More than 70 years after it first took to the skies, America's legendary B-52 is still in service.
After the B-1B Lancer and B-2 Spirit were sent out to pasture, the B-52 will continue to fly.
The BUFF was designed over the course of a single weekend by a small group of Boeing engineers in a hotel room in Dayton.
The B-52's service career has spanned decades and conflicts. Combat aviation was reborn into the jet age at a time when the aircraft was born.
The primary fighter-bombers in service over the Korean War were an updated version of the World War II P51 and the F- 51. The F-100 Super Sabre was already in operation when the BUFF entered service.
In this era of rapid change, the B-52's swept-wing design and jet propulsion proved that the platform was capable of keeping pace with the times.
The world's first air-drop of a thermo-nuclear weapon over the Bikini Atoll was conducted by a B52 one year after it entered service. The following year, it proved it had global reach when three B-52s conducted a non-stop round-the-world flight in less than 48 hours.
Multiple B 52s would set world-speed records. Multiple new records for distances flown without refueling would fall to B-54 crews soon.
After Gary Powers' U-2 was shot down, the B-52's preferred approach to bombing was no longer feasible.
Rather than retire their new bomber, the Air Force assessed that the aircraft's flexible design could transition into a low-flying bomber below 400 feet.
During the Vietnam War, the B 52 dropped more than 15,000 tons of bombs on Hanoi and other targets. Two air-to-air kills were credited to the B-52 during Vietnam.
During the Gulf War in the 1990s, the B-52s played a vital role.
At least a third of the bombs dropped by US forces in the region were delivered by B-52 crews.
The use of missiles at targets from stand-off ranges proved the bomber could be used more than just to drop bombs.
The B-52 got another lease on life in the form of a $2.6 billion Commercial Engine Replacement Program contract awarded to Rolls-Royce to replace its 1960s-era TF33 engines with new F130s that will keep it flying into the 40s and 50s.
Boeing was given a contract by the US Air Force to design and build a heavy bomber.
The first jet fighter had entered service three years before the P-80 shooting star, but the engines were still in their infancy. The fuel-hungry engines weren't considered feasible for long-range bomber applications because they weren't powerful enough to propel the P-80 to nearly 600 mph.
When Boeing's three-man presentation team arrived at Wright Field Air Force Base in 1948, they brought designs for a straight-wing bomber powered by four engines reminiscent of World War II platforms.
The colonel wasn't impressed when George Schairer showed their designs to him.
The Boeing team did not have the authority to scrap their design.
He was aware that even though there was resistance within the Air Force at large, heavy-hitting generals like the legendary Curtis LeMay believed that swept-wing jet bombers were the future. The warden was likely to agree.
The Boeing team was told by Warden that they should do away with their design and come back to him with a new design. He asked Schairer to start from the beginning.
Schairer was carrying some work he'd already done on the possibility of a jet-powered bomber in his briefcase, which gave him just enough of a foundation to think a redesign could be possible.
Schairer was on the phone with Ed Wells, Boeing's vice president of engineering. Wells hopped on a flight and arrived in Dayton along with Schairer and Carlsen at the hotel.
The four men dove into the early data Schairier had on hand and quickly designed the B52 to incorporate a new type of engine.
The Boeing team came back the next day with a new jet-powered B52 design, only to find that Warden wasn't sold on it.
"I don't think you've gone far enough," Warden told the team.
"Let's see what we can do," Wells told the Colonel at noon on Friday. "We'll be back Monday morning."
Fortunately for the design team, Boeing had two more top designers in Dayton that week: Bob Withington, who played a role in the swept-wing design utilized by the B-47, and Maynard Pennell, who was the assistant manager of the history-making B 29 program.
They joined Schairer, Wells, Carlsen, and Blumenthal in the cramped hotel room, pouring over sketches and mathematical computations. Aviation design wouldn't include computers in the future.
They had just 48 hours to come up with a new bomber.
The new bomber came into focus late Friday. The plane was swept back from the fuselage at a 35- degree angle. The four turboprop engines that were supposed to be used were replaced by eight new turbojets.
Schairer went to a local hobby shop the next day. While Wells was buckled down to begin the legitimate aircraft design drawings, he picked up some materials. The rest of the crew had to calculate the weight and performance of the plane.
A local stenographer was brought in to type up a clean copy of the proposal. They returned to Warden's office on Monday with a model of the bomber itself, as well as a fully realized 33 page proposal.
The Saturday design was immediately taken to by the warden.
"Now we have an airplane," he said. "This is the B-52."
Boeing's legendary team had assembled over just 48 hours in a historic Hotel Van Cleve in Dayton, Ohio, to assemble the first B52.
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