5 ms·

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 dismis

by 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.
WJW 4y ago
You say "putting some bomb bay doors on a modern Boeing" as if that is something that you can just do without redesigning the entire aircraft. Some other the changes you would need: - Retraining the entire fleet of pilots for the new aircraft. - Recertifying the entire set of currently available weapons that the B52 can drop. - Integrating modern military radios/crypto/satcoms/datalinks/etc with the civilian Boeing system. - Replacing all the spare parts/simulators/ground equipment/etc. Now these are not unsolvable problems of course; all that gets done every time a new aircraft model is introduced. But there is just not really a need to replace the B52. The main downside is that it's a bit of a gas guzzler, but apart from that the USAF would gain very little in capabilities by replacing the B52 with a modern airplane. It would be very expensive for basically no gain.
- egberts1 4y ago
  not to mention redesigning entire airframe to hold 70,000 lbs along a single rail within its belly.
  - muziq 4y ago
    The 747 CMCA.. https://www.sandboxx.us/blog/americas-plan-to-build-747-arsenal-ships-packed-with-cruise-missiles/ https://www.sandboxx.us/blog/americas-plan-to-build-747-arse...
dghlsakjg 4y ago
The most obvious reason you can’t do that is that modern airliners have pressurized fuselages. The other answer would be that they would have to expend a huge engineering effort and am mount of money to end up with an aircraft that does what the b-52 already does.
- urthor 4y ago
  Pressurized Fuselages?
gigaflop 4y ago
Civilian airliners are closer to shuttle buses than weapons platforms. With all of the design work that would be required to gracefully transform the luggage compartment into a bomb bay (not to mention the armor, extra tech), it may just be easier to have a purpose-built plane. But, I'd totally love to see a civilian aircraft retrofitted in some kind of post-apocalyptic movie.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
adolph 4y ago
I think a lot of it has to do with the challenges of validating changes to aircraft as safe. Additionally, the B-52 is relatively simple and inexpensive to operate. As a lay person I imagine that the high wing of a B-52 vs the low wing of a modern Boeing might have something to do with center of gravity given the relative density and dynamic weight changes of bombs during a sortie vs stable passengers and luggage on a flight. Since aircraft operate at much higher speeds than what we normal humans are accustomed to on a daily basis, there are significant concerns having to do with things like vibration [0] that may not be obvious. That isn't to say that people aren't trying to reuse more commodity hardware over bespoke. For example, I understand that the P-8 Poseidon [1] is considered a successful program. It uses the 737 frame and does launch munitions, albeit not as many as a dedicated bomber aircraft. Your idea of taking a sawsall to make a bomb bay door is not far off from the C-130 Harvest Hawk, which mounts bomb racks to existing cargo ramps. 0. The engineering required to fly fast (GVT): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZGo-R2mtb8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZGo-R2mtb8 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_P-8_Poseidon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_P-8_Poseidon 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_KC-130#Harvest_HAWK https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_KC-130#Harvest...
ranger207 4y ago
There's been a few proposals over the years to do just that, but they haven't worked out mostly because the Air Force wasn't looking for a new bomber at the time and/or already had enough bombers to do the mission. It's unlikely that the Air Force would have ever taken a civilian plane as a bomber though. While there are some civilian derived planes in use, like the KC-46, P-8, smaller cargo, VIP transport, EWAR aircraft, and in other countries AWACS planes, all of those are designed to be used in relatively safe areas. A bomber on the other hand should be able to fly in contested airspace, possibly at low altitude at high speed, with intensive maneuvering, and a whole bevy of sensors and jammers to stay alive. Plus, modern bombers need to be stealth as well, which isn't something that can be retrofitted to an existing design
Merad 4y ago
> Is it really a better alternative to putting some bomb bay doors on a modern Boeing? The B-52 can carry about 70,000 lbs of bombs. You can't just hang that amount of weight from the floor of a 777, you're going to have to redesign the entire aircraft to support the load. The B-52 also has a range that's absolutely insane. With a combat load it can fly 8,800 miles, beating a 777-200LR by a few hundred miles. If it's just flying from point A to point B with no bombs it can go more than 10,000 miles.
- egberts1 4y ago
  or 70,000 lbs of specialized equipments, as NASA has done to some degree… repeatedly. One could put an entire Cheyene Space Mountain complex into one BUFF. then again, what do I know? Just that their carrying capacity is freaking awesome.
thedebuglife 4y ago
> Is it really a better alternative to putting some bomb bay doors on a modern Boeing? From what I've been told, the B52 has relatively low operating cost and can stay up in the air pretty much indefinitely by being refueled in air by KC-135s. source: I was an air traffic controller in the US Air Force
- urthor 4y ago
  I think the most insightful points were from those who actually mentioned that the capabilities the B52 requires are extremely different. Mid air refueling, electronic warfare & military technology integration, speed in combat zone, integrity while under enemy fire. They are are very different points than I ever imagined you would have to consider for a bomber. The B52s gigantic wings make a ton more sense now. They're incredibly large so they produce vastly more lift/other specifications than required in case holes are shot in the bomber. Lesson I've learnt today is listen more to the experts.

by urthor 4y ago

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.

