think there have been (or will be) another aircraft that lasted this long in service. There are prettier aircraft (in my opinion), but "pretty" doesn't get the job done. The Big Ugly Fat Fella will be around for quite some time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcumiS0uk5o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcumiS0uk5o https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convair_YB-60 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convair_YB-60
  - themadturk 4y ago
    No, the B-52 is a paragon of beauty (no sarcasm there...it's always been my favorite aircraft). And the C-130 is right around the same age, not to mention still (I believe) being manufactured.
egberts1 4y ago
I knew it wasn’t. I’ve seen the engineering plat drawings. Surely was not overnight but a cumulative effort of many engineers of many disciplines over many decades. Most notably the airframe framework which makes its longevity more than possible. Will not stoop to a simplistic clickbait.
- ip26 4y ago
  We love to gloss over the implementation phase of design and valorize the concept phase. I theorize it’s because implementation is a lot more work, and usually lacks a singular hero figure. We make exceptions when there is; see Woz.
  - egberts1 4y ago
    Woz is about leveraging technology at low cost. There are many Woz-like but unheralded program managers that have leverage the vaunted B-52 airframe into something beyond its original purpose. It is about Woz and a garage business that got its unique notoriety.
Bud 4y ago
Great article, despite the painful spelling of "bona fide" as "bonified". I guess they don't have a copy editor.
- segfaultbuserr 4y ago
  A spellchecker checker.
- svrtknst 4y ago
  bone apple tea
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- grenoire 4y ago
  Wiktionary claims that this form is recognised in Webster's since 1913. Probably a misspelling looking at the context though.
  - Bud 4y ago
    That's not a "form" of bona fide, however. It's a separate word that means something else.
- kortex 4y ago
  Language isn't static, it never has been, yet as soon as the notion of spell checking came about, written forms of words started to be frozen in time. If "tomorrow" is a valid rendering of "(on) t(he) morrow", I don't see why bonified is an issue.
  - Bud 4y ago
    It's an issue because "bonified" means something else. Look it up.
  - karaterobot 4y ago
gedy 4y ago
I was in the Air Force in early 90s, and we chuckled at one guy in training who got assigned to B-52 maintenance. "Ha that old thing? How long will that job last?"
- hackeraccount 4y ago
  I read (a fairly long time ago) about a guy who joined the air force and ended up flying the same B-52 that his father had flown. One has to wonder if at this point his son isn't flying that same plane.
- mikece 4y ago
  His grandson will be saying the same thing.
  - hef19898 4y ago
    In a post appocalyptic world great-great-grandsons of B-52 pilots will inherit those planes, the same airframes their ancestors flew in the 50s. Impressive service life time, especially that since then nobody came up with something better then the B-52.
    - selectodude 4y ago
      Necessity is the mother of invention and the US Military hasn’t had the necessity for anything newer.
      - mikece 4y ago
        I think a modified and militarized Boeing 777 (or 767) would be the ideal replacement for the B-52, though I realize a lot more goes into bomber design than just selecting a successful airframe.
      - hef19898 4y ago
        While on the other hand the need to stealthily deliver smaller payloads into protected airspace went away with the end of the cold war, for now. It might become again a necessity in the future. On the delivery large bomb payloads into dominated airspace the B-52 is unbeatable so far.
rayiner 4y ago
In this context, "design" means working out the key parameters of the airplane: takeoff weight, length, wing span, wing sweep, engine thrust, etc. Even today aerospace engineers learn how to do this first cut analysis using various approximations and rules of thumb. Still impressive, especially before computers, but the article isn't referring to a build-ready blueprint.
systemvoltage 4y ago
Related, a must read, Ben Rich's adventures at Skunk Works: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/101438.Skunk_Works https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/101438.Skunk_Works Supremely entertaining and just totally wild. It is written by the engineer that led F-117 Nighhawk program, "What do you mean it appears the size of a bee on the radar?" As they say, if it doesn't make you question the metrology, it isn't a breakthrough. They thought the radar was faulty.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 4y ago
It seems Boeing of that era really knew how to produce. The development of the 747 is also pretty impressive. It is so sad to see how far they have fallen.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
urthor 4y ago
Out of the loop, exactly why does the USAF still fly this? Is it really a better alternative to putting some bomb bay doors on a modern Boeing? Without dismissing the entire field of aircraft design... the mind is definitely attracted to the concept of buzzsawing some doors onto the bottom of civilian airliner.
- kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
  It is an experiment in long term maintenance. The type has long been planned to be in service for 95 years.
- emptyfile 4y ago
  >Is it really a better alternative to putting some bomb bay doors on a modern Boeing? yes
- rjsw 4y ago
  Boeing already make a civilian airliner with bomb bays [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_P-8_Poseidon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_P-8_Poseidon
- alistairSH 4y ago
