End of The Smoke Trail
—Arie Church
The Air Force expects to have industry proposals in hand by "this summer"
for re-engining the B-52H bomber fleet, according to Air Force Global Strike
Command boss Lt. Gen. Stephen Wilson. In preliminary discussions "almost
every industry engine partner has come forward and said they can give us a
35 percent more fuel-efficient engine," said Wilson at an AFA-sponsored talk
on Capitol Hill on April 21. "What that means is that I can get about 35
percent more range out of the B-52," which already boasts substantial reach,
he said. An added bonus is that a more fuel-efficient B-52 would "use about
a third less" tanker support, said Wilson, allowing high-demand tankers to
reallocate to support other missions. He said initial analysis points to a
one-for-one engine swapout, thus keeping the B-52's eight-engine
configuration instead of moving to four turbofans. "We'd have to do less
modification to other parts of the B-52 to keep an eight-engine variant, so
we are moving forward" under that design assumption, he said.
BTW, TF-33's on H models don't smoke nearly as much as the J-57's on older
B-52's.
Wilton
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