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The B-52 was designed in a hotel room over one weekend

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Re: The B-52 was designed in a hotel room over one weekend

#41

Post by golemotron »

yabones wrote: post #7
runjake wrote: post #3

The first prototype of the B-52 may have been designed in a weekend. The B-52 of today was iteratively designed over decades and the current H models are entirely different planes than earlier models (although structurally very close to the G model). Another HN commenter mentioned GPS being designed over a holiday. But we spent years and years in the military debugging GPS and making it functional. Claiming that some…

It's honestly a fantastic case for incremental improvements over time. There's practically no single part on a modern B-52 that's original to the 1960s since everything has been overhauled and modernized decade by decade. Every attempt to replace it has been (or will be) retired before its EOL.

> It's honestly a fantastic case for incremental improvements over time.

The trick is to design something solid enough to be a good base for incremental improvements over time.

Re: The B-52 was designed in a hotel room over one weekend

#42

Post by alistairSH »

urthor wrote: post #31

Out of the loop, exactly why does the USAF still fly this? Is it really a better alternative to putting some bomb bay doors on a modern Boeing? Without dismissing the entire field of aircraft design... the mind is definitely attracted to the concept of buzzsawing some doors onto the bottom of civilian airliner.

Mainly it's relatively low operating cost compared to modern bombers. Also it's readiness ratio is much higher than anything more modern (75% for B-52 vs 50% for the B-2 Stealth Bomber).

I'm not sure how retrofitting bomb doors (plus any other military requirements) onto a modern wide-body Boeing would be any better than a major refit of an existing B-52. Heck, we can't even build new tankers for in-flight refueling without major fuckups and overruns. A bomber would be worse.

Re: The B-52 was designed in a hotel room over one weekend

#43

Post by larrywright »

thejosh wrote: post #24
runjake wrote: post #3

The first prototype of the B-52 may have been designed in a weekend. The B-52 of today was iteratively designed over decades and the current H models are entirely different planes than earlier models (although structurally very close to the G model). Another HN commenter mentioned GPS being designed over a holiday. But we spent years and years in the military debugging GPS and making it functional. Claiming that some…

One of my favourite (probably misquotes) is "I wrote FAT on an airplane!" from Bill Gates.

It seems likely that this one is true: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20131008-00/?p=30...

Re: The B-52 was designed in a hotel room over one weekend

#44

Post by tyingq »

hef19898 wrote: post #22
closewith wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The B-52 of today was iteratively designed over decades and the current H models are entirely different planes than earlier models (although structurally very close to the G model). The plane was only ever produced for a decade and the H model was last produced in 1963. Obviously it has been retrofitted with new engines, avionics, armaments, etc, but it's not a fundamentally different plane.

If every thing except the overall form of the fuselage is changed it is a new plane.

I don't think that's unusual at all for any jet aircraft that's around for decades. They almost all get new engines, avionics, etc. That the B-52 still has 8 engines is somewhat surprising...that's not terribly desirable.

Re: The B-52 was designed in a hotel room over one weekend

#45

Post by WJW »

urthor wrote: post #31

Out of the loop, exactly why does the USAF still fly this? Is it really a better alternative to putting some bomb bay doors on a modern Boeing? Without dismissing the entire field of aircraft design... the mind is definitely attracted to the concept of buzzsawing some doors onto the bottom of civilian airliner.

You say "putting some bomb bay doors on a modern Boeing" as if that is something that you can just do without redesigning the entire aircraft. Some other the changes you would need:

- Retraining the entire fleet of pilots for the new aircraft.

- Recertifying the entire set of currently available weapons that the B52 can drop.

- Integrating modern military radios/crypto/satcoms/datalinks/etc with the civilian Boeing system.

- Replacing all the spare parts/simulators/ground equipment/etc.

Now these are not unsolvable problems of course; all that gets done every time a new aircraft model is introduced. But there is just not really a need to replace the B52. The main downside is that it's a bit of a gas guzzler, but apart from that the USAF would gain very little in capabilities by replacing the B52 with a modern airplane. It would be very expensive for basically no gain.

Re: The B-52 was designed in a hotel room over one weekend

#46

Post by djmips »

ofrzeta wrote: post #32
yabones wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's honestly a fantastic case for incremental improvements over time. There's practically no single part on a modern B-52 that's original to the 1960s since everything has been overhauled and modernized decade by decade. Every attempt to replace it has been (or will be) retired before its EOL.

Platonic question: is it still a B-52 then? cf. the Ship of Theseus

I think it is but they do rev the sub model number it seems.

Re: The B-52 was designed in a hotel room over one weekend

#47

Post by geodel »

ofrzeta wrote: post #32
yabones wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's honestly a fantastic case for incremental improvements over time. There's practically no single part on a modern B-52 that's original to the 1960s since everything has been overhauled and modernized decade by decade. Every attempt to replace it has been (or will be) retired before its EOL.

Platonic question: is it still a B-52 then? cf. the Ship of Theseus

I mean in this case yes. Since it is a brand and not a single B-52 physical plane which is being improved all these years.

Re: The B-52 was designed in a hotel room over one weekend

#48

Post by dghlsakjg »

urthor wrote: post #31

Out of the loop, exactly why does the USAF still fly this? Is it really a better alternative to putting some bomb bay doors on a modern Boeing? Without dismissing the entire field of aircraft design... the mind is definitely attracted to the concept of buzzsawing some doors onto the bottom of civilian airliner.

The most obvious reason you can’t do that is that modern airliners have pressurized fuselages.

The other answer would be that they would have to expend a huge engineering effort and am mount of money to end up with an aircraft that does what the b-52 already does.

Re: The B-52 was designed in a hotel room over one weekend

#50

Post by nradov »

tyingq wrote: post #44
hef19898 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If every thing except the overall form of the fuselage is changed it is a new plane.

I don't think that's unusual at all for any jet aircraft that's around for decades. They almost all get new engines, avionics, etc. That the B-52 still has 8 engines is somewhat surprising...that's not terribly desirable.

The Air Force considered replacing the 8 engines with 4 more powerful ones. However, they determined that the loss of one of those engines on take-off would cause a dangerous thrust asymmetry. Dealing with that would have required more extensive changes like moving the engine mounts, so they dropped the idea. But they are going to replace the engines with newer models.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/42517/rolls-royce-will...

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