The U.S. Air Force officials do not exclude that several previously-retired B-52 bombers might still return to service from airplane boneyard.
In an op-ed for The Air Force Magazine, Air Force Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Stephen Wilson said the Air Force “isn’t going to get any new B-52s,” Air Force Global Strike Command might still take “one or two more out of the boneyard.”
He noted that Air Force Global Strike Command boss Gen. Timothy Ray has “already brought one B-52 out of the boneyard.”
Earlier this year, a B-52H “Wise Guy” bomber built in the early 1960s and put into retirement in an Air Force’s boneyard in the Arizona desert over 10 years ago returned to service.
According to an article written by the 307th Bomb Wing Public Affairs office, the B-52 had more than 17,000 flight hours before arriving to the Boneyard, and it took a collective effort to make it air worthy again.
The Boneyard, which is maintained by the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group (AMARG), is a storage facility known for housing decommissioned aircraft. This particular B-52, nicknamed “Wise Guy,” had been resting there since 2008, but was called back into duty after another B-52 crashed in 2016 at Andersen AFB, Guam.
The first regenerated B-52, nicknamed “Ghost Rider,” was restored in 2015.