The Air Force Is Eyeing B-52s It Already Scrapped
Middle East operations and a thinning bomber fleet have planners weighing whether to resurrect Stratofortresses from Davis-Monthan's boneyard.
By The Defense Desk
The U.S. Air Force is considering pulling retired B-52 Stratofortresses back into service from Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona — the desert graveyard where divested aircraft go to wait out eternity — driven in part by the demands of operations in the Middle East. [1]
Col. Timothy Spaulding, the Air Force's portfolio acquisition executive for bombers, made the remarks in a media roundtable at the Life Cycle Industry Days conference in Dayton, Ohio, adding that it was more of a "maybe" consideration for planners. "That's not a necessarily easy thing to do, and there's some limitation to how far you might go on that number," he said. [1]
The Air Force's bomber fleet — the Eisenhower-era B-52, the B-1 Lancer, and the B-2 Spirit — has been in high demand, with the current operational B-52 inventory sitting at 76 aircraft. [1] Regenerating boneyard jets is not without precedent: a mothballed B-52H returned to service in 2016, and a second followed in 2021. [1]
The calculus is complicated by a program already under strain. The Air Force plans to keep the B-52H flying at least until the 2050s by modernizing the fleet with a new radar and updated engines — an effort that, when finished, will redesignate the aircraft as the B-52J. The bomber's Radar Modernization Program suffered a tragic setback on June 15, when a test aircraft crashed shortly after takeoff at Edwards Air Force Base in California, killing all eight crew on board. [1] Col. Spencer Turner, the B-52 system program manager, said a second aircraft is undergoing modifications expected to be completed this year, but noted that "we need to look at our schedule and adjust as necessary." [1]
There is something telling about a military reckoning with scarcity by turning back toward what it had already discarded. The future of strategic airpower is being written, it seems, partly in the past.
The B-52 fleet was not grounded following the crash. [1]