photo #9440434

Think about this for a second. The newest B-52 in the Air Force was built in 1962. The oldest crews flying it today weren't born yet when it was already old. And the Air Force has no plans to retire it, in fact, it intends to keep the B-52 in the air into the 2050s. By then the plane will have served for roughly 100 years. The B-52 Stratofortress first flew in 1952 and entered service in 1955. Boeing built the last one, an H model, in 1962, and the H is the only version still flying today, about 76 of them. Every single one is older than the parents of the young airmen who fly them. No other combat aircraft in history has come close to that kind of run. So why does it refuse to die? Because nothing has ever matched what it does for the price. The B-52 can haul an enormous load over intercontinental distances, carry almost every weapon in the inventory, and do it cheaply compared to newer jets. Rather than replace it, the Air Force is rebuilding it: new Rolls-Royce F130 engines to replace the originals, a modern radar, and upgraded electronics. The rebuilt aircraft gets a new name, the B-52J, and a new lease on life that stretches for decades. That endurance has created something you almost never see in aviation. Take the family of Col. Don Sprague, who flew every B-52 model from the A all the way to the H and commanded the 23rd Bomb Squadron at Minot Air Force Base in the early 1970s. Decades later his grandson, Capt. Daniel Welch, became a B-52 aircraft commander in that very same squadron, with Daniel's father having flown the B-52 in between. Three generations of one family, all on the same plane. And here's the part that stops people cold: because the B-52 is on track to fly for a full century, a pilot climbing into one today could be strapping into the exact same airframe his grandfather flew, and someday his own grandson might fly it too. There is no other machine of war on earth you can say that about. The B-52 was built to outlast the Cold War. It ended up outlasting almost everyone who ever doubted it, and it still has decades left to go.