Wouldn't be better if this was upgraded with bigger engines?

Instead of 8 tiny jet engines, why not use 4 turbofan engines?
The fuel consumption would drop, the range would increase.
It would also be more reliable and cheaper to operate.

250 Piece Survival Gear First Aid Kit

LifeStraw Water Filter for Hiking and Preparedness

250 Piece Survival Gear First Aid Kit

  1. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Those wings won't take larger pods without risking runway debris suction

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Mostly this. The engines make good power for their size. Blade diameters are only about 4'. Going to single engines of similar thrust would involve a significant increase in blade diameter / engine height, which brings them to close to the ground. And it isn't just a matter of 'throwing a single engine on the pylon'. This has been investigated, and wind modifications would be required, which involves A) huge engineering project, B) taking the aircraft off the line for several months before they can be recertified.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        So, basically they screwed with the original design.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          No, it was designed with that days technology and this was the design they came up with. Just because we have better materials today doesn't make people moronic from the past.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        There's also the issue of rudder authority. The B-52 has a notoriously weak rudder, so one engine out of 4 shitting out is worse than one engine out of 8 weaker ones doing the same.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Mostly this. The engines make good power for their size. Blade diameters are only about 4'. Going to single engines of similar thrust would involve a significant increase in blade diameter / engine height, which brings them to close to the ground. And it isn't just a matter of 'throwing a single engine on the pylon'. This has been investigated, and wind modifications would be required, which involves A) huge engineering project, B) taking the aircraft off the line for several months before they can be recertified.

      Not true.
      They could do like the 737 MAX did and have them mounted far forward so they can clear above the wing.
      Could easily have 4 engines that provide the same or more power without coming down any lower that way.

      Apparently the engines already had to be thrust limited for takeoff. More power wouldn't confer any benefits, and using 8 engines in the original pods means you don't have to do an insane amount of engineering work to create new pylons.

      The engine selected was already in the DOD maintenance system (in a bizjet used for official transport)

      The point would be great efficiency.
      Larger turbofans are far more efficient.

      Pretty sure the B-52's are getting new Rolls-Royce engines to keep the going until the 2050's.

      Yep. They're already getting new engines to fit into the current cowlings which is stupid but whatever.

      was already evalued by usaf, their conclusion was that it was not economically worth.
      you save X amount of fuel and maintenance money for each hours of fly, but they don't fly enought to repay the cost of purchasing the new engines.

      That was a dumb decision probably brought on by thinking they'd be retired by 2020 instead of flying until 2050.

      https://i.imgur.com/1INwt8r.jpg

      >just slap new engines on it and call it a day, what could go wrong?

      That is a software issue.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        bro I don't know what you wanted from this thread, you got an incorrect idea in your head and you don't want to accept that the USAF doesn't agree.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        They decided to stick with upgrading the 8 engines instead of moving to 4 new ones because 4 would require a redesign of half the control surfaces and the software to fly the thing.

        When you're using nearly identical size engines that simply have some nice performance and efficiency enhancements, it's a lot easier to just pop those in and be done with the upgrade.

        $2.6B vs probably $3.5B if not a lot more.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Another billion to upgrade 50+ B-52 would have been worth it.
          Compare that cost to a few F-35s and their maintenance.

  2. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    The way I heard it described, moving to four engines would effect the emergency handling characteristics in a way they couldn't easily compensate for. I think they're moving to 8 new engines though. More power, better MPGs.

  3. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    BUFF is fine

  4. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >just slap new engines on it and call it a day, what could go wrong?

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      pajeet coding

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Literally this.
        This is what happens when the accounting department overrules and runs the engineering department.
        Every outsourced IT project I've been involved in over the last 15 years has been a complete and total shit show.
        Pajeets and third-worlders can't code for shit. Their code is bloated and error prone and forget any sort of comments in the code.
        Boeing deserves every bit of backlash, fines, loss of business, etc. for their poor management decisions trying to save a buck.
        Outsourced work never saves money or time. And never results in a "just as good or better" product.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          >deserves every bit of backlash, fines, loss of business
          And nothing will happen to them. They are basically part of the government now, same way airbus is part of EU government. They'll throw a few execs under the bus, get some fines that will be absorbed in the next fed contract they get and people who fricked up will get a raise.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          >be me
          >turd worlder
          >get a tech job with whitlabel outsourcing company
          >manager is completely moronic only thing he can do is police time theft
          >get paid $2.8/h
          >no one actually checks my code they just check if the basic functions work
          >assume anyone hiring us can't afford any better
          >I can do whatever the frick I want as long as the code meets basic functions
          >put a bunch of moronic jokes in comments
          >no actual useful comments
          >no sanity checks
          >got praised for making HR software that allowed anonymous website visitors to upload .exe files directly onto the HR shared directory thru the hiring form
          >no rate limits either, anyone could POST spam the website and take down both the web server and HR
          I could've done better but with everyone around me being moronic, getting paid peanuts and micromanaged to hell. I just got resentful and started sabotaging anyone who hired us by setting up code that's full of security flaws and completely unmaintainable. I don't feel bad about it either.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            If if makes you feel better you just described my job and I'm american, and our cost of living is probably on par.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            if you do that in full consciousness it's just based, tbh.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Honestly I support this. Great work, anon. Teach those corporate frickers a lesson for me.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          I'd say there's two main poor decisions why boeing made a plane that liked to nosedive into the ground twice and kill 300+ people and neither have anything to do with pajeets and quality control:
          >the system ran off only one aoa sensor unless airlines bought an addon that boeing and the FAA approved
          >the software was modified by boeing engineers to be something like 20x stronger
          heads should have rolled but instead boeing doubles down on regulatory entrapment by moving its hq to washington which happens to be as far from its actual manufacturing plants as it gets

          No, it's a fundamentally bad and unnecessarily unstable design because shitty management was too cheap to invest in an actual new modern airframe.