  Mainly it's relatively low operating cost compared to modern bombers. Also it's readiness ratio is much higher than anything more modern (75% for B-52 vs 50% for the B-2 Stealth Bomber). I'm not sure how retrofitting bomb doors (plus any other military requirements) onto a modern wide-body Boeing would be any better than a major refit of an existing B-52. Heck, we can't even build new tankers for in-flight refueling without major fuckups and overruns. A bomber would be worse.
  - urthor 4y ago
    Oh I'm sure I'm wrong and there are good reasons... but it's just hard to quantify them exactly. The speed/"B52 is actually structurally designed to take enemy fire" points someone mentioned were immensely informative. I'd never, ever thought of those. But it makes sense. The B52 carries a lot of bombs and has the structural design and other attributes for being in a combat zone. Designing a NEW B52 is prohibitive because in reality, in a war with Russia/China, the B52 is non-viable against modern AA. But for carpet bombing Afghanistan, the B52 is perfect.
redleggedfrog 4y ago
Ug, working on weekend, drag. ;^)
projectramo 4y ago
I have a lot to say about this sort of X was done in 5 minutes, but I am going to refer to the person who said it best: https://youtu.be/Qdplq4cj76I https://youtu.be/Qdplq4cj76I (Steve Jobs on how ideas change when you actually do it)
ethbr0 4y ago
> The B-52 played a significant role in the Vietnam War, particularly during Operation Linebacker II which saw 729 B-52 sorties drop more than 15,000 tons of bombs on Hanoi and other targets. Oof. Not a great call-out, as one of the stupidest operational plans and misuse of sophisticated platforms. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Linebacker_II#Initial_phase https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Linebacker_II#Init... In the initial phase and by design, the B-52s were sent over the same area for a third night in a row, in a manner that negated their strengths and exposed their weaknesses. As a consequence, 7 planes were shot down by SAMs in a single night.
- egberts1 4y ago
  yes, and I know two member of the crews of the two cells that perished on that 3rd leg of the operation. I was dumbfounded about the “misplanning” when other crew managed to return and decades later bitched about the planning. then decades later, I read the Vietnam excepts, it was a gamble as these anti-aircraft missile launchers were mobile enough to try for a different flight path. But they didnt change the missile sites. Mentions were made that it would have had taken too long to pack-up/move/recalibrate. I would have faulted on-ground intelligence for that lack of insight. at any rate, modern gaming (Monte Carlos?) theory says always to try different routes.
devoutsalsa 4y ago
It's the JavaScript of bombers.
6stringmerc 4y ago
…and I designed a viable personal flight device that with modern 3d printing (hollow like bird bones) techniques and really upgraded power (LiPo and beyond) and posted it on Medium a couple years ago…and people are still talking about VTOL stuff. Eww. Granted, I probably need to design a catapult to get it up to speed without big battery drain…but there are really great innovations yet to even make it to prototype IMHO.
lnsru 4y ago
I see the photos of these gentlemen in suits. Even when working on weekend in a hotel. When I look at colleagues at work I see jeans and shirt in best case. Some of colleagues look like homeless people myself not being far away. What a different times.
nottorp 4y ago
Interesting opt out of tracking they have there. Asks for my name and email ?!? Guess I’ll never read the story.
KaiserPro 4y ago
As a non airforce/aeroengineer, can someone explain why the smaller dual engine nacelles haven't been replaced with a larger turbofan engine? surely its more efficient and lower maintenance? is it that it would alter the centre of drag/gravity/thrust too much and would require too much engineering?
- devman0 4y ago
  Someone else mentioned in another thread that it's for resiliency. I guess if you're carrying 70,000 lbs of ordnance you don't want an engine failure messing with your thrust too much during critical flight phases.
- buildsjets 4y ago
  Because the rudder on the B-52 is too small to maintain lateral directional control with an inoperative outboard engine in a 4-engine configuration at takeoff power/airspeed. Go google for some pictures, on a B-52 it is less than 10% of the span of the vertical stabilizer, compared to more than 25% on a 747. And if the rudder were made large enough to maintain directional control, the loads in the aft fuselage would be large enough that the aft fuselage would need to be re-designed.
- colechristensen 4y ago
  They thought about it but decided it would be a waste of money. Lots of considerations go into engine choice and making changes is quite expensive. >In 1996, Rolls-Royce and Boeing jointly proposed fitting each B-52 with four leased Rolls-Royce RB211-535 engines. This would have involved replacing the eight Pratt & Whitney TF33 engines (total thrust 136,000 lbf (600 kN)) with four RB211 engines (total thrust 148,000 lbf (660 kN)), which would increase range and reduce fuel consumption, at a cost of approximately US$2.56 billion for the whole fleet. However, a USAF analysis in 1997 concluded that Boeing's estimated savings of US$4.7 billion would not be realized and that re-engining would instead cost US$1.3 billion more than keeping the existing engines, citing significant up-front procurement and re-tooling expenditure.
JasonFruit 4y ago
> often referred to as the BUFF (Big Ugly Fat Fellow) That's… not what the second F stands for.
- themadturk 4y ago
  Well, it is in polite company ;)
cobbaut 4y ago
So a famous cocktail is designed in a hotel, what's ... oh the plane! :)
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

