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B-52 Bombers
Context
The United States has announced deployment of B-52 bombers, fighter jets, refueling aircraft and Navy destroyers to the Middle East, in a readjustment of military assets as the Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group prepares to leave the region.
About B-52 Bombers
- The aircraft has high mission-capable rate, large payload, long range, persistence and ability to employ both nuclear and conventional precision standoff weapons.
- B-52s are powered by eight jet engines (an unusually high number).
- They can carry 32,000 kg of ordnance including bombs, rockets, missiles and precision guided weapons as well as air-launched cruise missiles and miniature air launched decoys.
- Though sub-sonic with a maximum speed of Mach 0.86, these can fly up to 50,000 feet and have a range of 14,200 km without aerial refueling.
- Its massive 185-foot wingspan, two feet more than the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy, is too wide to allow traditional take-off or landing procedures and a special landing gear had to be developed by Boeing.
- The B-52 primarily provides the United States with immediate nuclear and conventional global strike capability.
- First flown in 1952, the aircraft began entering USAF service in 1955, with a total of 744 aircraft of different variants being produced. The last airframe was rolled out in 1962. The B-52 continues to be a critical contributor to the US national security strategy.
- At present, about 75 such aircraft are said to be in service, primarily based at Minot in North Dakota and Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana with the 2nd Bomb Wing and 307th Bomb Wing as part of the Air Force Global Strike Command.
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