I KNEW when I wrote my comment that the woke and sexist crowd would show up. Hopefully, it will be able to perform all the missions of the B-2 … and more. Well … the B-21 “Raider” will be popping out momentarily. These airplanes are far to valuable to be flown by less than the best of the best experienced crews just so that some colonel or general can show that he’s “WOKE!” I don’t know anything about who was flying this one. I was surprised to learn that a young female captain flew the B-2 that did the flyover for the Super Bowl. First operational in 1993, the operational airplanes are already 30 years old … hard to believe. At some point, the senior USAF people will decide that maintaining the B-2 costs too much and retire her just like they did the F-117A. I’m hoping that this “Spirit” can be resurrected if for no other purpose than for training. The airplane - itself - didn’t cost $2B … it was the ancillary costs added in that made that so, among other things. Originally a SAc B-58 and B-52 guy, I always felt like 20 + 1 (the prototype was turned into an operational machine) was too few and that sooner or later some would be lost. I was at the manufacturing site when the tooling was yanked outside and destroyed in the late 90’s. Originally, the order was for 132 airplanes, then 100, then 50 then an order for each one when the cold war ended. That should be enough to keep it cruising onward, punching through the sky for maybe the next three decades, perhaps with the occasional part out of place.I worked on the B-2 program for over a decade. It’s not perfect, but it’s pretty good, and it gets a lot done. In fact, after that five-hour flight, another team quickly hopped into the same B-52 and took off again with the landing gear issue still unresolved, its crew said. And sometimes the switches that control the wheels just “get out of rig,” an Air Force spokesperson wrote via email. Those landing gear legs can’t fold up into the belly, though, unless the switches say they’re centered. The issue with the stubborn stay-down wheels stemmed from a fascinating design feature on the aircraft that allows the plane to pivot its main landing gear, so that if it’s landing in a cross wind, the nose of the beast can face into the wind while its wheels line up with the runway. Ultimately, the BUFF has its quirks-one of which was on full display during that March training mission out of Louisiana. A crew member enters the aircraft through the hatch in its belly. But no matter how you slice it, bombers don’t come cheap. Part of the reason for the difference is that because the Air Force has so many B-52s compared to the others, the operational costs per aircraft are much lower. The B-1, meanwhile, clocks in at $23 million per plane each year, and the B-2 a whopping $43 million. The BUFF fleet costs the Air Force $1.4 billion per year, according to Harrison, which translates to around $18 million for a single aircraft annually. On a per-plane basis, the B-52 is less expensive for the Air Force to own and fly than the other bombers. “This is real,” Ray says, “whereas the B-21 is in parts getting put together right now.” What’s more, the B-52 is a metal bird that’s already in the hand, which is another reason to keep it running. The new B-21 Raider will be even pricier to buy, which is why the fleet of tomorrow would be a mix of vintage and new. Giving each B-52 eight new engines and other upgrades requires a budget of about $130 million per plane, Ray says. The costs involved with aircraft like these are astronomical.
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