This iconic bomber now launches drones and unleashes hypersonic missiles, redefining aerial warfare for a century to come.
By Kris Osborn, Warrior
The classic Vietnam-era B-52 may be famous for carpet bombing decades ago, yet today’s B-52 continues to evolve into a modern drone-launching, hypersonic missile firing and precision-bomb dropping platform likely to fly for a full 100 years. Upgrades in recent decades have ensured that the modern B-52 is almost an entirely different aircraft from the classic platform which proved both extremely important yet also vulnerable to enemy fire during its years in Vietnam.
B-52 Upgrades
The “engine-upgrade” for the B-52 is well known, yet lesser recognized adaptations include the expansion of a new internal weapons bay for bomb carrying capacity, the addition of hypersonic weapons, new digital communications networks and a growing ability to operate as a flying command and control hub able to launch, operate and recover drones. The communications improvements are multi-faceted as they include the addition of a modernized digital system known as Combat Network Communication Technology, (CONECT). Not only does CONECT accelerate and refine data transmission, management, collection and storage but it also helps the service advance tactics and concepts of operation for the modern B-52. With CONECT, crews conducting operations are now capable of receiving in-flight intelligence information and target updates in a way that was not previously possible. An interesting US Air Force essay from as far back as 2016 discusses CONECT as the “first major digital upgrade” to the B-52 enhancing communication and situational awareness.
Using what’s called an ARC 210 Warrior software-programmable voice and data radio, pilots using CONECT can now send and receive targeting data, mapping information or intelligence with ground stations, command centers and other aircraft..
In this respect, the large B-52 could almost operate like an “arsenal plane” able to transport and launch drone swarms from forward locations to blanket areas with ISR, test enemy air defenses or even conduct strikes when directed by a human. The B-52 is also nuclear capable and able to drop upgraded variants of the famous B-61 Mod 12 and fire a nuclear capable cruise missile called the Long Range Stand-Off weapon.
New B-52 Radar
The most recent innovation with the B-52 arrives in the form of Active Electronically Scanned Array radar, a longer-range, more sensitive and higher resolution system able to track multiple targets simultaneously from greater stand-off distances. The radar, called the APQ-188 is now being flight tested at Edwards Air Force Base in California, recently finished ground integration and initial systems functional checks, according to a Boeing essay on the radar.
“The new radar will significantly increase B-52 mission effectiveness by improving situational awareness, speeding target prosecution and enhancing aircrew survivability in contested environments,” Troy Dawson, vice president of Boeing Bombers, said in a press release. “This phase of the program is dedicated to getting it right at the start so that we can execute the full radar modernization program.”
Data gathered during testing will inform subsequent developmental test phases and the planned retrofit of the 76 operational B‑52 aircraft, the Boeing essay explained.
Fighter Jet Radar
The radar upgrade for the B-52, in effect, gives the bomber a “fighter-jet” kind of radar, as the F-35, F-15 and F-16 all fly with AESA radars. The advantages are multi-faceted as they go beyond speed and range to include high-resolution imagery renderings, detection of much smaller threat objects at greater distances and the ability to concurrently track multiple moving targets in real time. It makes sense that the B-52 would get an AESA radar, as it has a large nose radome into which transmit and receive modules can be “packaged” for high-power density and detection sensitivity.
Kris Osborn is the President of Warrior Maven – Center for Military Modernization. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a highly qualified expert in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University