DAYTON, Ohio—Air Force officials plan to resume B-52 radar development with another Stratofortress after a crash killed an eight-person crew during a June test flight.
On June 15, a B-52 Stratofortress crashed in California during a test flight as part of the Air Force’s radar modernization program, which is aimed at keeping the service’s 75 Cold War-era bombers in the skies until at least the 2050s. The service had already planned to modify another aircraft with the updated Raytheon-built Active Electronically Scanned Array radar later this year, program officials told reporters on Monday during the Life Cycle Industry Days conference here. It’s not clear when officials will resume flight testing.
“The original acquisition plan and execution strategy was always to have two test aircraft,” Col. Spencer Turner, the B-52 system program manager said, adding that the “modification effort on that second aircraft is ongoing” and that he expects the service to complete the installation of the full radar suite onto the aircraft “this year.”
The deadly crash may add to persistent program delays. The Air Force planned to have two test aircraft for the radar modernization program, but only one had been completed. The June 15 crash paused test flights, and as the service waits for the next upgraded bomber, it’s not clear if another B-52 will be added to development efforts. Despite the incident, program officials claim they are still “on track” with the realigned budget and schedule, but they may need to be adjusted.
“Obviously, the crash was not in our original schedule,” Turner said. “So we need to look at our schedule and adjust as necessary.”
Boeing delivered the first test B-52 aircraft to Edwards Air Force Base in late 2025, according to a company press release.
“The new radar will significantly increase B-52 mission effectiveness by improving situational awareness, speeding target prosecution and enhancing aircrew survivability in contested environments,” Troy Dawson, Boeing Bombers vice president, said in the December news release. “This phase of the program is dedicated to getting it right at the start so that we can execute the full radar modernization program.”
Spokespeople for the Air Force and Boeing did not immediately respond when asked if there are still plans to have two dedicated test aircraft following the crash.
The radar modernization plan has faced heavy criticism.
Last year, the radar modernization program’s cost overruns triggered a Nunn-McCurdy Act breach. The Government Accountability Office warned that the production design for the radar modernization was “planned with very little development flight testing completed” and “beginning production with limited testing of a fully integrated system often results in costly and time-intensive rework if the program discovers issues later,” according to the watchdog’s annual weapons systems assessment released last month.
The B-52 has led major bombing campaigns during the Iran war. With the modernized bombers, which will be designated the B-52J, the service plans to have the Air Force long-range fleet consist of the Stratofortresses and the next-generation B-21 Raiders.
Col. Timothy Spaulding, the portfolio acquisition executive for bombers, said it’s possible that the service could pull B-52s out of the boneyard at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base for future fights.
“We can and have looked at bringing B-52 out of Arizona,” he said. “That’s not necessarily an easy thing to do, and there’s some limitation to how far you might go on that number.”