264 points by vinnyglennon 4y ago

In the love shack, baby

On one hand this implies that the B-52 has been useful all this time-- and to some extent it has in different roles. But on the other hand, when the U-2 was shot down in 1960 it could never perform the role it was designed for. Since then the Air Force has sought different planes to fill that role and different roles for the B-52. In that sense B-52 is like the battleship designs of WW1 that fought in WW2 and onward. Not sticking around because they are so effective but instead sticking around because they are dead ends.

fest 4y ago

To anyone who's wondering how is such a feat possible: it's covered in the first few chapters of Dan Raymer's Aircraft Design. Reading it made me appreciate (again) the "old" way of knowledge sharing- books and publications. I'm amazed that it's so under-appreciated tool nowadays.

lbriner 4y ago
Agreed. There is an obvious downside to how cheap it is nowadays to "publish" something, whether on social media, in a blog or in something resembling a book, we are now surrounded by low-quality content and it can be hard to tell the good from the bad. Another benefit of books and magazines is that you have an instant idea of how relevant the information is, "Electronics Weekly 1970", possibly not the latest best advice on using microcontrollers!

hedora 4y ago

This discussion reminds me of the USS Hornet aircraft carrier museum in Alameda (near Oakland). It took 54 weeks to design, build and deloy it. It's a museum now; highly recommended. They have some Apollo stuff too. Four years from concept to first flight for the B-52 is impressive. The "over one weekend" claim (which the body of the article refutes) is annoying.

themadturk 4y ago
To be fair, the Hornet was the fourth Essex class carrier, so much of the design work was already done by the time the Hornet was launched (just a couple of months after the Essex and her two "older" sister ships). Commonality of design was what helped build and launch these wartime ships so quickly.

