Washington's decision to upgrade its flagship B-52 bombers is probably cheaper than starting from scratch, an expert has argued.
The overhauled version of B-52 bombers, dubbed B-52J, is expected to feature new improved engines, radar, avionics and communication equipment, which is apparently meant to make the aircraft better suited for modern warfare.
Commenting on this move, military analyst and chief editor of the Fatherland Arsenal Internet portal Dmitry Drozdenko noted that there is merit in upgrading the old reliable B-52s as some of the United States’ attempts to create strategic bombers produced aircraft that had certain drawbacks.
“If we are talking about B-2 Spirit, that aircraft had an interesting drawback – several of them, in fact,” Drozdenko said. “The first one is the exorbitant cost. And the second one is the fact that the aircraft was not suited for launching missiles: it can carry bombs but cannot launch missiles like our aircraft.”
Although the United States is now developing the new B-21 Raider strategic bomber that “could do all these things,” the aircraft’s designer Northrop Grumman already announced that “more money is needed” for the project, the analyst remarked.
“So, in the finest traditions of the foreign military-industrial complex, the aircraft is going to get more and more expensive, I think,” Drozdenko said.
According to media reports from November, the projected cost of a single B-21 aircraft at the time was around $750 million.
The plans to overhaul B-52s also make sense since strategic bomber aircraft today have essentially become airborne long-range missile launch platforms that don’t really need stealth capabilities since they can unleash their payload from outside of enemy radar coverage area, Drozdenko suggested.
“Considering the sheer number of B-52s and their capabilities, why not upgrade them – that would be economically viable,” he observed.
The analyst did note, however, that B-52 manufacturer Boeing does have “big problems with the quality” of its products, though he ventured a guess that the Pentagon might introduce additional quality control in the B-52J project.
“When the story about two Boeing-737 planes crashing into the ground because their systems were working incorrectly came out, it turned out that the aviation federation, the regulating aviation authority, essentially left the aircraft’s certification to Boeing itself,” he said. “And when you are not being supervised, it leads to laxity.”