The plan to keep B-52s flying is getting even pricier

DAYTON, Ohio—The Air Force’s complex effort to put new engines and radars on its 1960s-era B-52 Stratofortresses is running billions of dollars over budget, according to service officials.  

The service wants to upgrade the venerable bomber so it can keep it flying for another three decades, to serve alongside the B-21 Raider as B-1 Lancer bombers and B-2 stealth bombers retire in the early 2030s. 

But the plan to replace the B-52’s current Pratt & Whitney TF33 engines with Rolls-Royce F130 engines and replace the radar with Raytheon’s active electronically scanned array radar, called AESA, is already being hit with schedule delays and a growing price tag.

The latest estimate for the B-52’s Commercial Engine Replacement Program, or CERP, has jumped to $15 billion—up $2.5 billion from the original estimate, Brian Knight, deputy senior materiel leader for the B-52 program, told reporters at the Air Force’s Life Cycle Industry Days conference. However, the Air Force is still refining its estimates and waiting for new proposals from Boeing, Knight said, so that price could change. And the program isn’t as easy as slapping new engines on the jet, Knight pointed out; the B-52 needs to be reworked to hold the new engines, and CERP includes an update to the cockpit, displays, and other systems. 

The engine replacement program is also facing a three-year delay, according to a June Government Accountability Office report. Delays, in part, have been caused by the Air Force transitioning CERP from a mid-tier acquisition program to a major defense program, which meant that work had to be moved into the current contract. “Because of that, it created, I’ll say, the opportunity for the prime contractor to raise costs, if you will…it just became unaffordable,” Knight said. 

The program also had to redesign the engine inlet, and that has added to the delays because the service has to test the new design in wind tunnels, which aren’t available that often, said Brig. Gen. Erik Quigley, the Air Force’s program executive officer for bombers.

Recent estimates to replace the B-52’s radar have jumped to $3.3 billion, up from the original $2.3 billion price tag, Knight said. That is moving the radar upgrade closer to a critical cost overrun, called a Nunn McCurdy breach, he said, but that hasn’t happened yet. 

The program is hoping to save money and time by purchasing long-lead parts for the radar, and is working with Air Force Global Strike Commander Gen. Thomas Bussiere to relook at “some of the requirements that maybe are not operationally [needed], or too restrictive that's actually slowing down some of the design” of the engine replacement, Quigley said. 

Boeing also changed its B-52 program leadership and brought in a “seasoned program manager” who is “holding a weekly schedule review board with his teams,” Quigley said.

The Air Force brought in former Pentagon official Shay Assad to assist with B-52 negotiations, Quigley said. Assad, who is known in the Pentagon for driving hard bargains with industry, was also enlisted to help with E-7 negotiations, after the service was struggling to reach an agreement with Boeing on the price of the new radar plane. 

“I don't want to speak disparagingly against Boeing or anything, but I mean, the government had our own issues, too. It's about efficiencies. A lot of it is on the business end of things: how we do pricing, how we do proposals, how we do contracting,” Quigley said when asked why the Air Force brought in Assad on the program.

Despite the growing cost and schedule delay, the service has no choice but to modernize the B-52 fleet, Quigley said, calling it a “no-fail mission.”