WalterBright 4y ago

Kelly Johnson (Lockheed Skunkworks) was given the task of designing and building the first American jet fighter prototype in 180 days. He did it in 143 days. Designed and built.

smm11 4y ago

Grew up in Omaha, on the flight path for planes landing at Offutt Air Force Base. Had a B-52 fly over a few times an hour, 24-365 the entire time (pre-1991).

rkapsoro 4y ago

People might enjoy this, Mark Rippetoe's interview of his friend Scott Davison, about his experience as an Air Force B-52 pilot for many years. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTphnQFkI5E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTphnQFkI5E

GeorgeTirebiter 4y ago

The B-52s were designed in Athens, GA in 1976 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_B-52%27s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_B-52%27s

sdze 4y ago

Analogous to the agile manifesto. You only need 3 guys to develop an enterprise-class application.

jonahhorowitz 4y ago

Why hasn't the B-52 ever been updated to use a high-bypass turbofan like the GE90 (777), CF6 (747-4), or GEnx (747-8)? It seems like it would be an easy win for efficiency and maintenance.

hackeraccount 4y ago

Interestingly - Isaac Hayes wrote and recorded The Theme To Shaft over a weekend too. (OK I can't find a source for this - beyond him saying he wrote the lyrics in 20 minutes- but I swear I read that some place)

ThinkBeat 4y ago

and so far, every enormously expensive next generation bomber meant to replace the B52 have not been able to do so. The B52 Stratofortres was introduced in 1955 qty 744 The B-58 Hustler was introduced in 1960. (not to replace B52). qty 116 The FB-111A / F-111G was introduced in 1968 * qty 76 The B-1 Lancer was introduced in 1986 to replace the B-52. qty 104 The B-2 Spirit was introduced in 1997 to replace the B-52. qty 21 The B-21 Raider to be introduced in 2025 to place the B1 and B52. qty 6 +?? * The FB-111A was a strategic bomber version of the F-111 for the USAF Strategic Air Command. With Air Force's Advanced Manned Strategic Aircraft program proceeding slowly, and concerns of fatigue failures in the B-52 fleet, the service needed an interim bomber quickly

keepquestioning 4y ago

Reminds me of COVID vaccine being designed in a weekend! Let the geniuses work!

lnxg33k1 4y ago

I think Americans are slightly sick in the brain, the guy was talking about dropping bombs like normal people would talk about putting two cubes of sugar in a coffee What has to happen in a human brain that you get so detached from the reality that you can talk so normally and in a chitty chat way about means of destruction

systemvoltage 4y ago
I am not going to engage with your glib, bigoted and uninformed take; but instead, ask you to consider watching, with an open mind, a brilliant presentation by Luckey Palmer (Anduril) about what happens when society gets a wake up call for defense: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nK0NfL2M5L4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nK0NfL2M5L4
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- lnxg33k1 4y ago
  But what bigoted and uninformed, how could a question about an article be uninformed, I could get a wake up call for defense and still understand that destruction is destruction and that there are some people like me under those bombs and talk about it with a bit of sadness, instead of acting like I am talking about coffee machines. You should just play less the victim considering sufference you've caused to the world, and be a bit more human and understanding that once the powerful in both sides are taking out, what's left is people like you, so that's where my "sick in the brain" comes from, you show no remorse whatsoever

mikece 4y ago

Some of the most successful programs are designed either by one person or a small group of designers who were given the autonomy to do their job. This story reminds me of the origin story of the American GPS system which was designed over a holiday weekend by three engineers. If you want projects to work then give a small, qualified group the room to make decisions and turn them loose. If you want to give the appearance of doing something for years on end then assemble endless committees and design reviews (like the F-35, Ford Class carrier, DDX-21, etc).

