The Immortal Buff: Replacing The B-52

The balsa-wood plane that shook the world: Boeing aerodynamicist George Schairer holds the model he built in October 1948, in the Van Cleve Hotel in Dayton, Ohio. Boeing’s team working on a turboprop-powered XB-52 design learned late in the preceding week that the U.S. Air Force was ready to cancel it. Using data from a never-built four-jet medium bomber design, they spent the weekend on a 33-page proposal for an eight-engine bomber based on new and more efficient jet engines. Schairer built the model as a visual aid.

The XB-52 and YB-52 prototypes had tandem pilot and co-pilot seats. Early B-52s (designated B-52A through F) were complex aircraft for their time, were marginal in terms of range, and experienced problems with their electrical system, which used turbo-alternators in the fuselage fed by hot bleed air from the engines. Their last major assignment was conventional bombing in Vietnam, where the nickname Buff (Big Ugly Fat Person) was first used. 

By the time the B-52 entered service, the U.S. Air Force was looking for a supersonic replacement under the Weapon System 110 requirement, but the combination of speed and range seemed unattainable. One approach was to fit a delta-winged aircraft with “floating” wing extensions carrying outsize fuel tanks.

An even more radical concept was a nuclear-powered bomber, studied under WS-125A. This General Dynamics design for a nuclear-powered test aircraft, NX-2, had two nuclear engines in the fuselage, flanking a single reactor, and underwing kerosene-fueled engines for takeoff and climb. 

By 1956 it was clear that either the supersonic or nuclear aircraft was many years in the future and that the best follow-on to the B-52 was another B-52. The B-52G, which made its first flight in 1958, was a major redesign, with a much greater takeoff weight and increased range. It had a shorter vertical tail and revised flight controls, the wing structure was changed to accommodate integral fuel tanks, and it was fitted with pylons for AGM-28 Hound Dog supersonic cruise missiles. 

Breakthroughs in aerodynamic, propulsion and material technologies made it seem possible, by 1957, to design a bomber with a 7,500-mi. range and a Mach-3 cruising speed. The North American XB-70 Valkyrie was consequently expected to be both the world’s heaviest and fastest aircraft. Pentagon analysts doubted that it could survive against surface-to-air missiles, and funding was cut in favor of ballistic missiles. Two prototypes were completed for research, the first flying in September 1964. 

As SAC’s chances of getting a production B-70 receded, the future of the bomber force rested on yet another B-52 version. The B-52H borrowed the more powerful and efficient engines of the latest Boeing 707-320B and was designed to carry the Douglas GAM-87 Skybolt air-launched ballistic missile, which could deliver a compact megaton-class warhead over a 1,000-nm range. Skybolt was canceled in December 1962, after being overhauled by submarine-launched missiles and better land-based weapons, but the B-52H survived. All in-service B-52s today are H models. 

Planners in the 1960s believed that low-altitude, high-speed flight would be the way to penetrate future defenses (giving us the phrase “under the radar”). Under the Advanced Manned Strategic Aircraft (AMSA, aka “America’s Most Studied Aircraft”) project, industry studied variable-sweep aircraft with engines optimized for low-level flight. This is a General Dynamics design. 

The Pentagon’s screen door had barely struck bomber-hating Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara’s rear end before the U.S. Air Force made AMSA a real program. Rockwell was selected to build the B-1A in June 1970. One of the first major-program designs to feature measures to reduce its radar-cross-section, the B-1A also incorporated an automated electronic warfare system and a Mach 2 high-altitude capability. Then-President Jimmy Carter canceled it in 1977, because of cost overruns, delays and the promise of newer stealth technology and cruise missiles. 

The Reagan administration revived the B-1 in 1981, although the Mach 2 capability was eliminated and provision was made for cruise missiles. The plan was to replace the entire B-52G and B-52H force with 100 B-1s and 132 new stealth bombers. 

While the new bombers were being developed and built, the B-52 would undergo another upgrade, with new navigation avionics, the ALQ-172 jamming system, and provision for long-range cruise missiles:  first, the Boeing AGM-86, and later the stealthy General Dynamics AGM-129 (above). The Reagan plan envisaged the B-52s serving into the 1990s. 

The end of the Cold War coincided with major technical problems with the Northrop B-2 bomber and public revelation of its high cost. With 100 brand-new B-1s, the Air Force was in a poor position to argue that the B-2 was necessary, and the program was terminated after 21 aircraft had been ordered. Although the B-52G was retired in 1994, the B-52H could still carry more weapons farther than the B-1B, and was retained for both conventional and nuclear missions. Today, the plan is to keep the B-52Hs until they are replaced by the new Long-Range Strike Bomber, in the late 2030s—likely outlasting the B-1. Avionics upgrades continue, and the Air Force has even called for studies of a new engine.