B-52

B-52H Stratofortress Damage Inc II being transported to Oklahoma - April McDonald

Defence Blog has the story. This B-52 was pulled from the boneyard and is going to be used "as an integration model to test how well new technologies and current and future modifications will integrate with B-52 aircraft."

I guess that's a good idea. I mean if you have an extra airframe lying around it could be handy for seeing how the new parts are going to fit. There is a big program to replace the jet engines on the B-52 fleet, which is also kind of good. If you can get another 30 years of use out of these airplanes by replacing the engines, well, why not?

Except the B-52 is already 70 years old. Even the newest ones are 60 years old. You would think that a newer design would be more better, but we already tried that with the B-1 and the B-2. The B-1 and B-2 might be great aircraft, but they are gawd awful expensive. They make the zillion dollars being spent on the B-52 look like chump change, which is probably why it got the go ahead.

I suspect the military-industrial complex is a bloated hog and would be much improved if the excess gas could be released, but that is unlikely to happen. Power, money and herd mentality are the order of the day and things are unlikely to change unless we run into an iceberg.