hef19898 4y ago
More like the initial design concept was defined over a weekend. The actual detailed design, even for highly successful programs like the F-117, took much longer. Nobody ever designed an aircraft for serial production over a weekend, not even back when planes were build out of canvas and wood. EDIT: After reading the article, what Boeing did back then was the same thing as Boom coming up with a rendering and a high level design concept over the weekend. Also, back then times, and technology, were different.
- sidewndr46 4y ago
  I think the point being made is that many projects start as an idea that is then brought into the prototype phase, iterated upon, and then is complete whenever the project delivers a significant increase in current capabilities compared to the current systems. This in contrast to the F-35 project which apparently decided all the capabilities up front and then has went about designing an aircraft to somehow reach all those goals. Whether or not it will is a subject of ongoing debate. It also somehow has wound up making 3 different airframes. A good example of this would be Soviet copies of the B-29 & the V-2. In both cases there was pressure to "build our own that is better". Apparently Stalin got involved in both cases and demanded that a way be found to produce a domestic copy first, then learn from that, & produce a domestic design next. Not sure how accurate that is, but it seems to have worked out. Soviet long range bombers & Soviet missile systems are certainly nothing to scoff at.
jansan 4y ago

runjake 4y ago

The first prototype of the B-52 may have been designed in a weekend. The B-52 of today was iteratively designed over decades and the current H models are entirely different planes than earlier models (although structurally very close to the G model). Another HN commenter mentioned GPS being designed over a holiday. But we spent years and years in the military debugging GPS and making it functional. Claiming that something was designed in a day is good clickbait, but it completely discounts the years of blood, sweat, and tears it took to get to the product that people have in their head.

cs702 4y ago
The OP is emblematic of the "cocktail-party level of understanding" that leads people to discount how hard it is, and how much blood, sweat, and tears it takes, to build anything complicated, like a plane: https://danluu.com/cocktail-ideas/ https://danluu.com/cocktail-ideas/
- bombcar 4y ago
  It also downplays the absolute skill you need to be able to do even the “weekend session” and get something that’s workable - anyone can doodle a design in a weekend and even make changes to it, but getting one that’s actually a workable foundation requires people who know what they’re doing.
noneeeed 4y ago
An overnight success that was years in the making...
NoFactualActual 4y ago
Seems like a language thing—I'd distinguish the initial "design" from the iterative "engineering". Of course, you could describe the latter as design, too, but it's an ambiguous word (like most words). The people taken by this clickbait aren't going to care which word is used.
parineum 4y ago
> The first prototype of the B-52 may have been designed in a weekend. Not even that is true. Here's the timeline from the article. > In July of 1948, Boeing received a contract from the still-new U.S. Air Force to design and build a new heavy bomber. ... > So when Boeing’s three-man presentation team arrived at Wright Field Air Force Base on October 21, 1948 ... > Warden suggested to the Boeing team that they do away with their design and come back to him with a new one that included turbojet engines ... unbeknownst to Warden at the time, Schairer happened to be carrying some work he’d already done on the possibility of a jet-powered bomber in his briefcase, giving him just enough of a foundation to think a redesign might be possible ... >The next morning, which happened to be a Friday, the Boeing team returned with their newly jet-powered B-52 design, only to find that Warden remained unimpressed. ... > The two soon joined Schairer, Wells, Carlsen, and Blumenthal in the increasingly cramped hotel room, pouring over sketches and quickly-scribbled mathematical computations. Computers wouldn’t become a common facet of aviation design for decades to come. It was up to these six men and their witts to design an entirely new bomber… and they had just 48 hours to do it. .. > By Sunday, the team had compiled a full proposal that they turned over to a local stenographer to type up a clean copy. By Monday morning, they arrived back in Warden’s office with not only a fully-realized 33-page B-52 proposal but a silver, hand-crafted, 14-inch model of the bomber itself. Warden immediately took to the weekend design. So, July -> October 26th (Monday morning) 4 Months isn't bad at all but it's not quite the 4 days suggested in the headline.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

