Sorin B-52 Stratofortress Page

Boeing B-52 Stratofortress

The B-52 Stratofortress is around since the 1950s, and the american authorities and USAF are saying that it's still going to be around until 2040.
Personally, I think that that's definitely and exaggeration, because in the year 2020, aircraft like F-22 Raptor and Boeing-Sikorsky RAH-66 Comanche will retire, and is impossible that B-52 could survive until 2040, when is very likely to have some very strange flying devices and machines around. I believe that it will be available in action only until 2010 or maximum 2020. However, you can never tell... ;)

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B52 Stratofortress has 8 powerful jet engines, and except a lot of bombs and missiles that it carries in its bomb-bays, it can also carry payload on its wings, as you can see in the picture above.
The Boeing B52 Stratofortress was intensely used in Koreea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodgia, and in almoust every conflict since it appeared. Having this baby flying in 2040 will make it the longest aircraft ever from the usage point of view, with almoust 100 years !!!
With those 8 jet engines, the huge B52 Stratofortress takes-off to bomb the hack out of enemy forces. This is a classical image, since the 1950s and probably until the 2040s.
The first versions carries 13.5t of payload, usualy unguided versions.
Making a carpet of bombs was its mission, and it was doing it like no other. However, in the 1980s and 1990s, modern guidence systems are applied to almoust every bomb dropped in any conflict, and random bombing is nowadays considered as wasting endless tones of ammunition, by making useless victims and damaging other targets or people that are neutral. Precision bombing is the word of the 90s, so the newer B52s carry today laser-guided and GPS-guide bombs, as well as cruise missiles, the most know of which are the Tomahawk missiles.
B52 Stratofortresses were used by the military in the 1960s and 1970s by the US Nuclear Strategic Air Command, with the mission to erase from the face of the Earth the Soviet Union, China, North Koreea and Eastern Europe.
However, they were replaced by B1B Lancer long-range strategic nuclear bombers in the early 1970s.
The Big Belly version of the B52 has an huge 35t payload, which if dropped with conventional bombs, it forms a carpet 5 km long and 3 km wide.
B52G Stratofortresses were intensely used in the Gulf War in 1991, Operation desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm, also they saw action over Bosnia-Herzegovina throughout the 1990s, and in 1998, some B52 arrived in bases from Italy, to put a pshichological pressure on the serbs to retriet from Kosovo.
B52H Stratofortresses were used in Operation Desert Fox, between the 17th and the 20th of December, 1998 in Iraq, and they will probably see many other operations, as the mondial political and military situation is filled with crisises and political misstrust and hate.

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B-52s readied for possible deployment to gulfU.S. Air Force Photo
Senior Airmen David Medley and Airman 1st Class Christopher Swan, weapons load team members from the 23rd Bomber Squadron Minot Air Force Base, N.D., attach an air cart to a missile loaded B-52 aircraft. Senior Airmen Medley, Airman 1st Class Swan and other team members of the 23rd Bomber Squadron are preparing the B52's at Fairchild AFB, Wash., for possible involvement in the Middle East confrontation. (Photo by Airman 1st Class Gina Prescott, Fairchild AFB, Wash.)

17 november 1998

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For some bombers, history speaks more than the words of an enthuziast on a page... If you'd like to see more pictures, go to the US Air Force

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