• ephrin@sh.itjust.works
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      7 days ago

      B52 has been in service for forever, it’s a pinnacle of modern (and far future, evidently) engineering.

    • SomeAmateur@sh.itjust.works
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      7 days ago

      B-52 is very old and there is no real replacment. The newest one was made in 1962

      C-130 was designed at about the same time and they’re still making new ones right now

    • SquishyPandaDev@yiffit.net
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      7 days ago

      Okay going to be a buzz kill here. The B52 of now is not the B52 of the past. It was designed as carpet bomber. However in the world of precision munitions, carpet bombing is just not needed. But no matter what decade you are in, war still requires a shit ton of munitions and some way of hauling them. The B52 is that munitions hauler. The reason why no replacement, is simple, good luck trying to convince the Pentagon to spend a shit ton of money to design, engineer, and build what is essential a giant glorified truck. As weird as it may seem, it makes economically sense to keep the old girl working.

        • jrs100000@lemmy.world
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          7 days ago

          Military aircraft have lots of specific technical requirements that civilian planes dont deal with.

          • someguy3@lemmy.world
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            7 days ago

            There are plenty of military cargo planes. They have the C designation. C130 is a popular one.

                  • someguy3@lemmy.world
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                    7 days ago

                    If you are the one claiming it’s the perfect cargo plane, even better than cargo planes, it’s on you to prove it. What even is this conversation, it started you thinking cargo airplanes were civilian and then you just duck and weave on everything in the weirdest way.

      • CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        7 days ago

        I listened to the Lockheed Martin episode of Acquired and man…the military industrial complex has its hand so deep inside the Pentagon’s ass…

        A new plane simply is too expensive to build today. Not because it’s hard. But because there are too many mouths to feed.

    • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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      7 days ago

      The b-52 is a US long range strategic heavy bomber. It’s been in service for a very long time, and the reference seems to be that we’ll just keep updating it until it’s eventually also “new” and refreshed when the enterprise is being decommissioned.

      • Monument@lemmy.sdf.org
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        7 days ago

        Someone else pointed out it’s now not a bomber so much as a cargo hauler, but the phrase “Bomber of Theseus” came to mind and gave me a good chuckle.

        • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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          7 days ago

          Heh, I like that.

          It can definitely haul cargo, and we have much less use for the type of bombing that it does in modern times. It was still built as a strategic bomber.