Pictured is a U.S. Air Force photo of a B-52H with Barksdale AFB, La.’s 2nd Bomb Wing, as the bomber sits on the flightline at Morón Air Base, Spain on Nov. 19, 2025 during Bomber Task Force Europe 26-1.
DAYTON, Ohio–The Air Force is modifying a B-52H to resume Radar Modernization Program (RMP) testing for the bomber.
RMP is to feature an active electronically scanned array radar based on RTX’s APG-79 to replace the bomber’s Northrop Grumman APQ-166.
The Air Force’s fleet of B-52Hs is now 75 after a bomber testing the new radar crashed during take-off from Edwards AFB, Calif., on June 15 (Defense Daily, June 18). The crash killed all eight crew members, including the pilot, a Boeing employee and a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, and the weapons systems officer, a colonel in the Air Force Reserves who worked at Boeing.
The last Boeing-built B-52H fielded in October 1962, and, while the Air Force looks to field 100 or more Northrop Grumman B-21 stealth bombers to replace the service’s B-1s and B-2s, the future path for the B-52 is under consideration, including a possible refurbishment and reactivation of some of the B-52s at the Air Force “boneyard” at Davis-Monthan AFB, Ariz., Col. Timothy Spaulding, the program acquisition executive (PAE) for bombers, told reporters here at the annual Air Force Life Cycle Management Center’s (AFLCMC) life cycle industry days.
The PAE for bombers has about 1,100 personnel at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, and Tinker AFB, Okla.
“We can and have looked at bringing B-52s out of Arizona,” Spaulding said on Monday. “That’s not necessarily an easy thing to do, and there are some limitations on how far you may go with that number so I’ll leave that as an open maybe.”
The RMP “original acquisition strategy was always to have two test aircraft,” said Col. Spencer Turner, the B-52 senior materiel leader at Tinker AFB. “Modification of that second aircraft is ongoing, and we expect to complete the full modification for the full radar suite this year to proceed with testing. With the crash last month, the team is evaluating our strategy and what modifications need to be made to that. We’re fully supporting the safety investigation board.”
“Whatever outcome comes from that, we’ll adjust our plans and schedules,” he said.
Commercial Engine Replacement Program and New Heavy Bomber AoA
Aside from RMP, the other main B-52 modernization thrust is the Commercial Engine Replacement Program (CERP) to integrate more powerful Rolls-Royce F130 engines on the bomber to replace the B-52H’s eight Pratt & Whitney TF33-PW-103s.
Last month’s bomber crash had no effect on CERP, as RMP and CERP are to use different B-52Hs for testing, according to the Air Force.
In fiscal 2027, the Air Force plans to kick off a “new heavy bomber analysis of alternatives” (AoA) to examine a possible replacement for the B-52s. The $1 million in funding would start “planning activities to develop key performance parameters, key system attributes, and additional performance attributes for a follow-on heavy bomber in the USAF,” the Air Force said.
The Government Accountability Office’s annual weapons systems assessment this month said that the Air Force is working through CERP availability of parts, software development, and aircraft integration challenges, as the program “plans to establish a formal acquisition program baseline and enter development in the third quarter of 2026—nearly 2 years later than planned after transitioning to the MCA [major capability acquisition] pathway in December 2023.”
Engine inlet distortion–a variable flow of air that may affect engine performance–resulted in a redesign of the engine inlet that the GAO said contributed to a resolution of the distortion in June of last year.
“I think the biggest challenge with any system is taking an existing design–the F130 commercial engine, in this case–and integrating it back into a military platform, ” John Sneden, AFLCMC’s program acquisition executive for propulsion, said on Monday. “The most sensitive issue that’s been out there is making sure that the engine to inlet aspect is appropriately addressed–making sure that the engine can breathe through the entire flight profile, and that requires extensive integration testing and evaluation.”
“On this [CERP] program, we’ve done a lot of standalone engine testing to make sure that it’s robust for our needs,” he said. “What we’re doing right now is leaning into that integration testing–that inlet to engine configuration aspect.”
Once the B-52Hs receive the RMP and CERP upgrades, they are to become B-52Js.
A version of this story originally appeared in sister publication Defense Daily.
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