Dayton Kitchens
Banned
The B-52 is a legendary aircraft and there is a huge tendency to wank about it.
Too excess.
The thing that has kept the B-52 going in no small part is that there were so many built to begin with. 744. Remember only 10% of that number flies today.
Compare the B-52 to the B-1B (100 built) after they had both been in service for 20 years.
After 20 years, about 67% of the B-1s were still in service while less than 50% of B-52s were still in service (this was still while the Cold War was raging, early 1980s).
Now people will say "Lots of B-52s were lost in Vietnam".
I would counter that the B-1B was assigned the dangerous, brutal, and very wearing low level missions that really cut into airframe life.
Too excess.
The thing that has kept the B-52 going in no small part is that there were so many built to begin with. 744. Remember only 10% of that number flies today.
Compare the B-52 to the B-1B (100 built) after they had both been in service for 20 years.
After 20 years, about 67% of the B-1s were still in service while less than 50% of B-52s were still in service (this was still while the Cold War was raging, early 1980s).
Now people will say "Lots of B-52s were lost in Vietnam".
I would counter that the B-1B was assigned the dangerous, brutal, and very wearing low level missions that really cut into airframe life.