For all its incredible virtue and Swiss army knife versatility, the 'BUFF' can never venture into modern contested air space. Never. It's simply too big a target for modern air defense systems on the ground and in the air. Therefore, improving its long-range situational awareness to maximize its strengths is vital to its usefulness for the next 30-plus years. The 'BUFF' desperately needs a new radar as the language used in the radar upgrade contract from 2009 about the B-52's current radar makes painfully stark: "The AN/APQ-166 Mechanically Scanned Array (MSA) radar system currently installed on the B-52H fleet was originally fielded in the 1950s, last upgraded to its present configuration in the early 1980s and is approaching the end of its useful life. The antenna assembly has corrosion issues, and several components of the radar system are experiencing diminishing manufacturing source/material shortage (DMS/MS) situations. Forecasts indicate that the B-52H radar system will become unsupportable beginning in the 2016 timeframe." Ugh.
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