Flight Craft 31: Boeing B-52 Stratofortress
By Ben Skipper
First flown in 1952, the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress became the ultimate expression of Cold War very heavy bomber design. The last of the famous ‘Fortress’ series of aircraft produced by the legendary Seattle-based company, the B-52 was created over a weekend in a hotel suite in Ohio, resulting in a design that gave America’s post-war Strategic Air Command, led by General Curtis Le May, an additional nuclear-capable edge.
The B-52 was almost as big as Convair’s B-36 Peacemaker, the largest serial-produced piston-powered aircraft ever built. The B-52 could carry a very similar bomb load, but flew it further, higher and faster. The turbojet-powered B-52 utilized techniques Boeing had learned from the Model 450 B-47 Stratojet and was designed to meet the Strategic Air Command’s ever-changing needs in the nuclear age.
Like its predecessors, Boeing’s B-52 proved to be a highly flexible aircraft, capable of carrying increasing payloads, meaning it has remained in service well beyond its expected lifespan. Over the decades the B-52 gradually become a strategic and tactical airborne platform capable of delivering evermore deadly attacks against targets in various environments, from jungle to arid mountains. The B-52 had become the universal tool for commanders on the ground and a symbol of American military power, capable of striking a target anywhere in the world – as evidenced by its deployment in, for example, the Vietnam War and the Gulf War. Such was its potency, that the USAF and Boeing had developed an aeroplane of such importance that it now seems impossible to discuss conventional air power without including the B-52.
This Flight Craft title offers the aviation enthusiast, historian and modeller an exciting selection of B-52-related resources through photographs, illustrations and excellent showcase examples to help build their own versions of this fearsome military aircraft.
Vintage Airfix Review:
Few aircraft inspire the same mixture of awe and reverence as the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress, and Flight Craft 31 does it considerable justice. Opening with a crisp account of the bomber’s tortuous development, the author navigates the political wrangling and repeated design changes that nearly strangled the programme at birth, with Curtis LeMay looming large throughout. The variant-by-variant breakdown is thorough and reliable, drawing on solid primary sources, and the photographic selection, heavy on official USAF imagery, is both plentiful and well chosen. For those of us who spend evenings squinting at references whilst assembling a 1/72 fuselage, the coverage of markings, weapons fits, and operational changes across the B through H models is genuinely useful.
The modelling chapter, covering kits from Monogram, Italeri, Modelcollect, HPH, and Sanger, is honest and practical, with frank assessments of each kit’s limitations that reflect real workshop experience. The book is compact and occasionally feels slightly rushed in its operational chapters, but as a research starting point or a modelling companion, it punches well above its weight. Recommended without hesitation for enthusiasts and builders alike.
