Yup. An example of this is the Air Force’s B52 which has lived longer than many of its immediate successor program (B1 non B) and is scheduled to live longer th

Yup. An example of this is the Air Force’s B52 which has lived longer than many of its immediate successor program (B1 non B) and is scheduled to live longer than the successors to its successor (B1-B, B2) alongside the B21. We have plenty of mothballed chassis for parts and a seemingly never ending series of modernization programs. A new engine has been proposed repeatedly and is maybe finally happening. However what we can simply never do is make another one from scratch as all the tooling has been gone since the 1960s. They could do an “inspired by the B52” replacement like the B21 is to the B2, but much like the B2 and F22 we just won’t make more of them for practical and Military Industrial Complex reasons.