Mapping USAF Global Range

This follows on a previous post mapping long-haul flights (this blog) in a similar manner.

Currently in the news, the UK prohibited the use of forward bases by the US, whereas that issue was sidestepped last summer for US intervention in Iran (Perplexity). Having looked at the range of fighter jets in Arctic War games (this blog), I did the same for B52 bombers (Perplexity). Here are the relevant data:

The B-52’s unrefuelled combat range is a bit over 8,800 miles (about 14,100 km). So I used a 4,400 Statute Mile buffer. I didn't use the refuelling option: while that was practical for last June B2 single overnight strike, B52 with significantly heavier loads need staging:

I lived in Cambridge UK, home of Marshall Aerospace not far from Mildenhall and other joint UK US air force bases. B52s have been built since the 50's, but they have been retrofitted at Marshall with electronics. They combine the best of both worlds: over-engineered analog jets ("fly-by-wire" came a generation later) and recent equipment. This and the B2 / B52 distinction were acc. to friends working at Marshall, I'm sure you can google it.

Tech corner: most maps are in degrees, so how to map distances? Equidistant projections allow distance measurements, but they are restricted locally not globally (Perplexity). Maps & worldwide buffers get severely distorted globally as needed at present (L to R: azimuthal, conic, cylindrical, two-point & world cylindrical, orig. 1:225M in ArcGIS Pro):

click to enlarge, original

So, I used Spilhaus projection that is ocean-centric for the same reason as mapping long-haul flights previously, emphasis added:

From my Story Map portfolio here, my second 30DayMapChallenge here during COVID, and an extra on "Day 15b: Connections": Inspired by  @pheebely  tweet "Ten Longest Haul Flights" here, which I remapped in Spilhaus projection... Why? Because it's ocean-centric! Long-haul flights tend to go over oceans, not only to follow "great circles" (shortest distance over a globe), but also for safety (less risk of ground damage in the unlikely case of an accident). In Esri ArcGIS Pro with publicly available fight path data.

Big thank you to Esri's Boyan Savric, David Burrows and John Nelson for recreating and publicizing this quixotic yet handy projection (Esri, Perplexity).

click to enlarge, original

See why to reach the Middle-East (top center), taking off from Barksdale AFB (top left) requires a transit via Fairford UK, and from Guam (middle right) via Diego Garcia, British Indian Ocean Territory (Chagos Archipelago also in the news for other reasons last year).