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1/15/2015 – EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. — Since the Air Force’s decision in 2013 to increase the B-52H bomber fleet’s effectiveness and versatility by increasing the aircraft’s smart weapons capacity by over 50 percent, teams from Tinker Air Force Base, Okla., Boeing and, now Edwards, have partnered up to begin developmental testing on the “Buff’s” newest upgrade.

This new upgrade comes in the form of a Conventional Rotary Launcher, which members from the 419th Flight Test Squadron, the Global Power Bomber Combined Test Force and Boeing installed on an Edwards B-52H this past December.

“The upgrade modifies the internal weapons bay of the B-52H bomber by integrating a CRL that has the capability of carrying Military Standard 1760 “smart weapons,” said Jeff Lupton, Boeing 1760 program manager.

via Bomber force prepares for new B-52 bomb bay upgrade testing.

Huh. Learn something new everyday. Honestly, I thought they’d done this a couple years ago. They did it to the B-1B fleet recently.

Basically, when you’re dealing with smart weapons, such as JDAM, the plane needs to be able to talk to the weapons, via a data cable, in this case, called a databus. Rewiring a bomber bay to support that is a fairly major undertaking, considering the nearly prehistoric origins of the rest of the B-52’s avionics.

Recently, most B-52s have had the capability to use laser guided bombs (off the wing bomb racks) added via the Sniper laser/thermal imaging pod. On the B-52, the pod is on the starboard wing, between the pairs of engine pylons, on a newly installed pylon.

Another big advantage of adding the Conventional Rotary Launcher is that the latest CRL can carry far more than just the 8 2000lb JDAMs of the first generation rotary launcher. Instead it can mix and match 2000lb and 500lb bombs giving a B-52 more weapons, as well as much greater flexibility in choosing an appropriate weapon for a given target.

The last B-52 rolled off the production line in 1962. Current plans are to keep them in service at least until 2040.  Built in an era when the service life of a modern aircraft was 1o to 15 years, that’s pretty impressive.