by Bill Yenne
As reported by Air Force Times, the support of Operation Enduring Freedom by the bombers from Diego Garcia formally came to an end on August 15, 2006, after four years and eleven months—one year and two months longer than the United States was embroiled in World War II.
Iraqi Freedom
In 2003, a year after Operation Anaconda and the difficult fighting in the mountains along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, the United States launched another war in a different, though not unfamiliar, theater of operations. The objective of Operation Iraqi Freedom was to remove Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein from power and to prevent his use or dissemination of chemical and biological weapons. The former objective was achieved, though it was determined after the war that he did not actually possess the latter.
B-52H navigator Capt. Michelle Gillespie of the 40th Expeditionary Bombardment Squadron checks winds over the target area during an April 2003 mission. USAF photo, Sgt. Richard Freeland
First Lieutenant Darrick Mosley, a B-52H copilot with the 40th Expeditionary Bombardment Squadron, checks flight instruments during a mission over Iraq on March 26, 2003. USAF photo, Sgt. Richard Freeland
Airmen prepare B-52Hs and KC-135 Stratotankers at Diego Garcia for an Operation Iraqi Freedom mission on April 9, 2003. USAF photo, Sgt. Janice Cannon
Operation Iraqi Freedom had often been compared to Operation Desert Storm because it took place in the same theater against the same opponent. However, it was a much larger operation, but done with a smaller force. In the earlier conflict, the United States had been joined by a broad Coalition, but in Iraqi Freedom, the United Kingdom and Australia provided the only significant air elements to augment the American presence. The Coalition air power component for Operation Iraqi Freedom was under the control the Combined Force Air Component Commander (CFACC), U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Michael Moseley, who had also directed such operations in Afghanistan.
The U.S. Air Force had more than 4,900 combat aircraft (including 254 B-52s) available at the time of Desert Storm, but only around 2,000 (including 85 B-52s) at the time of Iraqi Freedom. A decade of “peace dividends” had taken a toll.
Iraqi Freedom began on the night of March 19, 2003, with an unsuccessful attempt to kill Saddam Hussein in an F-117A attack. Further air operations, combined with a ground offensive, began the following day. Though Iraq’s air defenses had been somewhat degraded over the previous decade by air attacks associated with the UN-mandated Operations Northern Watch and Southern Watch, Iraq was able to launch more than a thousand SAMs at Allied aircraft as they struck targets around Baghdad, Basra, and elsewhere.
A 40th Expeditionary Bombardment Squadron copilot carefully guides his B-52G into position behind a KC-135 tanker on April 11, 2003. USAF photo, Sgt. Richard Freeland
A solo B-52G from the 40th Expeditionary Bombardment Squadron flies back to Diego Garcia after striking multiple targets deep in Iraqi territory on April 7, 2003. USAF photo, Sgt. Richard Freeland
A B-52H is refueled at RAF Fairford before heading out on its next mission. During Iraqi Freedom, the base was the home of the 457th Air Expeditionary Group. USAF photo, Airman First Class Stacia Willis
A B-52H from the 457th Air Expeditionary Group takes off from RAF Fairford for its one hundredth Iraqi Freedom combat mission on April 11, 2003. USAF
The U.S. Air Force deployed 28 B-52Hs, including six from the Air Force Reserve Command. These aircraft were accompanied by 11 B-1Bs and four B-2As. The BUFFs included those of the 40th Air Expeditionary Wing flying from Diego Garcia, as well as a contingent of fourteen from the 457th Air Expeditionary Group, which included 23rd and 93rd Bombardment Group crews who forward-deployed to RAF Fairford in the United Kingdom on March 3 in anticipation of the operation.
Combat operations in the invasion phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom were short. On April 6, the Coalition declared air supremacy over all of the country, and Baghdad fell to the Coalition three days later. Although counterinsurgency operations would continue for years, major combat—at least by strategic air power—was essentially over within six weeks. Saddam Hussein was finally captured in December, hiding in a “spider hole” near Tikrit.
Statistically, 68 percent of the weapons dropped by the U.S. Air Force were precision- guided weapons, with over half of the latter being a total of 5,086 GBU-31 JDAMs and 7,114 GBU-12 Paveway II laser-guided bombs.
During Iraqi Freedom, some B-52Hs were equipped with the Rafael/Northrop Grumman AN/AAQ-28 Litening II targeting pod. This system incorporates magnifying day-night optics, and a high-resolution forward-looking infrared (FLIR) sensor that displays real-time images, as well as a laser designator. This allows the Stratofortress’s radar-navigator to designate the targets and launch laser-guided munitions without having to depend on a forward air controller to laser designate the target. The 87-inch pod is carried on one of the aircraft’s external stores pylons.
The Litening system originated in 1992 with the Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Missiles Division in Israel. In 1995, Rafael joined with Northrop Grumman to further develop Litening for the American market. The more advanced Litening II was available by 1999.
