The cost of keeping the B-52s in the air is roughly 10 times higher than their original construction cost during the 1950s and early 1960s.

The United States Air Force Life Cycle Management Center Bombers Directorate has awarded “Other Transaction Agreements” (OTAs), collectively valued at $17 million to three aerospace and defense contractors for “in a continued effort to modernize the B-52 Stratofortress fleet.” The Air Force will pay Magee Technologies LLC, the Sierra Nevada Corporation, and Northrop Grumman to jointly develop a “comprehensive integration strategy” to upgrade the B-52’s Extremely High Frequency (EHF) satellite communications link.

“These awards represent an important step toward modernizing the B-52’s communications infrastructure,” said Lt. Col. Michael Case, materiel leader, B-52 Nuclear Command, Control, and Communications (NC3) Branch, with the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center Bomber’s Directorate. “By partnering with these companies, we are ensuring that this aircraft remains a highly capable and connected component of our national defense strategy for decades to come.”

The upgrades are meant to provide the Cold War-era bombers with “highly secure, survivable, and resilient communication lines,” to allow the remaining B-52s to accomplish their strategic missions.

Although the B-52 has been in service for more than 70 years, the US Air Force maintains a fleet of 76 of the aircraft, including 58 in active service that are ready to take part in combat operations around the globe. This $17 million was described as part of an ongoing commitment to maintain the fleet.

The B-52 Has Lasted Far Longer Than Anyone Expected

As a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report from last month explained, when the B-52 entered service in the 1950s, the aircraft had a projected lifespan of 20 years. At the time, that timeframe was likely seen as staggeringly long, given how quickly new technology had emerged in the 1930s and then in the 1940s during World War II. (It should be remembered that in just a little over a decade, the United States Army Air Corps went from flying open-cockpit biplanes to pressurized jet aircraft. In 1934, it introduced the P-26 Peashooter as its first all-metal monoplane, but that aircraft still featured an open cockpit, fixed landing gear, and external bracing wires. Ten years later, it had the B-29 Superfortress, a mass-produced operational bomber featuring a pressurized crew cabin.)

Just another decade later, the US Air Force was flying the B-52—even as innovation in fighter aircraft continued rapidly, with a new fighter jet introduced every few years. It was reasonable to expect similar innovation in bombers, but the B-52 proved sufficient for US strategic doctrine and outperformed each of its intended successors. It would be 30 years until the next major bomber, the supersonic B-1 Lancer, would stick alongside the B-52. The Air Force scaled back the Lancer program to direct funds to the B-2 Spirit, but that aircraft’s per-unit cost proved too high—and the dissolution of the Soviet Union meant it no longer had a purpose.

The last of the Stratofortress bombers rolled off the assembly line in 1962, with a total of 744 produced. The total cost for those aircraft was approximately $2.5 billion in 1950s/1960s dollars, or around $60–70 billion today. That may seem like an astounding amount of money, but it averages out to a cost of less than $100 million per aircraft in today’s dollars; by comparison, the B-1 cost roughly $317 million per aircraft, the B-2 about $2.1 billion per aircraft, and the modern B-21 Raider about $700 million per aircraft.

In essence, despite its advanced age, the Air Force has kept the B-52 in place because of its reliability, its immense payload, its global reach, its ability to carry nuclear weapons, and its affordability. However, as the Air Force continues to demonstrate, “affordable” is not the same as “cheap”!

The US Air Force Isn’t Done Spending Money on the B-52 Yet

It is true that the B-2 and B-21 are far more advanced aircraft than the B-52, but the Stratofortress bombers continue to cost additional money. The total amount isn’t known, but according to the GAO, tens of billions of dollars—in addition to the original $2.5 billion—have been spent on nearly continuous upgrades.

The $17 million is actually a very small part of the upgrades the remaining B-52s will receive. The Air Force has issued several ongoing contracts totaling in the tens of billions of dollars, including:

• Support for the Commercial Engine Replacement Program (CERP), which will see the 1960s era Pratt & Whitney TF33 engines replaced with new Rolls-Royce F130 powerplants ($20.2 billion);
• The Radar Modernization Program (RMP), swapping out the old radar systems for a modern Raytheon Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) system that was derived from the F/A-18 Super Hornet (roughly $3 billion); and
• A digital cockpit that will replace hundreds of traditional analog “steam gauges” with modern digital glass multi-function displays (a relative bargain at $34 million).

The engines will improve fuel efficiency, extend the operational range, increase reliability, and even lower the maintenance cost. Likewise, the RMP will vastly improve targeting, tracking, and vision capabilities.

It would be easy to suggest you can’t put a price on these upgrades, given the enhancements they will bring to the B-52. But according to the GAO, these and other updates to the dozens of remaining bombers in the Air Force’s inventory will cost about $276 million per aircraft, or upwards of $21 billion for all—nearly 10 times the original cost of all 744 aircraft!

“Maintaining and modernizing a 70-year-old plane is no small task,” the GAO wrote. “But there are ways the Air Force could improve its efforts to avoid additional cost and schedule growth. We think it should reassess development and production risks and how to avoid them.”

With new threats emerging, the question is whether a replacement is needed for the B-52, and whether unmanned systems could do the same job more cost-effectively. But until that issue is resolved, the US will spend billions to keep the B-52 flying.

About the Author: Peter Suciu

Peter Suciu has contributed to dozens of newspapers, magazines and websites over a 30-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a contributing writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. He is based in Michigan. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu. You can email the author: Editor@nationalinterest.org.

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