B-52 to be in service for over 100 years

B-52 in the USAF Museum. It was damaged by a SAM on 9 April 1972, made an emergency landing at Da Nang and after being repaired flew four more missions over NVN in December 1972.

Admiral Beez said:

I believe Greece and Turkey retired theirs this year. But I'm not sure.

Had Canada replaced its CF-100s and Canadair Sabres with Phantoms instead of Voodoos, Starfighters and Freedom Fighters, I expect we'd never have got the CF-18 Hornets, and instead operated the Phantom well into the 2000s until they were replaced by the likes of the Super Hornet, Typhoon or even Lightning.

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For Greece, retirement scheduled on early 2026, to be replaced by F-35A Lightning II by 2028, the interim period being covered by Rafale F3-R.

THK still has 1 squadron equipped with 19 (as of Jan'25) updated F-4E-2020 airframes. They are mainly intended for anti-ship or ground strike with precision guided weapons. They are currently operating with a couple of different targeting pods, one of which is capable of electro-optically identifying ship targets at ranges of over 40 miles and contains a data-link system that allows an aircraft equipped with the pod to send targeting information to control compatible weapons launched by other aircraft. The current block F-4E-2020 weapons capability includes most of the common NATO precision guided bombs, AGM-65 Mavericks, and the 'Popeye' ASM (of which a modified variant is produced in-country under license), along with various other NATO (JDAM, SDGB, etc) and homegrown ordnance. Air-to-Air weapons may be limited to AIM-9 Sidewinder, although integration with domestically produced Bozdogan (Merlin) IR homing or Gokdogan (Peregrin) Active-Radar homing missiles may occur in the future.

Apparently, the THK intends to keep them in service into the early-2030s at least.

ThomasP said:

Apparently, the THK intends to keep them in service into the early-2030s at least.

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That would have been Canada's path as well had we replaced the CF-100 and CL-13 Sabre with the F-4 instead of the CF-101 and CF-104. As each nation retired their F-4s the CAF would have bought up their stocks and kept flying the F-4 until replacing the Phantom with the Super Hornet or even F-35.