Why do I find the idea of environmentally friendly B52's so humorous?
I don't know but I have doubts. The original C141As were actually able to haul more weight that they could fit in them. So they stretched them all to utilize their load carrying ability. Now it's possible that the fatigue over the years did exactly what you're saying and that it was just too expensive a proposition to rebuild them, but they were workhorses.
The B52 parts that we quoted were uber simple, just quite large and numerous. I suspect that rebuilding them is a much simpler proposition due to the age of the design and that maybe Boeing thought of maintenance when they designed it, but those are just a guesses on my part.
It's just a sad state of affairs to even think of a Buff not trailing 8 black lines!
I only flew on the G model that had the water injected J57 engine. Definitely left a smoke trail on takeoff.
Agreed, it was a work horse, but I think it's use as a work horse aggravated the situation. I flew all over the world on them, but in the late 90's my unit was directed to stop using them (or more precisely, told we would not be able to use them) for domestic missions in order to help decrease the workload being placed on that air frame. We started exclusively using C-17's and C-5's for overseas missions around that time too. This GAO report speaks to some of the air frame stress issues I remember being kicked around in the late 90's. https://www.gao.gov/assets/160/152847.pdf (the report is about Desert Storm, but touches on the discovered issues).
Excerpt:
"However, another critical factor was the discovery in 1989 of generalized random cracking in the wings that has been attributed to the added stress on the aircraft’s structure encountered during certain types of missions. In April 1991, an Air Force study group completed a wing crack assessment and concluded that the C-141 was operating beyond an acceptable level of risk for military aircraft. Although the group also noted that ongoing inspections and repairs had temporarily reduced the risk of catastrophic failure, the level of risk still exceeded acceptable standards for military aircraft. As a result, most of the C-141s have been operating under weight and mission restrictions."
So, in the end, the cost to keep that heavily used air frame in service was too high to justify with the C-17 on the horizon.
Yes all the time
That was an interesting read. I love the part about them delaying the upgrades on some to extend the service life to 45K flight hours until about 45K hours. BRILLIANT! And not surprising in the least. And the IG wanting a study to go to 60K hours, then the AF saying, "nah we're gonna scrap 'em" was comical. Just got to love congress!
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