Thirteen years after being retired on August 14, 2008, B-52H Stratofortress 60-0034 “Wise Guy” returned to the fleet at Minot AFB in North Dakota. The aircraft began its journey back to the sky at the 309th Aircraft Maintenance and Regeneration Group (AMARG) at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona in 2019. After initial refurbishment, she was ferried to Barksdale AFB, Louisiana in May 2019 for maintenance and then ferried in April 2020 to Tinker AFB, Oklahoma for full depot maintenance. On December 14, 2020 she took her first flight wheels up in 12 years and completed two more flights on December 16 and 18, 2020. Exactly 4,590 days elapsed since her retirement to almost certain destruction, but on March 9, 2021 “Wise Guy” returned to the fleet at Minot.
Photo by Rob Stephens, Redhome Aviation
The two images without paint were taken as the depot work was done.
You can barely see, but the nose art is back on the aircraft. Also, the right front gear is stuck down. They did fly it home at 12,000 feet due to the stuck gear.
