B-52 tracker: every Boeing B-52 Stratofortress flying right now
The B-52 Stratofortress first flew in 1952 and is planned to fly into the 2050s, which would make it the first warplane in service for a century. The Air Force's bombers fly training missions and overseas deployments almost every day, and many of those flights broadcast their position.
Government and military aircraft appear here only when they broadcast their position publicly over ADS-B. Many of their flights do not.
| Flight | Registration | Operator | Type | Altitude | Speed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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Boeing B-52 Stratofortress at a glance
- First flight
- April 15, 1952
- Built
- 744, the last delivered in 1962
- In service
- 76 B-52H bombers: 58 with active-duty units at Minot, North Dakota, and Barksdale, Louisiana, and 18 with the Air Force Reserve at Barksdale
- Engines
- Eight Pratt & Whitney TF33s, to be replaced by eight Rolls-Royce F130s
- The B-52J
- The re-engined, re-radared version, with a first flight planned for 2029
Why it is still flying
Every B-52 in service today was built between 1960 and 1962. The design turned out to have enormous structural margin and an easily modified airframe, so instead of replacing it the Air Force has kept rebuilding it: new weapons, new sensors, new communications, and now new engines. The B-52 is set to outlive both the B-1 and the B-2, which retire first, and to serve alongside the new B-21 Raider.
The current upgrade is the biggest yet. Each bomber gets eight Rolls-Royce F130 engines in place of its 1960s TF33s, plus a new radar, and comes out the other side as a B-52J. Boeing and the Air Force finished the design review in May 2026, the first aircraft go in for conversion later in 2026, and the first B-52J is planned to fly in 2029.
Reading the map
B-52s fly from Minot and Barksdale on training sorties, and regularly deploy in small groups on Bomber Task Force missions to the UK, Spain, Guam, Australia and the Middle East. A B-52 crossing the Atlantic is usually one of those deployments. The bombers also appear at air shows and flyovers. Their presence on a public tracker is routine: the Air Force switches the public position broadcast off when a mission needs it.
Questions
Why can I see a B-52 on a flight tracker?
Many training and transit flights broadcast ADS-B like any other aircraft. Missions that need privacy don't, so the list above only ever shows a part of what is flying.
How many B-52s are left?
The Air Force operates 76 B-52H bombers, all built between 1960 and 1962. Hundreds of earlier B-52s were scrapped or sit in storage in Arizona.
Why isn't an aircraft I know is flying on the map?
Positions come from volunteer ADS-B receivers, which only hear aircraft within roughly 200 nautical miles. Over oceans, deserts and parts of Africa and Asia there are few receivers, so an aircraft can vanish mid-flight and reappear near land. Military and some government aircraft also switch their transponders' public data off.
More live trackers
Positions from the adsb.lol volunteer ADS-B network (ODbL). Aircraft are shown only while a receiver can hear them.