B524EVA

"Just Jeepin'" (macintux)
06/21/2020 at 14:31 • Filed to: Planelopnik

GE is proposing to keep the B-52 flying for the rest of the century.

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DISCUSSION (11)

KingT- 60% of the time, it works every time > Just Jeepin'
06/21/2020 at 14:35

147 years! It would be a literal flying relic

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > Just Jeepin'
06/21/2020 at 14:36

I have George Washington’s hatchet. It’s on its third head, but the handle’s only been replaced once.

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > KingT- 60% of the time, it works every time
06/21/2020 at 14:38

A really, really lethal flying relic...

Turbineguy: Nom de Zoom > Just Jeepin'
06/21/2020 at 14:50

Knowing what it’ll cost to repower the fleet plus all the other mission equipment and electronics upgrades, they want to get their money’s worth. What’s cool about this is there are current BUFF pilots that are flying the same planes their dads flew. Soon it’ll include grandfather s.

atfsgeoff > Turbineguy: Nom de Zoom
06/21/2020 at 15:00

Already happening.

boredalways > Just Jeepin'
06/21/2020 at 15:08

Hot take: Easiest way to secure a constant flow of profit, especially when their commercial arm is suffering due to the 737MAX.

facw > Just Jeepin'
06/21/2020 at 15:47

Seems like a bad idea to me. Even after being re-engined these will be costly to maintain and fly for what they do. If you really want a bomber that’s only useful in permissive space, better to just see if you can make a KC-46 variant with bomb bays.

Roadkilled > Just Jeepin'
06/21/2020 at 16:22

The idea of having critical systems designed in the 50s and built in the 60s is crazy. That would be like a state trying to run its unemployment system off of computers of the same age!

What? You mean there are still jobs for COBOL programmers?

Distraxi's idea of perfection is a Jagroen > Roadkilled
06/21/2020 at 18:21

Given that the DoD purchasing system MOCAS is literally the oldest computer program still in servi c e (COBOL was created to build it), it’s entirely possible that the main problem here is there’s nobody left alive who kn ows *how* to move the B52 into obsolete status .

ranwhenparked > Just Jeepin'
06/21/2020 at 19:17

So, all those science fiction movies and novels where advanced extraterrestrials have technology that barely changes in a century because it reached a plateau of some sort isn’t that silly of a concept, since we’re kind of there in aircraft, at least in certain applications. We’ve also got airliners from the 1960s, and helicopters and transport planes from the 1950s still being built new on the assembly line, and some airliners from the 1930s still in use as cargo planes, and the Russians are still using 1960s spacecraft. There is a certain logic to the whole if it ain’t broke/don’t fix it mentality, if what you have is doing the job perfectly fine and there’s no real sign of being hopelessly outgunned by anyone else with something newer.

To that extent though, I do wonder if North Korea’s 1950s vintage MiG-21s are really still at par with the latest stuff in Japan and South Korea’s inventories.

Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. > Roadkilled
06/24/2020 at 15:24

Years ago, when I worked for SGS (Satellite Ground Systems) at Hughes Aircraft, we had a computer room that looked like museum. Unlike a personal computer, where you frequently update and replace software, in SGS you don’t change a thing and run a computer for the life of the bird (10-15 years) no matter how old it gets . We kept around these ancient systems just in case a flaw was discovered in the ground system and we needed to reproduce/repair it, and de commissioned them only when the satellite(s) that used that was/were no longer in service.

Finding a programmer to look at and fix the old code? That could be a challenge, but thankfully these were single-purpose systems with a ton of testing and very solid code.