A USAF B-2 Spirit in flight. Wikipedia
$2 Billion Update For Whiteman’s B-2 Bomber -- Kansas City
Say you own a 20-year-old car and intend to drive it beyond the year 2050. It will need some fixing.
A challenge similar to that continually faces Whiteman Air Force Base, home to the B-2 stealth bomber. Many aircraft parts made in the 1980s, when the first of 21 B-2s rolled out of a Northrop Grumman Corp. hangar, are as obsolete today as the floppy disk.
Yet the plan is to keep those bat-winged bombers flying, and eluding the latest in radar technology, until 2058.
Read more ....
Update: B-2 stealth bombers to get $2 billion upgrade -- StlToday/AP
My Comment: The reason why the lifespan for the B-2 is being extended is the following (from AP) ....
.... The bomber is currently the only aircraft capable of carrying a super-bunker buster in development, which is the 30,000-pound Massive Ordnance Penetrator. The Pentagon calls the MOP crucial to defense capabilities against hardened, deeply buried targets.
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