None of the major defense contractors (new or old) would be interested in doing this unless they could greatly pad out their numbers. There's a lot more money (see F-35) in building out a new system and landing the huge maintenance contract for the first 10+ years associated with it. A B-52 clone would be financially great for USAF if it could be built at an appropriate price since they have the maintenance capability for that airframe already, but no one would sell them one at the right price.

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ianburrell 10 hours ago | parent [-]

The B-21, a cheaper version of the B-2, makes more sense as new bomber since it can do the normal bomber jobs and the B-52 job of nuclear cruise missiles.

B-52 engine refurbishment is going to cost $15 billion for 70 odd bombers, or $214 million each. $750 million is current cost of B-21.

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tocs3 10 hours ago | parent [-]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_Grumman_B-21_Raider

Notice all the references to the B-21 are future tense.

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ianburrell 9 hours ago | parent [-]

Northrup has built a couple of prototypes and supposed to deliver first one next year. The B-21 program is going really fast. Air Force are ordering 145, which is slightly more than the B-1, B-2, and B-52s.

	▲	tocs3 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It is just easy to not trust official predictions but of course "past performance is not indicative of future results". So we will see.