What model of B-52 just crashed at Edwards AFB today right after takeoff?
I think you mean which variant. It was probably a B-52H assigned to the 419th Test Squadron based at Edwards. I haven’t seen it reported anywhere, that is just speculation based on the units assigned to Edwards.
ETA: This article confirms that the currently flown version is the B-52H
B-52 bomber crashes shortly after takeoff at California’s Edwards Air Force Base, military says | CNN
Current USAF inventory is 100% H models. They retired the last G in 2013.
https://www.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/467809/final-b-52g-eliminated-under-new-start/
Of any of the earlier models, only the D was in service within my lifetime, including a lot of bombs dropped in Viet Nam, but they retired in 1983.
The last B-52D was retired in October, 1983.
It is this specific plane
What about the B-52Js? Are there still none?
I thought they were all suppose to be upgraded to J by 2030?
The J is still in development. I suppose flying out of Edwards (which is an Air Force Materiel Command flight testing base), it could have been modded (partially, at least) to J standards (especially if what @Darren_Garrison cited is accurate; that’s the J model radar upgrade).
I don’t see a definitive connection between the upgrade article and the crash, which would be specifying the serial number or tail number of the A/C in question, but I’m willing to guess that the incident A/C is the same as the upgrade article one. Based at Edwards for a months-long integration testing campaign.
From the article I just linked:
The new radar is just one facet of the comprehensive upgrade program now in development for the B-52 that will end in the jet receiving the B-52J designation.
Your post wasn’t there when I was typing. But thanks for the article. It looks like probably none are yet designated J. They might not make their goal or even come close to making it.
That page was linked in the page I linked in the aviation omnibus thread
News of the crash first emerged in a post on the unofficial Air Force amn/nco/snco Facebook group. That post said the aircraft in question was tail number 061, but this is currently unconfirmed. While its status is unclear, this particular B-52 was the first to receive a new AN/APQ-188 active electronically-scanned array (AESA) radar, which is one part of a much larger modernization effort for the entire fleet of these bombers.
(Which I found by googling news after seeing a Facebook post about it.)
Alright, I’m convinced. Their testbed bird for the J model radar upgrade has gone down. I hope the crew got out.
Just asking because I worked on the D model when I was a Junior Birdman back in the late 70’s, and wondered what the current buff was up to.
FWIW, the H models, the last factory models, were produced from the tail end of 1960 through 1962. So Hs were out there when you were in; you just had the luck to draw the oldest of the oldies, not the newest of the soon to be oldies.
Everything about B-52s since 1962 (IOW the last 64 (!) years) has been about parking the Gs and earlier and slowly, eternally ship-of-Theseus upgrading the Hs again and again and again. While, so far, retaining the H designation.
News outlets are reporting that all 8 crew members were killed.
A standard B-52 cockpit carries 6 people. All on ejection seats. Two of which fire downward out the bottom of the fuselage. Any additional crew members would need to a) wear a parachute, and b) walk / clamber to an exterior hatch, open it, jump out, and pull their ripcord.
None of that is compatible with escaping an airplane out of control close to the ground.