Litening II was first used by B-52H crews on the night of April 12, 2003, to launch Paveway IIs against Iraqi targets. The use of Litening II by the BUFFs had previously been controversial within the service because many felt that the system to be better suited to tactical aircraft such as the F-16, but objections have been overcome by results.
As in the war in Afghanistan, the ability of the BUFF to spend a great deal of time circling over the target made it an extremely effective ground support platform. As Capt. Patrick McDonald, a radar navigator with the 5th Bombardment Wing at Minot AFB, told Lorenzo Cortes for an article published in Defense Daily on May 9, 2003, “we have a very long loiter time, and, we have a very large arsenal”—an arsenal that ranges from Mk 82 500-pound bombs to the AGM-86C CALCM, both of which were used against Iraq in 2003.
A B-52H flies a routine mission over the Pacific in November 2008 as part of a continuing operation of maintaining a bomber presence in the region. USAF photo, Master Sgt. Kevin Gruenwald
THE MORE THINGS CHANGE, the more they remain the same. Back in the twentieth century, someone joked that the longest-running program at the United States Defense Department was the effort to find a successor for the B-52. In the twenty-first century, this program, or series of programs, is still ongoing with no end in sight.
In the 1960s, there was the XB-70, then the LAMP and AMPSS, which led to the AMSA, which led to the B-1A. In the 1980s, there was the LRCA project, which resulted in the B-1B. None ultimately resulted in a B-52 replacement.
By the twenty-first century, the U.S. Air Force was working on its Next-Generation Bomber program and its 2037 Bomber project. In both, there are discussions of replacing this aircraft we have called venerable for more than a quarter century. Meanwhile, however, the U.S. Air Force has also announced plans to keep the B-52H in service until 2045, more than ninety years after the Stratofortress first became operational.
A New Mothership
Not all of the Stratofortresses still in service at the turn of the century were B-52Hs. Even a decade after the last B-52Gs were being sent to the chopping block or to museums, one B-52B airframe still soldiered on. This aircraft, the oldest operational Stratofortress still flying, was Balls Eight, the ex-RB-52B redesignated as an NB-52B, the carrier aircraft that had served the U.S. Air Force and NASA as the mothership for air-launching a broad range of research aircraft from the X-15 to the X-43A.
On November 16, 2004, Balls Eight flew its last mission, launching the X-43A from 40,000 feet, for a test flight to 110,000 feet at a speed of around Mach 9.6. NASA’s official history of the career of Balls Eight mentions that the aircraft’s “first and last mission launched hypersonic research vehicles, the first being launch of the number one X-15 in 1960.”
Balls Eight was formally retired a month later on December 17, the 101st anniversary of the first Wright Br
others flight. After forty-four years as a mothership, the aircraft remains on display at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards AFB, its home for all those years.
In the meantime, NASA acquired a successor aircraft—a Stratofortress, of course—a B-52H, tail number 61-0025, from the 23rd Bombardment Squadron of the 5th Bombardment Wing at Minot AFB in North Dakota. The aircraft was officially transferred to NASA under the designation NB-52H, but it remained unused for several years after the retirement of Balls Eight in 2004. As mentioned in a NASA press release, “with no research projects requiring its capabilities on the horizon under NASA’s restructured aeronautics research programs, the decision was made to return the [NB-52H] to the Air Force, which intends to use it as a training aid for B-52 ground technicians. Physical transfer of the aircraft is expected to occur in mid-2007.”
The two NASA NB-52s, the new NB-52H at the top and the venerable NB-52B, Balls Eight, at the bottom, are seen here on the ramp at Edwards AFB July 21, 2004. Alan Radecki photo, licensed under the Creative Commons
However, by 2006, ground tests of the Boeing X-51A Waverider unmanned hypersonic scramjet research aircraft were moving forward, and the NB-52H had a renewed purpose. In December 2009, the new mothership carried the X-51A on its first captive flight, mounted on a pylon built by NASA at Dryden. In turn, the aircraft carried the Waverider for its first actual flight, which achieved a speed of Mach 5, on May 26, 2010. The NB-52H flew a second Waverider test mission on June 13, 2011.
Painted overall gloss white, NASA’s NB-52H is expected to be a fixture at Dryden for as long as its fellow B-52Hs serve with the U.S. Air Force.
Continuing Upgrades
In order to keep the B-52H bomber fleet ready for the decades ahead, the early twenty-first century was marked by upgrades, including the Avionics Midlife Improvement (AMI) program. Specifics include the AN/ARC-210 VHF/UHF and AN/ARC-310 high-frequency communications systems. These were subsequently upgraded to NATO Demand Assigned Multiple Access (DAMA) standard, allowing channels to be used by multiple users sequentially and greatly increasing the pool of circuits over a Permanently Assigned Multiple Access (PAMA) system.
An official graphic illustrating twenty-first century upgrades to the B-52H. USAF
Electronic systems upgrades undertaken around the turn of the century included the Harpoon Aircraft Command Launch Control Set (HACLCS), which had been installed in the B-52G in the 1980s, but not in the B-52H until it was adapted to operate with the AGM-84 Harpoon and AGM-84E SLAM. It was subsequently superseded by the Harpoon Stores Management Overlay (SMO).
