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From: leem@jpl-devvax.Jpl.Nasa.Gov (Lee Mellinger)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Air Superiority B-52?
Message-ID: <1991Jun7.071905.7411@amd.com>
Date: 5 Jun 91 15:20:39 GMT
References: <1991May22.034943.27949@amd.com> <1991May23.062740.17080@amd.com> <1991May29.010650.5556@amd.com> <1991Jun5.064837.26248@amd.com>
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From: leem@jpl-devvax.Jpl.Nasa.Gov (Lee Mellinger)


jwstuart@ecst.csuchico.edu (Jesse William Leo Stuart) writes:
>  Since we have dozens of B-52s sitting out in the deserts
>in the 'Aircraft GraveYards' we could outfit them without building new
>air frames.
>	[Aren't those old air frames getting pretty close to end off
>	 life cycle, though?  --CDR]

This is the same thought I heard expressed in 1964 when I was working
on the B-52.  Our airframes were approaching 5000 hours, the design
lifetime.  Continual rebuilding has kept them in the air about six
times that long in calendar time, I'm not sure if anybody knows what
the end of the "aluminum overcast" life cycle is.

-- 
Lee F. Mellinger                 Caltech/Jet Propulsion Laboratory - NASA
4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109 818/354-1163  FTS 792-1163     
leem@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV