Key Points and Summary – The U.S. Air Force’s plan to keep its legendary B-52 Stratofortress flying into the 2050s via the B-52J upgrade is facing a serious financial crisis.
-The program, which includes new Rolls-Royce engines and a sophisticated AESA radar, is suffering from massive cost overruns, particularly with the new radar system.
-These overruns are so severe that they risk triggering a Nunn-McCurdy breach, which could force the Pentagon to make deep cuts to the program.
-This jeopardizes the future of America’s most battle-proven strategic bomber at a time when its capabilities are still in high demand.
B-52J Bomber Has Major Money Problems and Delays
Seventy-three years and 3 months after making its maiden flight, the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress AKA the “BUFF” (“Big Ugly Fat ******,” or “Big Ugly Fat Fellow” if you’re in polite company) is still going strong.
Even though the newest iteration, the B-52H, rolled off the assembly lines back in October 1962, and is therefore older than the crews flying it, this mighty, venerable warbird isn’t going away anytime soon.
After all, it’s the most battle-proven out of all of America’s strategic bombers (the other two being the supersonic 1970s vintage Rockwell B-1B Lancer (AKA the “Bone”) and the Northrop B-2 Spirit (the original “Stealth Bomber,” which made its maiden flight in 1989).
From the Arc Light missions and Operation Linebacker II during the Vietnam War to the carpet-bombing raids against then-Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s elite Republican Guard units during the 1991 Persian Gulf War AKA Operation Desert Storm to Operation Allied Force in 1999 to the Global War On Terror (GWOT), and capable of carrying everything from nukes to unguided conventional gravity bombs (AKA “dumb bombs”) to cruise missiles, no other weapons system in America’s arsenal has dished out punishment to enemy forces and demonstrated battlefield versatility quite like the BUFF.
That said, everything has room for improvement. The Stratofortress is expected to receive such enhancements in the form of the upcoming B-52J variant. There’s a catch, though: a monetary obstacle.
B-52J Premise and Prospectus
The list of upgrades for the B-52J is indeed impressive. First and foremost on that list is the bomber’s B-52 Radar Modernization Program (RPM), which is to be fulfilled by the Raytheon AN/APQ-188, which is a hybrid system of sensors used aboard two other big-name Boeing products, namely the F-15 Eagle and F/A-18 Super Hornet supersonic fighter jets.
The radar system currently in place on the B-52H is the AN/APQ-166, which uses mechanical scanning and (like the B-52H itself) is of 1960s vintage; by contrast, the Raytheon newcomer is a far more sophisticated active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar.
Other improvements for the refurbished warbird are to include:
–New workstations for the crew (a five-person crew consisting of the pilot/aircraft commander, copilot, navigator, radar navigator, and electronic warfare officer [EWO])
—Rolls-Royce F130 engines to replace the aging Pratt & Whitney TF33 engines
The latter element falls under the rubric of the B-52 Commercial Engine Replacement Program. And as any World War II aviation buff knows, there’s more to Rolls-Royce’s proud history than just that of a luxury car manufacturer; the company built the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine that powered the North American P-51D Mustang, the piston-engine prop-driven fighter that proved to be the game changer in the deadly skies over Western Europe.
These improvements are supposed to be completed by 2033.
About that Monetary Obstacle
However, like we stated in the opening segment of this article, there’s a catch, and a big-time monetary one to boot: the Nunn-McCurdy Act. Named for now-retired Sen. Sam Nunn (D-GA) and retired Rep. Dave McCurdy (D-OK), this piece of legislation was born within the 1982 Defense Authorization Act.
It requires the armed services to inform Congress when a program’s cost or schedule estimate has increased substantially from its approved level.
In the case of the B-52J, it’s that highly touted AN/APQ-188 radar that is risking incurring the wrath of a Nunn-McCurdy breach.
As the Military Watch Magazine Editorial Staff noted in an 11 May 2025 article titled “B-52 Bomber Upgrade Program’s Multi-Billion Dollar Cost Overruns Could Force Deep Cuts,” notes, “[T]he B-52 radar unit cost increase referred to be [sic] sources as ‘significant.’ The extent of the overrun remains unconfirmed … This [radar upgrade] and other cost overruns have fuelled [sic] speculation that the Air Force will be forced to make deep cuts to the bomber program. The B-52 is the only one of three bomber classes currently in service in the US Air Force that is expected to remain operational beyond the mid-2030s, with the US Air Force having already made deep cuts to its problematic B-1B bomber fleet, while the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber fleet is scheduled for an early retirement due to its high operational costs and the growing obsolescence of its stealth capabilities.”
Current B-52H Numbers
Time will tell if the B-52J manages to clear this foreboding budgetary obstacle. Meanwhile, according to the World Directory of Modern Military Aircraft (WDMMA), the US Air Force currently has 76 B-52Hs in its active inventory.
That means if and when the B-52J program gets off the ground (literally and figuratively), to meet the 2033 target completion date, these BUFFs will have to be upgraded at the rate of eight airframes per annum.
About the Author: Christian D. Orr, Defense Expert
Christian D. Orr is a Senior Defense Editor. He is a former Air Force Security Forces officer, Federal law enforcement officer, and private military contractor (with assignments worked in Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kosovo, Japan, Germany, and the Pentagon). Chris holds a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Southern California (USC) and an M.A. in Intelligence Studies (concentration in Terrorism Studies) from American Military University (AMU).
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