B-52 Stratofortress
By Boeing
The B-52A first flew in 1954 and the B model entered service in 1955. Thus, for more than 40 years, Boeing’s long-range bomber has been the backbone of the U.S. Air Force’s manned strategic bomber force. It has often been said the B-52 was the “Best Bomber ever Built”. With a gross weight of 488,000 lbs., even today, it is one of the heaviest military aircraft operated by any nation in the world. Designed to serve as a high altitude weapons delivery system, the B-52 can carry up to 20 air-to-air launched cruise missiles and successfully delivered conventional cruise missiles during Desert Storm and Operation Allied Force.
Today, only 94 of the B-52s built in the 50s and 60s remain, as in compliance with the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, all the rest had been flown to the “Boneyard” at the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona. These SAC warriors were then stripped of all usable parts and, with some still wearing the “Peace is our Profession” emblem, a modern-day guillotine crashed down on each plane four times. The mighty bombers were reduced to a wingless structure with a fuselage cut into three pieces. This was done in the open desert to enable Russian satellites to confirm the massive bombers had in fact been reduced to 90 tons of junk!
An engineering analysis shows the remaining B-52’s life spans extend beyond the year 2040 when the service life will have been 84 years!