Ongoing at the time of Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom was the B-52H Situational Awareness Defensive Improvement (SADI) program, under which Lockheed Martin was studying the replacement of the Rivet Ace–era ALR-20A wideband countermeasures receiver and the AN/ALR-46 digital radar warning receiver.
It is a testament to the importance which the B-52H still holds for the U.S. Air Force that many details of the upgrades are still cloaked in secrecy.
Discussions of numerous potential changes continue to be ongoing. One of the major Stratofortress upgrades which has been deliberated on and off since the 1970s has been re-engining. The idea is, essentially, to retrofit the Stratofortress with high-bypass turbofan engines of the type used on modern jetliners such as Boeing’s 747 or 767. Representing newer-generation technology that is now well-established in the airline industry worldwide, these would be much more efficient than the J57 turbojets of the early Stratofortresses or the TF33 turbofans of the B-52H.
The Air Force Flight Test Center NB-52H from Edwards AFB, California, carries the X-51A WaveRider prior to the scramjet’s first hypersonic flight test on March 26, 2010. USAF
A B-52H Stratofortresses taxis to its parking spot at Andersen AFB after landing in February 2004. BUFFs from Minot AFB were deploying to this base to support U.S. Pacific Command’s request for a rotational bomber force on Guam. USAF photo, Sgt. Bennie Davis III
In 1996, Boeing, along with Rolls-Royce, Allison, and American Airlines, submitted an unsolicited proposal to re-engine B-52Hs with four 43,100-pound thrust RB-211-535E4-B turbofans. One each would have replaced each pair of TF33s on the same engine pylons. The resulting aircraft might have been redesignated as “B-52J.” The proposal showed that the new turbofans would increase power and range, while greatly reducing the cost of operation, but the U.S. Air Force declined.
Stephen Trimble reported in Aviation Week in July 2003, that the service was back for another look, this time replacing eight engines with eight, rather than four, high-bypass turbofans.
This proposal was in turn, followed by other studies. Among these was the Task Force on B-52H Re-engining, empaneled in 2004 by Michael Wynne, the Undersecretary for Defense Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics (later Secretary of the Air Force). A year later, the Air Force Agile Combat Support Systems Wing and the Propulsion Systems Squadron at Wright-Patterson AFB undertook the B-52 Propulsion Capability Study. Though fuel cost savings and improved performance were clearly demonstrated, neither project led to the Defense Department being willing or able to fund the cost of such an ambitious undertaking. Additional studies have been, and will continue to be, commissioned.
B-52s in the U.S. Air Force Inventory: Post—Cold War Era
A row of B-52H Stratofortresses from Barksdale AFB and Minot AFB await their next mission, on the flight line at Andersen AFB in February 2007. The different colored tail markings represent the individual squadrons to which each bomber was assigned. USAF photo, Senior Master Sgt. Don Perrien
Total
TAI
PAI
Avgerage Age
Air Force Reserve
1992
148
148
159
31.4
0
1993
136
136
118
32.2
2
1994
85
84
82
32.8
9
1995
85
85
67
33.8
9
1996
85
85
49
34.8
9
1997
85
85
49
35.8
9
1998
85
85
49
36.8
9
1999
85
73
59
37.8
9
2000
85
85
49
38.8
9
2001
85
85
49
39.8
9
2002
84
84
49
40.8
9
2003
85
67
52
41.8
9
2004
84
84
53
42.8
9
2005
85
85
54
43.8
9
2006
85
67
51
44.8
9
2007
85
85
54
45.8
9
2008
67
66
51
46.8
9
2009
68
68
45
47.8
9
2010
74
*
*
48.8
9
TAI: Total Active Inventory—aircraft assigned to operating forces for mission, training, test, or maintenance. Includes primary, backup, and attrition reserve aircraft.
PAI: Primary Aircraft Inventory—aircraft assigned to meet Primary Aircraft Authorization (PAA).
* TAI and PAI data no longer listed.
Source: Air Force Almanac
A B-52H from the 23rd Expeditionary Bombardment Squadron stabilizes during air refueling near Andersen AFB, Guam. USAF photo, Sgt. Patrick Mitchell
Many years after any other aircraft would have been turned out to pasture at Davis-Monthan, the Air Force was still thinking up new duties for the BUFF. In the first decade of the new century, there was a great deal of discussion about adapting it as a radar jamming platform under the designation EB-52H. As Michael Sirak wrote in Jane’s Defence Weekly, on December 11, 2002, “the Air Force wants to equip its B-52H Stratofortress bombers with the capability to jam enemy air defenses. . . The U.S. Air Force is defining the requirements for the airborne electronic attack (AEA) variant of the bomber, which it notionally calls the EB-52H. The aircraft could suppress enemy air-defence capabilities while operating safely outside their range (stand-off jamming), or could lead a strike package over hostile territory (stand-in), and remain there for long periods (stand-on), according to officials in the U.S. Air Force’s Air Combat Command (ACC).”