WJW 4y ago

You say "putting some bomb bay doors on a modern Boeing" as if that is something that you can just do without redesigning the entire aircraft. Some other the changes you would need: - Retraining the entire fleet of pilots for the new aircraft. - Recertifying the entire set of currently available weapons that the B52 can drop. - Integrating modern military radios/crypto/satcoms/datalinks/etc with the civilian Boeing system. - Replacing all the spare parts/simulators/ground equipment/etc. Now these are not unsolvable problems of course; all that gets done every time a new aircraft model is introduced. But there is just not really a need to replace the B52. The main downside is that it's a bit of a gas guzzler, but apart from that the USAF would gain very little in capabilities by replacing the B52 with a modern airplane. It would be very expensive for basically no gain.

egberts1 4y ago
not to mention redesigning entire airframe to hold 70,000 lbs along a single rail within its belly.
- muziq 4y ago
  The 747 CMCA.. https://www.sandboxx.us/blog/americas-plan-to-build-747-arsenal-ships-packed-with-cruise-missiles/ https://www.sandboxx.us/blog/americas-plan-to-build-747-arse...

dghlsakjg 4y ago

The most obvious reason you can’t do that is that modern airliners have pressurized fuselages. The other answer would be that they would have to expend a huge engineering effort and am mount of money to end up with an aircraft that does what the b-52 already does.

urthor 4y ago
Pressurized Fuselages?

gigaflop 4y ago

Civilian airliners are closer to shuttle buses than weapons platforms. With all of the design work that would be required to gracefully transform the luggage compartment into a bomb bay (not to mention the armor, extra tech), it may just be easier to have a purpose-built plane. But, I'd totally love to see a civilian aircraft retrofitted in some kind of post-apocalyptic movie.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

adolph 4y ago

I think a lot of it has to do with the challenges of validating changes to aircraft as safe. Additionally, the B-52 is relatively simple and inexpensive to operate. As a lay person I imagine that the high wing of a B-52 vs the low wing of a modern Boeing might have something to do with center of gravity given the relative density and dynamic weight changes of bombs during a sortie vs stable passengers and luggage on a flight. Since aircraft operate at much higher speeds than what we normal humans are accustomed to on a daily basis, there are significant concerns having to do with things like vibration [0] that may not be obvious. That isn't to say that people aren't trying to reuse more commodity hardware over bespoke. For example, I understand that the P-8 Poseidon [1] is considered a successful program. It uses the 737 frame and does launch munitions, albeit not as many as a dedicated bomber aircraft. Your idea of taking a sawsall to make a bomb bay door is not far off from the C-130 Harvest Hawk, which mounts bomb racks to existing cargo ramps. 0. The engineering required to fly fast (GVT): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZGo-R2mtb8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZGo-R2mtb8 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_P-8_Poseidon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_P-8_Poseidon 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_KC-130#Harvest_HAWK https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_KC-130#Harvest...

ranger207 4y ago

There's been a few proposals over the years to do just that, but they haven't worked out mostly because the Air Force wasn't looking for a new bomber at the time and/or already had enough bombers to do the mission. It's unlikely that the Air Force would have ever taken a civilian plane as a bomber though. While there are some civilian derived planes in use, like the KC-46, P-8, smaller cargo, VIP transport, EWAR aircraft, and in other countries AWACS planes, all of those are designed to be used in relatively safe areas. A bomber on the other hand should be able to fly in contested airspace, possibly at low altitude at high speed, with intensive maneuvering, and a whole bevy of sensors and jammers to stay alive. Plus, modern bombers need to be stealth as well, which isn't something that can be retrofitted to an existing design

Merad 4y ago

> Is it really a better alternative to putting some bomb bay doors on a modern Boeing? The B-52 can carry about 70,000 lbs of bombs. You can't just hang that amount of weight from the floor of a 777, you're going to have to redesign the entire aircraft to support the load. The B-52 also has a range that's absolutely insane. With a combat load it can fly 8,800 miles, beating a 777-200LR by a few hundred miles. If it's just flying from point A to point B with no bombs it can go more than 10,000 miles.

egberts1 4y ago
or 70,000 lbs of specialized equipments, as NASA has done to some degree… repeatedly. One could put an entire Cheyene Space Mountain complex into one BUFF. then again, what do I know? Just that their carrying capacity is freaking awesome.

thedebuglife 4y ago

> Is it really a better alternative to putting some bomb bay doors on a modern Boeing? From what I've been told, the B52 has relatively low operating cost and can stay up in the air pretty much indefinitely by being refueled in air by KC-135s. source: I was an air traffic controller in the US Air Force

urthor 4y ago
I think the most insightful points were from those who actually mentioned that the capabilities the B52 requires are extremely different. Mid air refueling, electronic warfare & military technology integration, speed in combat zone, integrity while under enemy fire. They are are very different points than I ever imagined you would have to consider for a bomber. The B52s gigantic wings make a ton more sense now. They're incredibly large so they produce vastly more lift/other specifications than required in case holes are shot in the bomber. Lesson I've learnt today is listen more to the experts.