The B-52H acquired the AN/APQ-188 AESA radar at Boeing’s San Antonio facility and has now arrived at Edwards AFB for the bottom and flight testing deliberate all through 2026.
The U.S. Air Drive has introduced that the B-52H Stratofortress modified with the brand new AN/APQ-188 Energetic Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar has been ferried to Edwards Air Drive Base, California, on Dec. 8, 2025. The bomber acquired the brand new system at Boeing’s San Antonio, Texas, facility as a part of the B-52 Radar Modernization Program (RMP).
“This milestone marks a major step ahead within the plane’s ongoing modernization efforts to make sure it stays a essential element of america Air Drive’s standard and nuclear long-range strike capabilities,” says the service. The arrival additionally follows feedback in August by Lt. Gen. Andrew J. Gebara, Deputy Chief of Employees for Strategic Deterrence and Nuclear Integration, who stated the service was “very near getting that first radar to Edwards Air Drive Base to start flight take a look at.”
Arrival at Edwards
The Air Drive defined in a press launch {that a} crew from the forty ninth Take a look at Analysis Squadron at Barksdale AFB, Louisiana, and the 419th Flight Take a look at Squadron at Edwards AFB, transferred the plane from Boeing’s facility. Along with the photographs of the bomber touchdown at Edwards, the service additionally launched a photograph displaying the brand new radar put in within the radome.
“The ferry flight of this upgraded B-52 marks an essential second in our efforts to modernize the bomber pressure,” stated Secretary of the Air Drive Troy Meink. “This radar modernization ensures that the B-52 will proceed to function a cornerstone of American airpower nicely into the longer term. We’re dedicated to extending the lifetime of this very important platform, permitting it to function alongside next-generation fighter and bomber plane.”
The service additional described the RMP as “a key ingredient of the broader technique to modernize the B-52 as its deliberate service life now extends by way of 2050 and doubtlessly past, because it turns into the long-range strike complement to the Air Drive’s latest strategic bomber, the B-21 Raider.” Raytheon’s trendy AESA radar system replaces the plane’s antiquated and failing legacy AN/APQ-166 radar, offering an upgraded all-weather navigation and focusing on functionality.
“This milestone ensures our future Airmen inherit a modernized, prepared Air Drive,” stated Air Drive Chief of Employees Gen. Ken Wilsbach. “The B-52 Radar Modernization Program is about greater than know-how, it’s about readiness, deterrence and the power to battle and win. The B-52 stays a robust instance of how we fly, repair, and battle to maintain international strike functionality.”
The Radar Modernization Program
The radar improve is a cornerstone of the broader B-52J configuration, which additionally consists of new engines, up to date avionics, and structural enhancements meant to maintain the bomber fleet in service by way of 2050. The brand new radar, Raytheon’s AN/APQ-188 – additionally known as the Bomber Modernized Radar System – is supposed to switch the out of date mechanically scanned AN/APQ-166 that has been in use because the Chilly Struggle.
The AN/APQ-188 is an energetic electronically scanned array (AESA) radar derived primarily from the AN/APG-79 discovered on the U.S. Navy’s F/A-18E/F Tremendous Hornet and EA-18G Growler, with extra components from the AN/APG-82 of the U.S. Air Drive’s F-15E and F-15EX. By leveraging current, confirmed designs, the Air Drive aimed to manage prices whereas giving the B-52 entry to trendy multi-mode AESA capabilities.
As Lt. Gen. Gebara defined throughout a Mitchell Institute occasion in August 2025, the radar was deliberately primarily based on the F/A-18’s design as a result of it was available available on the market. “It could really value us extra if we requested to design a brand new radar,” he stated.
Nonetheless, this strategy additionally meant reassessing which options have been actually vital for the B-52’s mission. With the F/A-18 being a multirole plane, lots of its radar’s features – particularly air-to-air – wouldn’t be wanted by the B-52, and eradicating them would imply decreasing the complexity, though extra features might be added later if funding permits.
AESA radars carry important benefits over mechanically scanned techniques. Amongst these are elevated detection vary, improved decision, better resistance to jamming, and multifunctional capabilities that may additionally help digital warfare.
For the B-52, the brand new radar is predicted to boost goal acquisition, doubtlessly with floor transferring goal indication and artificial aperture radar features. Moreover, though it’s optimized for air-to-ground roles, the brand new radar may nonetheless retain air-to-air capabilities to the bomber defend towards air-to-air threats.
Boeing says the radar improve additionally consists of two Show and System Sensor Processors as its mission computer systems to combine the radar with B-52 techniques, together with two giant 8×20-inch high-definition touchscreens on the Nav and Radar Nav stations for radar imagery, management and legacy shows, and two fighter-like hand controllers for radar operation. The system options upgraded cooling, offering liquid cooling for the radar and engine bleed-air heating for very chilly situations.
Delays And Price Progress
Regardless of these ambitions, this system has confronted severe difficulties. Raytheon delivered the primary radar to the Air Drive almost two years in the past, however flight testing, initially deliberate for Fiscal Yr 2024, was postponed to Fiscal Yr 2026. This delay additionally shifted the anticipated preliminary operational functionality from 2027 to a window between 2028 and 2030.
A June 2025 report from the Authorities Accountability Workplace (GAO) attributed the setbacks to challenges with environmental qualification, software program improvement, and components procurement, whereas the Pentagon’s Director of Operational Take a look at and Analysis (DOT&E) flagged difficulties in bodily integrating the radar into the B-52’s nostril part.
The delays have been consequently accompanied by value progress that triggered a Nunn-McCurdy breach earlier this 12 months. Below U.S. regulation, a major breach, outlined as a price improve of a minimum of 15% from baseline, requires the service to inform Congress and evaluation this system.
Whereas the B-52 radar breach was not deemed essential, which might have required the Division of Protection to certify this system as important to nationwide safety, the Air Drive nonetheless examined the radar’s necessities to establish attainable value financial savings.
A uncommon view of B-52’s open nostril. In 2023, Boeing initiated a serious radar improve program for the B-52. The Radar Modernization Program (RMP) will equip the venerable B-52H with new, fighter-like radar capabilities. This improve will improve navigation accuracy, focusing on,… pic.twitter.com/IIIM1iqWPi
— Air Energy (@RealAirPower1) December 13, 2024
The B-52J Modernization
The radar improve is only one a part of a wider modernization push for the Stratofortress, one of many Air Drive’s oldest but most enduring platforms. One other essential effort, the Business Engine Substitute Program (CERP), is changing the B-52’s eight TF33 engines – out of manufacturing because the Nineteen Eighties – with Rolls-Royce F130s.
Just like the radar program, the engine initiative has skilled schedule slips, with operational use no longer anticipated earlier than 2033, three years later than initially deliberate. Full fleet re-engining will not be accomplished till 2036, in accordance with The Struggle Zone.
Regardless of these delays, the modernization applications replicate the Air Drive’s long-term dedication to the B-52. With its giant payload capability, international vary, and adaptableness to trendy weapons, the Stratofortress stays central to the U.S. nuclear and standard strike mission.
In actual fact, as beforehand reported, the Air Drive plans to maneuver to a two-type bomber fleet, primarily based on the new B-21 Raider stealth bomber and the upgraded B-52J. The upgrades would enable the B-52J to enrich the B-21 with long-range stand-off assault capabilities, whereas the stealth bomber would deal with penetrating closely defended airspaces.
