Aerospace

Stop Calling The B-52 Bomber ‘Old’ — It’s More Youthful Than A B-2 Stealth Bomber

The U.S. Air Force has asked industry to pitch a new engines for the service’s 76 B-52 bombers. With new motors, the B-52s could keep flying into the 2050s.

Or longer. The youngest B-52 rolled off Boeing’s Wichita production line in 1962. But it’s not fair to call the B-52 a 59-year-old airplane. Very little of any B-52 actually dates to the 1960s. In many ways, a B-52 is “younger” than airplanes from the 1980s and ’90s.

It’s not for no reason that, in 2018, the Air Force announced it would retire its 62 ’80s-vintage B-1Bs bombers and 20 newer B-2 stealth bombers by the 2030s, while retaining the the updated B-52s alongside a fleet of at least 100 new B-21 stealth bombers.