http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/09/politi...rce/index.html

Good to see a very old workhorse still be useful.

Weren't they heavily used against the Taliban?

A great aircraft.
IIRC, by the time the B-52 is retired, it will have been in active service for just about 90 years. They are still hundreds of them in long term storage in Southern California and Arizona.

It still is a great airplane. All of the B-52s in long term storage have been destroyed.

Dunno ... "pardon me for being 'the Fly in the Ointment, but ..." I guess that I just gotta do it.

The B-52 is not only(!) a thoroughly out-of-date airplane, but also(!!) an expression of "the Military-Industrial Complex™'s" out-of-date presumptions(!) about such things.

A "cornerstone premise" about ... (well, virtually all of World War 2 ...) was that: "technology wins the War."

... unfortunately, "War, itself," happens to have changed, over the course of the 70(!) years that have since elapsed.

(Let the record show, for example, that the perpetrators of "nine-wun-wun" had no need of "a now-ancient heavy bomber" to fill two skyscrapers with sophisticated demolition explosives ... [P.S. "the airplanes were just a side-show, d00d"])

For several-thousand still-bezillionare ... and therefore, still influential ... "hangers-on from the 1950's and 1960's," the B-52 Bomber "is still relevant." As is their now-seventy-year-old interpretation of "war."

Ahem. ("Pardon me, sir, but aren't you, like, dead yet ...?")

Yes, war has changed and so has the B-52 mission. Despite its looks it is modernized...

You can never have too many bombs on a plane. :-)

Not a lot of planes can carry this Puppy. :-)

B-52s and A-10s will be with us for several more decades.

Meh... Fundamental(!) to "that line of reasoning" is a hoary old chestnut that ought to have died sixty years ago (along with the original "USS Enterprise" ...) were it not for the continued financial influence of The Military-Industrial Complex.™

"The B-52" is a heavy-bomber aircraft from WW2, "duly modernized (sic ...)" to carry Nuclear Weapons to dump upon the heads of the Soviet version of "duck and cover." During the subsequent more-than half-century, "the Power$ that Be" have never allowed the fact that "war has(!) changed(!!!!)" to intrude upon American Military $pending!!

Heh ... "Just maybe(!)" it's high time that it finally did!!

"LIke it or not, in the early 2000's," someone tried to teach America what "an organized military(!) attack upon the homeland" today consisted of. "And, guess what, it had nothing to do with decades-old bombers." The well-orchestrated plan-of-attack had nothing(!) to do with your "multi-billion dollar pre-conceived Plan of Defense." Instead, it had everything to do with state-of-the-art demolition explosives coupled with seat-of-the-pants ingenuity. "Executed right there on American Soil, right under American Noses."

So ... go ahead. Fly your WW2-plus-Cold-War bombers. I'll be happy to "duck and cover ..."

You would never hear it coming...

I wish the world would live in peace but I know that simply won't happen. Sure you think you have it bad in the USA but you can choose to live in other countries and see how you like it there. Unfortunately protection is a cost of living free.

I found it interesting that the DC-3 is being used so much still. A number of companies are converting them to modern propulsion and avionics. Even third world air line companies are using them safely under the most demanding conditions.

While you are entitled to your opinion, at least get your facts straight. The B-52 had its first flight in 1952 and entered active service in 1955, ten years after the end of World War II.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing...Stratofortress

Yes, many have been successfully converted to turbo props.
About ten years ago while waiting for a flight out of a major airport in Southeast Asia I was watching the airliners take off on the near runway and land on the far runway. It was, not quite, a two mile strip and it took a 747 a little more than half that length before it could rotate. I looked down the runway to see what was next in line and saw a tiny (relative to major jet airliners) plane off in the distance. My first thought was, what is a general aviation (private) aircraft doing on this particular runway? As it got closer I could see it was a DC-3. Of course it rotated not too long after it started its roll, but it stayed directly over the runway, while climbing, until it reached the end. It was completely decked out in an airline livery, but I had never heard of the airline and after so many years can't remember the name.