Nice Overhead B-52 | TheaterFire

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SlowPreparation385@reddit

MY FATHER FLEW AS THE ELECTRONIC WARFARE OFFICER AS CAPTAIN OF THE UNITED STATES AIR FORCE ON THE L-16 B52 BOMBERS. REST IN PEACE DAD🪽🇺🇲✝️🌹

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APRIL 8, 2026 YESTERDAY I FELT MY FATHER CLOSE TO ME AS I DROVE PARADISE CANYON ROAD HERE IN RUIDOSO AFTER RETURNING FROM ALAMOGORDO. I AM BAPTIZED AND NO LONGER AN ORGAN DONOR. I AM JENNIFER LYNN HOLLIS AND A TOTAL DNR.

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I-LOVE-TURTLES666@reddit

What’s on the right elevator?

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Ranger207@reddit

It's the outline of where you can walk on it

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RobK64AK@reddit

Wondering the same thing.

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I-LOVE-TURTLES666@reddit

My guess is some sort of UHF antenna

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abstractmodulemusic@reddit

A poor attempt at drawing a cartoon cat is my best guess

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CasualObserverNine@reddit

It looks oddly delicate.

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g3nerallycurious@reddit

Just saw one of these up close on the ground at Tinker. One flap of the B-52 is larger than the wing area of the F-35. Absolutely freaking massive. I was also very surprised at how big the bomb bay wasn’t given the size of the plane. 3-4 pallet stacks could fit in it, and that’s about it.

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KnifeNovice789@reddit

Seriously with that slim fuselage and those huge wings and engines. Looks like the wings would just tear right off!

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DouglasPRthesecond@reddit

Wait until you see the humongous landing gear

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osmia-lignaria@reddit

that's exactly what i thought!! funny looking thing

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Soggy-Avocado918@reddit

USAF: We need a bomber that can lose seven engines and still land.

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Hermitcraft7@reddit

If there's any reason to hate the USAF it's that the B-52H had a M61 Vulcan as the tail gun and they removed it post 1991.

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Soggy-Avocado918@reddit

The logic was that in the era of missiles, guns wouldn’t help much, no? But was the Vulcan capable of stopping SAM or air-to-air missiles? If so, then keeping it would have made sense

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Hermitcraft7@reddit

You're right, it does actually make complete sense because they replaced it with a Radio Electronic Warfare suite, but it's so much less cooler lol

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rob189@reddit

And part of the tail structure.

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cars10gelbmesser@reddit

That elevator is massive.

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FoximaCentauri@reddit

This aircraft looks like business, more than any other

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30yearCurse@reddit

with advances in engines, could 2 of the engine pylons be removed and other pylongs upgraded with newer engines, or is the engineering changes be too much?

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polloloco-rb67@reddit

Possible with $$$. There have been a few upgrade proposals over the years with real analysis by the engine companies and airframes. But would be a costly, new development.

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Useful-Material4368@reddit

Toured one at an airshow. Don't let size confuse you, it's a tight small space fuselage, not roomy at all. Several lost over Vietnam to SAMS. Equal number lost to aircraft accidents. Incredible jammer capability. Very long legs.

The BUFF. USAF legend.

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catonic@reddit

Nothing else has that wing shape, it's wing all the way to the end to hold all the fuel possible.

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DullMind2023@reddit

And note the external fuel tanks on the wind ends!

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DullMind2023@reddit

USAF doesn’t put worn out tires on the wings?

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StellarJayZ@reddit

It's an interesting body plane. Huge wings, a lot of engines, long skinny body.

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truthhurts2222222@reddit

It's kind of annoying how it's to carry the GBU MOP but a smaller plane like the B-2 can

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SneakyFire23@reddit

It was designed as a nuclear bomber 75 years ago, I'm going to go ahead and forgive that lack of planning haha

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kingtacticool@reddit

I refuse to believe they are incapable of modifying the bomb bays on the 52 to be able to handle the MOP.

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wre_x@reddit

What’s the reason for such a thin fuselage?

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phryan@reddit

Bombs are dense, at least compared to passengers and cargo.

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Worked_Idiot@reddit

I feel like passengers have become significantly more dense in recent years.

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krodders@reddit

Only need to fit two rows of seats, and some fairly slim ordnance. Slimmer fuselage = less drag = longer missions

The 3-4-3 seating arrangement was rejected during the proposal stage

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vartiverti@reddit

It has a crew of 10?

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krodders@reddit

Or rather, two seats or less per row - some facetiousness was intended

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vartiverti@reddit

So being clueless and still confused I looked it up.

5 and the summary explained the roles to me and it makes sense to this layman.
10 just sounded wild, even if they swapped over in “shifts”.

Thank you though; I now have the knowledge.

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cost2coast@reddit

It has to be able to fit between the wings

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whateverandok@reddit

Love it. Gonna rebuild some models soon

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Adonitologica@reddit

Almost reminds me of those overhead bomber shots in Europe, WWII

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Lake_Effect_11134@reddit

Was about to say, if someone told me this was a scanned negative from over Hanoi, I would have believed them.

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planespotterhvn@reddit

Strangely odd proportions compared to modern jet liners. The nose is too short and the fuselage aft of the wings is too long because of that. Perhaps the nose is short or the tail too long to balance the weight of eight engines extending forward of the CG. I was going to say the wing Chord looks wider than current airliners until I remembered the A380.

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