Unbuilt B-52s

Indeed:

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rb52b%20tailgun.jpg
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I wonder if it was for a wider dispersion of shot?
 
Hood said:
I wonder if it was for a wider dispersion of shot?
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According to:

10216471._UY630_SR1200,630_.jpg


"The MD-5 FCS and twin-cannon installation was also adopted as standard equipment on the remaining 17 RB-52Bs and 16 B-52Bs ... However, this eventually proved to offer no real improvement by virtue of possessing more than its fair share of defects. In consequence, the last seven B-52Bs...reverted to the original armament package of four machine guns in conjunction with a version of the A-3A FCS that had supposedly been 'perfected'.
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OK - here is something I had put together about the various re-engining proposals over the years:

The 1980s proposal for 4 airliner-type-engines was indeed in response to a USAF request... but it was a feasibility study, not a formal plan for re-engining.

That engineering work showed that with 4 engines the loss of one of the outer ones during take-off would produce enough assymetric thrust that the aircraft would yaw severely, so that the control surfaces would not be able to compensate, and structural failure* and loss of control would cause a crash (with 8 engines the chances of simultaneous loss of both in the same outer pod was much lower than the odds of losing even a modern engine).

Then there was the wing structure - remember that it is thin and rather flexible.

The thrust axis would be further from the wing (lower), thus increasing the lever-forces produced on the pylons, twisting the leading edge of the wing up, causing the wingtips to stall much sooner (at a higher speed) than the aircraft is designed for... making it much less safe during takeoff even without an engine failure.

The answer to #1 & #2 would be to design & build a new wing - and modify the vertical tail as well )... heading right for "jack up the nameplate and roll a new airframe under it" territory.


In the 1990s the subject again came up within the USAF, with the F118 (the engine going in the B-2s) seeming a perfect candidate (same size, weight, & thrust as the TF33 with 2/3 the fuel usage, far greater reliability, and much lower maintenance cost) - except that the C-141s were retiring en-mass, freeing up all of their TF33s and parts, therefore bringing maintenance costs of the B-52Hs' TF33s down below what would justify re-engining.


Now we are to the point the TF33s are all really worn, and the parts surplus has been used... making re-engining finally cost-effective, especially with current fuel prices.



* In the B-52's early years excessive yaw had torn the vertical tail off several B-52s, with only one crew surviving, they managed to maintain control and land it! There have been a couple of recent airliner crashes where excessive side-forces on the vertical tail has broken it off the aircraft, resulting in an immediate crash.

The only B-52 to survive vertical tail failure:


B-52 broken tail1.jpg B-52 broken tail2.jpg
 
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Probably you should save it for a late edition ;)

@BlackBat242 : the new pylons included in the Re-engining program are extending further forward and up to take what you described so well into account.
 

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Was personally hoping the modernized B-52 bombers were approached more like airborne Navy Missile Frigates. Standardize the engines with other units in the greater large body fleet. Standardize equipment from other programs rather than using stuff designed solely for it. Focus on weapons utility rather than on the sheer number of a single weapon type. But also give it teeth for self-defense.

I was rooting for the USAF to convert the B-52s to a pair of F117-100's or F138-100's to give it more than enough thrust. Add extra fuel in a cobra hood-like LERX-wing extension that doubles as an extra wing stabilizer. Bring back the 2,498 imperial gallon wing tanks. You also need ballast where the outer twin-engine pods were before, so integrate pods that act as low-drag weapons bays into those areas. Get rid of that huge vertical tail that serves as an extra wide radar blocker by re-imagining the tail with lower-profile H-tails (like on the An-225) and integrate Passive Airborne Warning System (PAWS) into each side of the vertical components to leverage components from other programs like the F-16. You enjoy great undisturbed visual fields in those areas. Speaking of jammers, each rudder lower edge should dual-serve as a pylon attachment point where you can integrate things like NGJ or for carrying extra bombs. Probably would have to test things like that as they would shift your center of gravity around.

