http://www.npr.org/2013/12/19/255551327/once-a-mighty-bomber-a-b-52-meets-its-end-in-the-desert


A relic of the Cold War met its end on Thursday. The Air Force destroyed the last B-52 bomber required under the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia.

A crew used a circular saw to cut through the plane's aluminum skin, the tail section separating from the fuselage with a loud thunk and officially rendering the bomber useless.

Truth is, this particular bomber hadn't flown in more than 20 years. It's been sitting with thousands of aircraft in the desert at what's known as the boneyard, the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base facility for retired aircraft. Back in the day, though, it dropped conventional bombs over Vietnam. It also carried nuclear bombs. If you've seen Stanley Kubrick's classic dark comedy Dr. Strangelove,, you know the type of plane.

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"The United States, at the height of the Cold War, had more than 31,000 weapons in its arsenal. A couple years ago, then-Secretary of State [Hillary] Clinton announced that that number had dropped down to just over 5,000, so that's a dramatic change in terms of the overall capabilities of both sides," Klotz says.

On Thursday morning, the tail section of B-52 #58-0224 was set down at an angle away well from the fuselage. That way Russian satellites can see that the plane is destroyed.