segfaultbuserr 4y ago

The B-52 design proposal was done in a hotel room over one weekend, the actual engineering took at least 3 years, including "670 days in the wind tunnel". That is not to say the weekend hotel proposal was not an impressive accomplishment in itself, it was. But there's a difference between laying out a software architecture and writing code. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_B-52_Stratofortress#Design_effort https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_B-52_Stratofortress#Des... > On Thursday, 21 October 1948, Boeing engineers George S. Schairer, Art Carlsen, and Vaughn Blumenthal presented the design of a four-engine turboprop bomber to the chief of bomber development, Colonel Pete Warden. Warden was disappointed by the projected aircraft and asked if the Boeing team could come up with a proposal for a four-engine turbojet bomber [...] By late Friday night, they had laid out what was essentially a new airplane. > [...] On Monday, Schairer presented Colonel Warden with a neatly bound 33-page proposal and a 14-inch (36 cm) scale model. The aircraft was projected to exceed all design specifications. > [...] During ground testing on 29 November 1951, the XB-52's pneumatic system failed during a full-pressure test; the resulting explosion severely damaged the trailing edge of the wing, necessitating considerable repairs. [...] The XB-52 followed on 2 October 1952. The thorough development, including 670 days in the wind tunnel and 130 days of aerodynamic and aeroelastic testing, paid off with smooth flight testing. Encouraged, the USAF increased its order to 282 B-52s.

Tangurena2 4y ago
Coincidentally, I was watching a YouTube video last night about the YB-60. This was a version of the B-36 with the same jet engines as the B-52. And the aircraft lost in a competition with the B-52 because the Boeing jet was just plain better than the Convair jet. Boeing did a very good job. I don't think there have been (or will be) another aircraft that lasted this long in service. There are prettier aircraft (in my opinion), but "pretty" doesn't get the job done. The Big Ugly Fat Fella will be around for quite some time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcumiS0uk5o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcumiS0uk5o https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convair_YB-60 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convair_YB-60
- themadturk 4y ago
  No, the B-52 is a paragon of beauty (no sarcasm there...it's always been my favorite aircraft). And the C-130 is right around the same age, not to mention still (I believe) being manufactured.

egberts1 4y ago

I knew it wasn’t. I’ve seen the engineering plat drawings. Surely was not overnight but a cumulative effort of many engineers of many disciplines over many decades. Most notably the airframe framework which makes its longevity more than possible. Will not stoop to a simplistic clickbait.

ip26 4y ago
We love to gloss over the implementation phase of design and valorize the concept phase. I theorize it’s because implementation is a lot more work, and usually lacks a singular hero figure. We make exceptions when there is; see Woz.
- egberts1 4y ago
  Woz is about leveraging technology at low cost. There are many Woz-like but unheralded program managers that have leverage the vaunted B-52 airframe into something beyond its original purpose. It is about Woz and a garage business that got its unique notoriety.

Bud 4y ago

Great article, despite the painful spelling of "bona fide" as "bonified". I guess they don't have a copy editor.

segfaultbuserr 4y ago
A spellchecker checker.
svrtknst 4y ago
bone apple tea
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
grenoire 4y ago
Wiktionary claims that this form is recognised in Webster's since 1913. Probably a misspelling looking at the context though.
- Bud 4y ago
  That's not a "form" of bona fide, however. It's a separate word that means something else.
kortex 4y ago
Language isn't static, it never has been, yet as soon as the notion of spell checking came about, written forms of words started to be frozen in time. If "tomorrow" is a valid rendering of "(on) t(he) morrow", I don't see why bonified is an issue.
- Bud 4y ago
  It's an issue because "bonified" means something else. Look it up.
- karaterobot 4y ago

gedy 4y ago

I was in the Air Force in early 90s, and we chuckled at one guy in training who got assigned to B-52 maintenance. "Ha that old thing? How long will that job last?"