You need maximum battlespace management so an F-22A derived MAWS or F-35 derived EODAS I believe is critical for modern threat survival. B-52 should enjoy some sort of an integrated targeting pod/EOTS, too. The new radar is nice, but also to put a modern AESA radar facing to the back so you can use them as 360º FOV jammers when necessary, too. Ditch the gun mounts in back as the radar is much more valuable. If anything is mounted to shoot from the tail, add back the M61 cannon with either laser-designated shells or computer-based aiming against rearward threats. DIRCM stations ventral and dorsal are no brainers. They at first were to have received the large aircraft infrared countermeasures (LAIRCM) packages, but changed the definition of the mission to avoid the expense. If not DIRCM integration then at minimum add them back as standard. I would also want to be able to scout using tomahawks or stealth cruise missiles that could fly ahead as drones to probe defenses or perform reconnaissance. Bonus if the B-52s could pop-off several self-defense AAM's from either vertical or horizontal canisters integrated/mounted into the fuselage to defend against interceptors and SAMs. Sort of an air-based standard missile defense, only using lock-on after-launch versions of the AMRAAM or AIM-9X. B-52J is getting AMRAAM, I'm just advocating a low-drag loadout. You have about 488,000 pounds of takeoff weight to work with, so be creative. Surprisingly you can far exceed half a million pounds once airborne and at altitude. The maximum weight isn't the limits of the wing or engines, its the limits of your landing gear and on fuselage at touchdown.
 
MadRat said:
Was personally hoping the modernized B-52 bombers were approached more like airborne Navy Missile Frigates. Standardize the engines with other units in the greater large body fleet. Standardize equipment from other programs rather than using stuff designed solely for it. Focus on weapons utility rather than on the sheer number of a single weapon type. But also give it teeth for self-defense.

I was rooting for the USAF to convert the B-52s to a pair of F117-100's or F138-100's to give it more than enough thrust. Add extra fuel in a cobra hood-like LERX-wing extension that doubles as an extra wing stabilizer. Bring back the 2,498 imperial gallon wing tanks. You also need ballast where the outer twin-engine pods were before, so integrate pods that act as low-drag weapons bays into those areas. Get rid of that huge vertical tail that serves as an extra wide radar blocker by re-imagining the tail with lower-profile H-tails (like on the An-225) and integrate Passive Airborne Warning System (PAWS) into each side of the vertical components to leverage components from other programs like the F-16. You enjoy great undisturbed visual fields in those areas. Speaking of jammers, each rudder lower edge should dual-serve as a pylon attachment point where you can integrate things like NGJ or for carrying extra bombs. Probably would have to test things like that as they would shift your center of gravity around.

You need maximum battlespace management so an F-22A derived MAWS or F-35 derived EODAS I believe is critical for modern threat survival. B-52 should enjoy some sort of an integrated targeting pod/EOTS, too. The new radar is nice, but also to put a modern AESA radar facing to the back so you can use them as 360º FOV jammers when necessary, too. Ditch the gun mounts in back as the radar is much more valuable. If anything is mounted to shoot from the tail, add back the M61 cannon with either laser-designated shells or computer-based aiming against rearward threats. DIRCM stations ventral and dorsal are no brainers. They at first were to have received the large aircraft infrared countermeasures (LAIRCM) packages, but changed the definition of the mission to avoid the expense. If not DIRCM integration then at minimum add them back as standard. I would also want to be able to scout using tomahawks or stealth cruise missiles that could fly ahead as drones to probe defenses or perform reconnaissance. Bonus if the B-52s could pop-off several self-defense AAM's from either vertical or horizontal canisters integrated/mounted into the fuselage to defend against interceptors and SAMs. Sort of an air-based standard missile defense, only using lock-on after-launch versions of the AMRAAM or AIM-9X. B-52J is getting AMRAAM, I'm just advocating a low-drag loadout. You have about 488,000 pounds of takeoff weight to work with, so be creative. Surprisingly you can far exceed half a million pounds once airborne and at altitude. The maximum weight isn't the limits of the wing or engines, its the limits of your landing gear and on fuselage at touchdown.
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Ok Dale Brown.
 
Dale Brown would be speaking from experience.

en.wikipedia.org

Dale Brown - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

Military​

Brown joined the Air Force ROTC while in college.[5] He received a commission in the United States Air Force in 1978. He was a navigator-bombardier (now known as a weapon systems officer (WSO)) in the B-52G Stratofortress long-range heavy bomber and the FB-111A Aardvark medium range fighter-bomber.

