We get used to living in the information and computer era where everything becomes obsolete within 3 or 4 years but not everything works that way. The B-52 (and the C130) are incredible designs that don’t need fixing for what they do besides new engines and instrumentation retrofits.
Think of it this way the planes design is 50 years old but the plane itself is not. They go through countless upgrades especially with avionics. How old is the design of the standard hammer? Really old but we have made improvements with better material and added a tuning fork and such. The same goes for aircraft. It looks the same on the outside but the guts are different
Spars can be replaced. Between 1980 and 1987 the wings of C-5A Galaxy aircraft (first flown in 1968) were replaced.
FWIW, the last C-5Bs turned 20 years old this year.
The T-38 Talon is another example. “Air & Space” magazine had a really good article about it a couple of years ago, and how that airplane has been training pilots (and killing astronauts every so often) for something like 50 years.
The DC-3 was designed in the 30s and there are lots still flying.
The SAAF modified theirs to have turboprop engines and got an aircraft with greatly improved performance without having to purchase a new design for maritime patrol duties.
Incidentally, it’s not just aircraft that have such long lives - the M2 Browning Machine Gun has been in service in the U.S. and countless other militaries since 1921. I’m sure there are other pieces of military equipment with similar histories.
There is a tiny military airstrip in a village next to my hometown; people go there for driving lessons, to practice going backwards. There’s usually a single bored out of his mind serviceman. I don’t know how much it measures, but it isn’t big enough for two people to practice at the same time. Maybe equivalent to 8 parking spots?
We once saw a C-130 parked there; it looked like there wasn’t enough room for it to turn around, much less land, but evidently it had landed.
I work in an office just about a mile from an airport and the C-130s of the national guard make practice runs at the runway on a regular basis. About once a month for several hours one will fly large circles around the airport only a few hunderd feet off the ground right over my office building. They are very loud and fly so low you can see the spinning disks of the props, it’s a treat for an aviation buff like myself.
The C130’s that were going to be used in the Iran hostage rescue mission had forward-pointing JATO’s that would have let them land on a soccer field. Rear-pointed JATO’s for a near-zero takeoff distance were already available and proven. A carrier landing, on a “runway” already going at 30 knots or so into the wind, would actually be a lot easier.
Another thing to consider is that life of an airframe is related much more to fatigue cycles than to years. The more flights a plane makes, and the higher-G and more frequent the maneuvers it makes, the more of the fatigue life of its structural components (like wing spars) is consumed. Military airplanes fly a lot less than commercial ones, maybe as little as a tenth as many cycles per year, so they simply age a lot more slowly. Corrosion does have an effect on life related to age in years, but if a maintenance program keeps on top of it then it never really gets to affect the airplane.
bijou drains, yes, all military and airline aircraft get what amounts to a complete disassembly and inspection at scheduled intervals. For an airliner, a “D check” can take place as often as every 4 or 5 years.
USAF’s major overhaul facility for the KC-135 is at Tinker AFB in Oklahoma City, if you wanted to know. Although it’s not the same as the 707, btw, AIUI there are enough parts in common that USAF has bought most of the remaining airworthy civilian ones to strip for parts. That, in combination with it having been designed to a lighter weight (and shorter fatigue life) than the DC-8 is why there are so few left flying, but the DC-8 is still soldiering on in the freight business.
Kind of like a basic No. 2 pencil. I’ll be damned if virtually every kind of writing instrument hasn’t been introduced to the market, but sometimes the oldest and more primitive design is best.
Think like that when you think about tools that seem to stick around for a long time.
Ahhhhhh… I feel shiny-happy! I’ve got sunshine in my stomach!
Looking at the names of the posters in this thread, it occurs to me that this is one area where SDMB people of very different political ideologies can have an enjoyable, civil discussion. Many of us here share a mutual admiration and appreciation of the design hardiness and effectiveness of (at least some) of the U.S. military’s aircraft.
I come down on the left side, and my ideas of the policies that may put these aircraft into action will often differ greatly from my colleagues on the right. But at the simplest level, I think we share a gratitude toward having highly effective air defense protecting and supplying our forces.
The irony, of course, is that machines of death and destruction* could bring about such a SDMB love-fest!
*I do not mean these as loaded words. They are military machines so it is quite appropriate that they are destructive bringers-of-woe.
I have noticed over time that aviation lovers tend to drop every other pretense when the subject turns to airplanes. It is almost like a really strong reflex. I encounter it sometimes in real life as well and the same thing happens. Most other hobbies have lots more rivalries but aviation is very light in that regard. It is just about the love of the birds.
Those B-52 death photos were way too graphic for my tastes. I let out an loud gasp when I scrolled down to them and I wasn’t too happy about it.
Yes, destruction of a beautiful machine is depressing.
But…D-21s! Wooo! RB-57D, cool! I don’t think I’ve seen one before, despite all that model building when I was a kid.
And while I’ve got you here…Several years ago a saw what I thought was an A-10 with a huge dish antenna on it flying about the property. Did the Arkansas National Guard fly the E-2C Hawkeye?
And what are these guys?
They look like B-52s. If you zoom out you can see they’re at the AMARG (Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group) Boneyard south of Tuscon.
The current fleet of U-2s are '60s and '80s vintage. The U-2R (later -S) airframes, about 40% larger than the original '50s-designed U-2s, first flew in 1967. It does look a lot like the old short-wing U-2s. As best I can tell, there are no '50s-era short-wing U-2s still flying in USAF service.
Cal
Damn, my link didn’t work. There are some chopped up airliners to the right of the B-52s.
I had a layover in St. Louis once. Soul patch, earring, using a Mac, and a good video camera (read: ‘Artist’). Oh, and I drive a Prius. I got to chatting with a guy who is my political opposite. We talked about guns. See, even though I’m a Leftie, I do enjoy shooting. We would not have agreed about most things, but we had an enjoyable time chatting about a common interest.
I see that IdahoMauleMan posted. I disagree with everything he posts in political threads, and I’m sure that if he notices my posts at all he thinks I’m an idiot for my political views. But if we ran into each other at an airport we’d have a great time chatting about flying things. (And as it happens, I think Maules are some of the coolest GA aircraft made. 
)
It’s good when people can find common interests. And aircraft are the best. 