hackeraccount 4y ago
I read (a fairly long time ago) about a guy who joined the air force and ended up flying the same B-52 that his father had flown. One has to wonder if at this point his son isn't flying that same plane.
mikece 4y ago
His grandson will be saying the same thing.
- hef19898 4y ago
  In a post appocalyptic world great-great-grandsons of B-52 pilots will inherit those planes, the same airframes their ancestors flew in the 50s. Impressive service life time, especially that since then nobody came up with something better then the B-52.
  - selectodude 4y ago
    Necessity is the mother of invention and the US Military hasn’t had the necessity for anything newer.
    - mikece 4y ago
      I think a modified and militarized Boeing 777 (or 767) would be the ideal replacement for the B-52, though I realize a lot more goes into bomber design than just selecting a successful airframe.
    - hef19898 4y ago
      While on the other hand the need to stealthily deliver smaller payloads into protected airspace went away with the end of the cold war, for now. It might become again a necessity in the future. On the delivery large bomb payloads into dominated airspace the B-52 is unbeatable so far.

rayiner 4y ago

In this context, "design" means working out the key parameters of the airplane: takeoff weight, length, wing span, wing sweep, engine thrust, etc. Even today aerospace engineers learn how to do this first cut analysis using various approximations and rules of thumb. Still impressive, especially before computers, but the article isn't referring to a build-ready blueprint.

systemvoltage 4y ago

Related, a must read, Ben Rich's adventures at Skunk Works: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/101438.Skunk_Works https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/101438.Skunk_Works Supremely entertaining and just totally wild. It is written by the engineer that led F-117 Nighhawk program, "What do you mean it appears the size of a bee on the radar?" As they say, if it doesn't make you question the metrology, it isn't a breakthrough. They thought the radar was faulty.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 4y ago

It seems Boeing of that era really knew how to produce. The development of the 747 is also pretty impressive. It is so sad to see how far they have fallen.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

urthor 4y ago

Out of the loop, exactly why does the USAF still fly this? Is it really a better alternative to putting some bomb bay doors on a modern Boeing? Without dismissing the entire field of aircraft design... the mind is definitely attracted to the concept of buzzsawing some doors onto the bottom of civilian airliner.

kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
It is an experiment in long term maintenance. The type has long been planned to be in service for 95 years.
emptyfile 4y ago
>Is it really a better alternative to putting some bomb bay doors on a modern Boeing? yes
rjsw 4y ago
Boeing already make a civilian airliner with bomb bays [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_P-8_Poseidon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_P-8_Poseidon
alistairSH 4y ago
Mainly it's relatively low operating cost compared to modern bombers. Also it's readiness ratio is much higher than anything more modern (75% for B-52 vs 50% for the B-2 Stealth Bomber). I'm not sure how retrofitting bomb doors (plus any other military requirements) onto a modern wide-body Boeing would be any better than a major refit of an existing B-52. Heck, we can't even build new tankers for in-flight refueling without major fuckups and overruns. A bomber would be worse.
- urthor 4y ago
  Oh I'm sure I'm wrong and there are good reasons... but it's just hard to quantify them exactly. The speed/"B52 is actually structurally designed to take enemy fire" points someone mentioned were immensely informative. I'd never, ever thought of those. But it makes sense. The B52 carries a lot of bombs and has the structural design and other attributes for being in a combat zone. Designing a NEW B52 is prohibitive because in reality, in a war with Russia/China, the B52 is non-viable against modern AA. But for carpet bombing Afghanistan, the B52 is perfect.

