Is that because the ones made the previous decade have all been retired? Otherwise the platform would be 69 years old. Unless we are going by model
I remember one back on the Air Force Base in Guam that they have as a static display. The placard states that it was the last want to drop bombs in Vietnam. That’s all I can remember about that one
I remember the wording of some treaty/ disarming deal that we had to cut up and openly display to overhead satellites a percentage of our bombing fleet for a period of years. Hundreds of B-52s were guillotined and left to decay at Davis Monthan AFB Tuscon.
Spent many hours working on and flying on a b-52 in the USAF. That aircraft will probably be still flying for many years to come.
We can only have so many nuclear capable weapons systems.
That’s probably part of the open sky’s BS. What a waste
Still one of the spookiest sights I've seen. Right at the tail end of the Cold War out at Groom Lake, sitting on a ridge and watching one ghost through the valley BELOW me at 200ft AGL. I couldn't hear a thing till it was well past my position.
No longer a problem now that we've officially withdrawn from the treaty
(U.S. Completes Open Skies Treaty Withdrawal | Arms Control Association)
The B-52’s flying now were all built in ‘60 and ‘61. If I recall correctly, the first 16 of the 60- models (60-001 to 60-016) we’re all B-52G models that were upconverted to B-52H models. Because of the SALT treaty all of the B-52G models had to be scrapped and broken (all the previous models, A-D were already decommissioned). They stopped producing B-52’s after the 61- models.
I used to be a B-52 Avionics Tech. Was fun times. I truly hated those first upconverted models because they were all kinds of pieces together crap to get around the treaty. You’d read the tech orders and they’d say it has x and y of something, so you go look to troubleshoot and lo and behold it has neither.
I used to be a B-52 Avionics Tech. Was fun times. I truly hated those first upconverted models because they were all kinds of pieces together crap to get around the treaty. You’d read the tech orders and they’d say it has x and y of something, so you go look to troubleshoot and lo and behold it has neither.
