FOR AN AIRCRAFT THAT HAS NEVER BEEN USED FOR ITS INTENDED PURPOSE — raining atomic fire on the former So- viet Union — the venerable B-52 Stratofortress has enjoyed an unusually successful and extensive career. Although its original raison d’être no longer exists, the plane affectionately known to its crews as the BUFF (big ugly fat ... let’s say fellow) flies on, outliving one potential replacement after another.


Born at the inflection point


between the piston and jet ages, the bomber originally was designed as a straight-wing turboprop- powered aircraft. The B-52’s pre- decessor, the jet-propeller hybrid B-36 Peacemaker, had not yet flown when a request for proposals went out to aircraft manufacturers Con- vair, Boeing, and Martin Aircraft Co. in 1946. At the time, the U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF) had its sights set on an even more capable long-range craft. Jet engines of the day weren’t up to the task, and the first proposals weren’t much of an improvement over the Peacemaker, so the USAAF sent designers back to the drawing boards.


64 MILITARY OFFICER APRIL 2017


Boeing’s next iteration was anoth- er turboprop design with swept wings (wings that angle either backward or forward from their root, rather than in a sideways direction), but accord- ing to Bill Yenne in his book B-52 Stratofortress: The Complete History of the World’s Longest Serving and Best Known Bomber (Zenith Press, 2012), Air Force Col. Henry “Pete” Warden told chief engineer George Schairer he needed to “get rid of those propellers.” With the jet-powered B-47 now in the prototype stage, Warden wanted jet engines. The Boeing team asked for a follow-up meeting and was given one — four days hence. Schairer went straight to a hobby shop and bought balsa wood


and other materials before assembling a team of six engineers to brainstorm a new bomber over the weekend.


ijdzİ Ɵĕ ĩú Q The team returned Monday morn-


ing with a radically different design. It traded turboprops for eight newly developed Pratt & Whitney J57-P-3 turbojet engines and 4,000-square- foot wings that would give the air- craft unprecedented range. Like the B-47, the new plane’s engines would be slung in pods under the wings, rather than integrated into the wings themselves as piston engines had been. This served a few purposes, says B-52 pilot Lt. Col. Roy Hodges, USAF (Ret): “It increases stability


PREVIOUS SPREAD, PHOTO ILLUSTRATION: JOHN HARMAN; PHOTO: AIRMAN 1ST CLASS REBECCA IMWALLE, USAF


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