Brown received several military decorations and awards, including the Air Force Commendation Medal, the Combat Crew Award, and the Marksmanship ribbon. He rose to the rank of Captain and has 2,500 hours of flight time in B-52s.[5]

He left the Air Force in 1986, having never seen combat.[6] He is a Life Member of the Air Force Association and the U.S. Naval Institute.
 
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!

Alrighty then. Stepping away from the keyboard.
 
Learning to navigate and operate a bombing system somehow doesn't mean that his ideas for hand-waved major airframe changes are feasible.
 
BlackBat242 said:
Learning to navigate and operate a bombing system somehow doesn't mean that his ideas for hand-waved major airframe changes are feasible.
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Yeah, his B-52 mods were definitely mostly fantasy -- all the toys he wished he'd had to play with -- rather than anything plausible.
 
TomS said:
Yeah, his B-52 mods were definitely mostly fantasy -- all the toys he wished he'd had to play with -- rather than anything plausible.
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Not entirely uncommon when talking to former (or even current) military personnel about new equipment. There are two main responses. One is to sound like a defence firm's sales catalogue with all the gee-whiz kit, the other is to ask for something just like what they trained on but fixed up a bit.

The two aren't incompatible, by the way.
Byeman said:
Not really. He wasn't an engineer and he didn't see combat.
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Combat experience might be useful for forming an opinion on what equipment you'd like to go to war with, but it's not necessarily useful for forming an opinion on what equipment is actually technically feasible.

It may also be detrimental to forming an opinion on what equipment would be beneficial; the obvious example here is that recce pilots often want self-defence armament, but unarmed recce aircraft are actually more likely to survive to bring their take back to base.
 
Yellow Palace said:
Not entirely uncommon when talking to former (or even current) military personnel about new equipment. There are two main responses. One is to sound like a defence firm's sales catalogue with all the gee-whiz kit, the other is to ask for something just like what they trained on but fixed up a bit.
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Or the "wouldn't it be cool if (weapon X) could do (Y)" cases...

Which do seem to have been implemented in the Block 4 and 5 Tomahawks, and a few other systems.

"Wouldn't it be cool if we had a 2-way data link with the Block 4?"
Yeah, we can do that.
"Wouldn't it be cool if we could burn up some of that crazy range of the Block 4 by using that 2-way data link as a drone?"
Yeah, we can do that.

Turning the old AIM-9C SARH seekers into ARMs? Yeah, we can do that.
Using an AIM-9 as a heat seeking air-to-ground missile? Yeah, we can do that.
 
Scott Kenny said:
SIOP bombardier-navigator, IIRC. Which means he got as close to combat as you can get without someone starting shooting back at you.
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Not really. He did nuclear missions and got nowhere near an enemy and didn't do conventional weapons.
 
Foo Fighter said:
I found 10 lost aircrew during chrome dome alone and lost marriages etc count too. No idea the total human cost of those years but, we all owe these air and ground crews.
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There's a reason that the VFW accepts the US Navy's Strategic Deterrent Patrol pin as a "foreign war" medal.
 
Byeman said:
Not really. He did nuclear missions and got nowhere near an enemy and didn't do conventional weapons.
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That statement is unsupported conjecture. You like to play contrarian in this forum and its a bit of a nuisance. You really have no idea about the actual man otherwise you wouldn't have brought him into the topic.
 
MadRat said:
That statement is unsupported conjecture. ........... You really have no idea about the actual man otherwise you wouldn't have brought him into the topic.
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Wrong. There were no conflicts during his time in the service. And from his books, it is easy to know he is not an engineer. Silver Tower was just plain nonsense.
You like to play contrarian in this forum and its a bit of a nuisance.
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Too bad, just deal with it. If somebody is posting nonsense, I am going to call it out.
 
I have a question, was there concepts that has parasite fighters or defense missiles on the B-52?
 
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OPERATION DREAMLAND said:
I have a question, was there concepts that has parasite fighters or defense missiles on the B-52?
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Haven't read anything about parasite fighters, but IIRC the Falcon missile family was originally intended to be a bomber defensive missile in the tail. Not sure if that was for the B-36 or B-52, though.
 

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