US Air Force awards Boeing $2B contract to begin B-52 engine upgrades

In December the Air Force awarded Boeing Defense Systems a more than $2 billion contract to start the first engine replacements on the B-52H Stratofortress, marking a major step forward for the overhaul of the venerable Cold War-era bomber.

In a Dec. 23 contract announcement, the Pentagon stated that the task order for the Commercial Engine Replacement Program, or CERP, requires Boeing to modify a pair of B-52s with new engines and associated subsystems — and then test the aircraft. This will be development and systems integration work intended to take place after the CERP program’s critical design review.

The CERP program is a massive project to extend the lives of the Air Force’s 76 B-52s — already more than six decades old — into at least the 2050s, and perhaps to 2060. If the bombers reach that point, they will have been flying for about a century.

The Air Force eventually wants to have a two-bomber fleet made up of B-52s and at least 100 Northrop Grumman-made stealth B-21 Raiders, in the most sweeping revamp of its bomber force in at least a generation.

The service plans to retire its B-2 Spirit stealth bombers and B-1 Lancers — which are becoming harder and more expensive to maintain — throughout the 2030s.

The B-52 overhaul, expected to cost $48.6 billion in all, will be so extensive that the bombers will be redesignated the B-52J. Aside from receiving a new complement of Rolls-Royce-made F130 engines, the B-52 will receive, among others: a new modernized radar; improved avionics; communication upgrades; new wheels and brakes; and new digital displays to replace the original dashboard of analog dials.

The first B-52 to receive an upgraded Active Electronically Scanned Array radar flew to Edwards Air Force Base in California in December. Boeing installed the new Raytheon-made AN/APQ-188 Bomber Modernized Radar System — which is expected to provide upgraded navigation and improved targeting capabilities, and work in a variety of weather conditions — at its San Antonio, Texas, facility before airmen flew it to Edwards.

Boeing will conduct the work on these B-52s in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; San Antonio, Texas; Seattle, Washington; and Indianapolis, Indiana, the Pentagon said. The work is estimated to be done by the end of May 2033.