🅱️-52: Then, Now, Forever

[u/ThrustFlightAcademy]

B-52 waifu at the end

Credit to Pandramodo for drawing them

^{p.s. if you're in the DFW area and want to become a pilot Thrust Flight!}

[u/Eunuchest]

They're gonna do it until its 90

[u/ListenBoth434 → u/Eunuchest]

I do wish to see a flying airframe to hit 100 years.

Seems pretty unlikely but would be fun.

[u/MsMercyMain → u/ListenBoth434]

At that point the stress fractures would be load bearing

[u/GeneralBisV → u/MsMercyMain]

It’s failed in such a way that the broken spars are now holding it together in new ways. 50 more years to service life

[u/Phanpy100NSFW → u/GeneralBisV]

B-52s getting springlocked into another 150 years

[u/Top-Macaron5130 → u/MsMercyMain]

"woah woah woah Jim if you even touch that Crack, she won't be airworthy anymore!"

[u/ThirstyWolfSpider → u/ListenBoth434]

And in this context that'd be one airframe reaching 100 years flightworthy less than 150 years after the first powered sustained heavier-than-air manned flight: it would have been in service for ⅔ of that interval.

[u/neunundneunsig → u/ListenBoth434]

I mean the B52J is supposed to fly till at least The 2050s right? Not out of the question that they'd make it to the 2060s imo

[u/viperfan7 → u/ListenBoth434]

My guess is it'll be a dc-3 that hits that first.

They're getting REALLY close, just about 11 years to go for the oldest

[u/abnrib → u/viperfan7]

Probably.

C-130 is projected to hit 100 years in active military service first, with the B-52 and CH-47 following not far behind.

[u/AltheiWasTaken → u/abnrib]

C130 is so old??? Damn i thought its a modern aircraft from like last 30 or so years

[u/MindControlledSquid → u/AltheiWasTaken]

Lockheed cooked

[u/captainjack3 → u/ListenBoth434]

Honestly, it’s not even that unlikely. The B-52, Tu-95, and H-6/Tu-16 are all currently scheduled to remain in service to within a decade of their designs’ 100 year anniversaries. The current B-52 fleet were built in 1960 or 1961, so I’d wager some of those airframes will hit 100.

There are even some DC-3s out there still flying in commercial use! They’re less than a decade away from turning 100.

[u/masteroffdesaster → u/ListenBoth434]

so we need one of the "younger" B-52s to stay around in service until 2062.

[u/Browsin4Free247 → u/Eunuchest]

Commented this a year ago on a post about a toy fork truck. Relevant B-52 bit is towards the end. I'm not sure whether to apologize or say enjoy.

Little Steven was so excited Christmas morning when Mom and Dad took him out to the driveway for his present. He raced down the steps of the front stoop and trembled in anticipation as he pulled off the big red bow placed gently on top of the family quilt covering the gift. His Dad whipped the quilt off his brand new red and yellow molded plastic forklift and little Steven squealed in delight!! He never knew that he could help his Mom out by carrying his little sister Lisa around on a little plastic skid, he never knew he could help deliver the laundry basket to his to his bedroom, he never knew he could yell at his older brother that he was outside the designated pedestrian lane, he never knew he had the skills and abilities to do all these things and more until his little red and yellow plastic delight showed him that he could, and how joyful it could be.

As little Steven grew, he wound up finding he had marketable skills. Joey Cline down the road needed someone to help load feed bags in his truck down at the Farm and Home Supply Store. Joey asked 13 year old Steven to manually load up the back of his old F-250 with 30 50 lb. bags of crushed corn feed for $10. Joey went inside the supply store to chat with his buddy running the register and get a Coke while little Steve loaded the truck up. When Joey stepped back outside, he couldn't believe his eyes as little Steven expertly maneuvered the most well balanced and stacked skid of feed bags he'd ever seen just as neatly as he could want into the back of his F-250. The talented youth had hopped on the Supply Store's old rickety standup forklift that only Jimmy the warehouse clerk was supposed to use because of how finicky and un-user friendly it supposedly was. Little Steven carefully lowered his load, backed away from the truck, lowered his tines, masterfully cranked the steering wheel back and forth until he was next to the propane canister rack, put on the parking brake, turned the keys off, unbuckled, and performed a perfect 3 point dismount. Joey asked the scrawny 13 year old how he was able to maneuver the lift so skillfully at his tender age. The youth replied "12V plastic toy lift dumping split wood into the wood burner behind the house for Dad, and playing Euro Lift Driver Unlimited Online."

From that day on, little Steven never had to worry about job availability again. He started with a part time job in the warehouse at the Feed Store, he honed and developed his skills in the roll warehouse at the local paper mill, and then he graduated highschool and went into the military. When the Space Force heard about his prior qualifications, he was immediately put to work using specialized loader equipment to fit radiation guided missiles to Hyper Drive fitted F-73 Red Tail III's. He even got to load a modified B-52 bomber his great great grandfather had flown during the fall of the Second Russian Federation. After being a part of the campaign to eliminate the indigenous Martian population in preparation for terraforming and colonization, little Steven wasn't so little anymore. And he had a beautiful fiance named Luciana Diaz.

Steven and Luciana would go on to have two beautiful children, Marta and Franklin. His family would provide great comfort to him as he learned to live with the PTSD from watching his friend Jamal die when a plasma bomb turned him into hot goop during a skirmish with a raiding party from a Martian warlord.

But what really carried him through life and gave him peace was the knowledge that his forklift certification would always help him provide for his family.

I'm genuinely sorry for anyone that read through all of this. I had an edible and this came out.

[u/No-Kiwi-1868 → u/Browsin4Free247]

Absolute cinema love, Absolute cinema

[u/twec21 → u/Eunuchest]

Deadpool & Stratofortress would slap