Originally Posted by
JamesNoBrakes
And 50 years of "life" left on the airframes? Yeah right. You can have anything though if you are willing to shell out the money. I'm sure they could make them last 50 more years, but doing so would likely take way more money than is reasonable and practical.
I'll chime in as a structural engineer: Huggy is right. It's not that big a deal.
Data point--BUFF is older, spent years flying a much harsher regime, still doing the job just fine. Whatever shortcomings it may have, nothing to do with the aircraft structure. And in fact, we keep hanging stuff on there that wasn't even dreamed of when the plane was built/plumbed. And it just keeps trucking along.
I got no inside game on the GH, but knowing the focus on weight, and the extremes it operates at, I'd be a little more worried about it's structural longevity than the U2.
There was an ariticle a year or two back when the AF tried to punt the GH, showed operating costs--Huggy do you still have it? I couldn't find it.