          THE reason mcas was implemented was so it would cover up the flight differences in the new heavily modified model so it would not require retraining in a simulator so it would save money for the paper pushers

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Diversity is our strength you fricking CHUD biggot. There NEEDS to be poc in ALL fields regardless of effectiveness or safety

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        No, it's a fundamentally bad and unnecessarily unstable design because shitty management was too cheap to invest in an actual new modern airframe.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Nah it's the managers and whatnot cutting corners and outsourcing to pajeets. The design that came from American Boeing was moronic in the first place.

  5. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    literally the only thing they could do to make this plane better is somehow give it more bombs to carry

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      A 777 can carry more payload than a B-52.
      A B-52 can't even carry anything if it's fully fueled. It needs to be mid-air refueled to take off with a bomb load.
      A 777 can carry more with a full fuel load than a B-52 can, period.

      Just put bomb bay doors on a 777.

  6. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Wow, surely no one has thought of this in the last 70 years of on going evaluations of the platform. Send an email to the Secretary of the Air Force bro, maybe you'll get the Medal of Freedom

  7. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    the whole plane has a special shioulette makes it harder to spot. smaller turbines also could produce less noise.

  8. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Apparently the engines already had to be thrust limited for takeoff. More power wouldn't confer any benefits, and using 8 engines in the original pods means you don't have to do an insane amount of engineering work to create new pylons.

    The engine selected was already in the DOD maintenance system (in a bizjet used for official transport)

  9. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Can't they use one F-35 engine to replace two of those? I wouldn't doubt it can produce the same power output.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      The F135 is a low-bypass afterburning turbofan. It produces slightly more than twice the thrust of the TP33-P-3, but the TP33 is a high-bypass engine with very different operational parameters. Reengineering for them would be even more of a nightmare than going to a single high-bypass engine per pylon.

  10. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Look how close to the ground the outboard engines are.

  11. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    The tale section control surfaces were designed with 8 small engines in mind. 4 large engines will require redesign of the entire tail section and defeats the point of keeping it in service at minimum cost. Therefore it was decided that upgrading the existing engines but keeping 8 small ones was the best way to go.

  12. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    retro fit engines on a BUFF what could go wrong

  13. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    The entire vertical stabilizer on the B-52 was origninally supposed to rotate.

    they realized that was a dumb idea but instead of designing a proper rudder they said the full steering landing gear would make up for the lack of authority on landing.

    The tiny rudder also means that it has trouble accounting for asymmeteric thrust if an engine went out. With 8 smaller engines this isn't as much of a problem but if it only had 4 larger ones it's possible the rudder wouldn't be able to keep the plane flying straight while maintaining enough speed to not fall out of the sky

    https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/59630/why-does-the-b-52-have-such-a-tiny-rudder

  14. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    They tried.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      UOHHHH

  15. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Pretty sure the B-52's are getting new Rolls-Royce engines to keep the going until the 2050's.

  16. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Didn't the USAF just buy like $2.5B worth of B-52 engines last year??

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      B-52s are being re-engine with Rolls-Royce F130s

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        americans cant even make engines anymore
        very sad!

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Pretty sure the assembly of the engines will be done at the Indianopolis plant. Think is, these megacorps like Rolls-Royce, BAE, Rheinmetal, General Dynamics, aren't really British/German/American anymore. They are more just 'western', they have subsidiaries everywhere

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          >he doesn't know about how the MIC spreads their facilities across constituencies like a cancer to ensure people lose jobs if funding is ever cut

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Yeah, they apparently thought about moving from 8 to 4, but decided to stick with 8.

  17. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    https://www.airforcemag.com/article/new-power-for-the-b-52/

    https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2022/4/4/boeing-gears-up-to-replace-b-52-engines

    https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/b-52-stratofortress-getting-new-rolls-royce-engine-201151

    Took way too long to get new engines imho

  18. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    was already evalued by usaf, their conclusion was that it was not economically worth.
    you save X amount of fuel and maintenance money for each hours of fly, but they don't fly enought to repay the cost of purchasing the new engines.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >you save X amount of fuel and maintenance money for each hours of fly, but they don't fly enought to repay the cost of purchasing the new engines.
      The problem with these studies is that they always select a stupid timeline.
      >B-52 is scheduled to be retired 10 years from now
      >re-engining the B-52 won't save enough money to justify the cost over a 10 year outlook
      >USAF proceeds to fly the B-52 for 50 more years
      This happens every ten years.
      You also see it the other way, where they say that over some 50 year timescale doing something will save money, but then they stop doing that thing three years later when the new president rolls in.

  19. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    It's an ancient piece of shit that has lived well past its natural life. They need to replace it with a low cost airliner derivative.

Leave a Reply to Anonymous Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *