Mothballed B-52 gets a second chance

Seven years after it was sent to the U.S. Air Force's famed "boneyard" at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona, B-52H "Ghost Rider" has been reborn.

"It's the first time we've ever brought any of the B-52s out of the boneyard," said Col. Keith Schultz, a 6,500-hour veteran of B-52s who has flown many of the aging birds to that final roost but savored Friday's flight resurrecting one to new life at Barksdale Air Force Base.

The flight to Barksdale was just under three hours but was unusual in several respects.

Schultz, commander of the Air Force Reserve's 307th Operations Group at Barksdale, had the minimum crew allowed for the flight here. With him were just a copilot, Lt. Col. Darrell "Tim" Hines, of the 10th Flight Test Squadron at Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma, and radar-navigator Capt. Heath "Carl" Johnson of the 2nd Bomb Wing. Any more than that would have presented unnecessary risk.

"Those were the only three seats we had activated for egress," Schultz explained.

The airplane was reborn to maintain numbers needed for treaty reasons and for economy.

"This particular one was to replace aircraft 0049, which unfortunately had a ground maintenance fire that made it unrepairable," he said. "We had an oxygen leak with a spark and it caused a cockpit fire. There was so much damage it was actually more economical to bring this one out of the desert than it was to repair 0049. And there was doubt about the structural integrity, with the fire there inside the cockpit, to rebuild 0049. That's why we brought this out, to keep our Strategic Arms Reduction numbers of 76 (B-52s) constant."

Ghost Rider, last stationed at Minot Air Force Base, Barksdale's sibling in North Dakota, was held in type 1000 storage at the boneyard, with the most severe restrictions on parts reclamation. But it still had some of its advanced gear removed.

"We had none of the traditional navigation equipment we're used to, the inertial navigation system, GPS," Schultz said. "So I challenged my navigator, to do 'dead reckoning.' Basically he had a radar system and a doppler, so he could ground map with his radar system."

The airplane had undergone 70 working days of extensive refurbishment by personnel from the boneyard, Barksdale and Minot and Tinker Air Force bases, including replacement of hydraulic hoses and other vital components for flight.

Even so, the airplane was flown slower and lower — 250 knots at 23,000 feet — than most B-52 flights for safety reasons, and only essential personnel were on the runway at Barksdale when it landed Friday afternoon.

"From takeoff all the way to landing, we kept the landing gear down," Schultz said.

The flight was unpublicized "because it was flying that way and there's a lot of other safety issues," said Jessica D'Aurizio, spokeswoman for the 307th Bomb Wing, the Air Force Reserve B-52 unit at Barksdale. "Sometimes you have to hold back."

Schultz said "initially, you have that apprehension when a plane goes seven years without flying. It's been sitting in the desert. In the back of your mind you're thinking 'what can go wrong?' But the day prior, we started up the engines, we taxied the aircraft, we checked out the systems. And when I took it down the runway to take off there was an absolute assurance and calm that everything was going to work as properly as the aircraft they're currently flying right now out there on the ramp."

Not all such flights are uneventful. Schultz, perhaps the Air Force's last B-52 pilot to have flown a "tall tail" B-52 — the most recent G- and H-models have a tail 11 feet lower than the older B-52s — has flown 18 B-52s to their final roost in his career. One flight, the sunset of a G-model, had alarms sounding.

"I took a G model from Castle Air Force Base, Calif., that had sat at Guam a while," he said. The crew had been warned there was corrosion of the vital tracks by which the wing's flaps were lowered and raised, but raised the flaps anyway in flight.

"But on final approach to Davis-Monthan, when we lowered the flaps, one of the flap tracks had stuck, and it canted off as it was tracking down. It was like a can opener, it just sliced a big gash in the fuselage as the flaps came down, which caused some exciting moments. But it was going to the boneyard anyway, so no great loss."

Ghost Rider, which should rejoin the fleet in mid-2016, has just over 17,000 airframe flight hours, making it somewhat younger than its sister B-52s, which average out at around 18,000 hours, Schultz said.

"We track these aircraft on every flight, how many landings they have, how much we load them up on defensive maneuvers," he said. "We do a really good job of seeing how much stress we're causing on the aircraft. This one was actually in good shape compared to its sisters that are currently flying."

The two B-52s, fire-ravaged 0049, and refurbished 0007, will be parked side-by-side while all the usable upgrades put into 0049 over the last six years are transferred to 0007.

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"We'll probably have everything transferred by October," he said. "Then we'll fly this plane up to Tinker Air Force Base, where they do what's called depot maintenance, which happens about every three years on the B-52s."

At depot maintenance, the airplanes are given the most thorough checkout possible, including X-rays and other tests to determine whether there are any structural integrity issues.

"They'll go ahead and finish up any of the inspection items that haven't been done locally," Schultz said..

Then 0049 will be disposed of somehow.

"Unfortunately, it will be cannibalized," he said. "We'll utilize every viable part we can use and transfer onto our current fleet." As for what will happen to the stripped husk of the bird, "we're kind of in negotiations. You could either scrap it for iron or I'm hoping one of the Air Force bases, maybe even over at Carswell (in Fort Worth, Texas) we might maybe cut the wings off it, transport it over and make it a static display."

Why not do that here at Barksdale?

"I think a B-52 right at the entry point, mounted up high so an 18-wheeler could get underneath the thing, would make a sterling entry point for the base," he said. "But there's a little bit of money associated with that. Get the right groups together and it would be tremendous."