redleggedfrog 4y ago

Ug, working on weekend, drag. ;^)

projectramo 4y ago

I have a lot to say about this sort of X was done in 5 minutes, but I am going to refer to the person who said it best: https://youtu.be/Qdplq4cj76I https://youtu.be/Qdplq4cj76I (Steve Jobs on how ideas change when you actually do it)

ethbr0 4y ago

> The B-52 played a significant role in the Vietnam War, particularly during Operation Linebacker II which saw 729 B-52 sorties drop more than 15,000 tons of bombs on Hanoi and other targets. Oof. Not a great call-out, as one of the stupidest operational plans and misuse of sophisticated platforms. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Linebacker_II#Initial_phase https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Linebacker_II#Init... In the initial phase and by design, the B-52s were sent over the same area for a third night in a row, in a manner that negated their strengths and exposed their weaknesses. As a consequence, 7 planes were shot down by SAMs in a single night.

egberts1 4y ago
yes, and I know two member of the crews of the two cells that perished on that 3rd leg of the operation. I was dumbfounded about the “misplanning” when other crew managed to return and decades later bitched about the planning. then decades later, I read the Vietnam excepts, it was a gamble as these anti-aircraft missile launchers were mobile enough to try for a different flight path. But they didnt change the missile sites. Mentions were made that it would have had taken too long to pack-up/move/recalibrate. I would have faulted on-ground intelligence for that lack of insight. at any rate, modern gaming (Monte Carlos?) theory says always to try different routes.

devoutsalsa 4y ago

It's the JavaScript of bombers.

6stringmerc 4y ago

…and I designed a viable personal flight device that with modern 3d printing (hollow like bird bones) techniques and really upgraded power (LiPo and beyond) and posted it on Medium a couple years ago…and people are still talking about VTOL stuff. Eww. Granted, I probably need to design a catapult to get it up to speed without big battery drain…but there are really great innovations yet to even make it to prototype IMHO.

lnsru 4y ago

I see the photos of these gentlemen in suits. Even when working on weekend in a hotel. When I look at colleagues at work I see jeans and shirt in best case. Some of colleagues look like homeless people myself not being far away. What a different times.

nottorp 4y ago

Interesting opt out of tracking they have there. Asks for my name and email ?!? Guess I’ll never read the story.

KaiserPro 4y ago

As a non airforce/aeroengineer, can someone explain why the smaller dual engine nacelles haven't been replaced with a larger turbofan engine? surely its more efficient and lower maintenance? is it that it would alter the centre of drag/gravity/thrust too much and would require too much engineering?

devman0 4y ago
Someone else mentioned in another thread that it's for resiliency. I guess if you're carrying 70,000 lbs of ordnance you don't want an engine failure messing with your thrust too much during critical flight phases.
buildsjets 4y ago
Because the rudder on the B-52 is too small to maintain lateral directional control with an inoperative outboard engine in a 4-engine configuration at takeoff power/airspeed. Go google for some pictures, on a B-52 it is less than 10% of the span of the vertical stabilizer, compared to more than 25% on a 747. And if the rudder were made large enough to maintain directional control, the loads in the aft fuselage would be large enough that the aft fuselage would need to be re-designed.
colechristensen 4y ago
They thought about it but decided it would be a waste of money. Lots of considerations go into engine choice and making changes is quite expensive. >In 1996, Rolls-Royce and Boeing jointly proposed fitting each B-52 with four leased Rolls-Royce RB211-535 engines. This would have involved replacing the eight Pratt & Whitney TF33 engines (total thrust 136,000 lbf (600 kN)) with four RB211 engines (total thrust 148,000 lbf (660 kN)), which would increase range and reduce fuel consumption, at a cost of approximately US$2.56 billion for the whole fleet. However, a USAF analysis in 1997 concluded that Boeing's estimated savings of US$4.7 billion would not be realized and that re-engining would instead cost US$1.3 billion more than keeping the existing engines, citing significant up-front procurement and re-tooling expenditure.

JasonFruit 4y ago

> often referred to as the BUFF (Big Ugly Fat Fellow) That's… not what the second F stands for.

themadturk 4y ago
Well, it is in polite company ;)

cobbaut 4y ago

So a famous cocktail is designed in a hotel, what's ... oh the plane! :)

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]