When you really need to get the job done

a reply to: BigTrain

You have three people that have ACTUALLY WORKED on the B-1 that have posted about them many times, and yet you've somehow completely missed that they're incredibly maintenance intensive and have required huge amounts of money to modernize until now?

The B-1 has hardly been the work horse against ISIS. Just because one article says they're dropping bombs in record numbers doesn't mean that everything else is just sitting around twiddling its thumbs. Both the B-2 and B-52 as well as tactical air have been used over Syria on many missions.

They don't use the B-2? You're kidding right? The B-2 has been used constantly since we went into Iraq and Afghanistan.

Even when the B1 is at its best they keep one on the flight line in case the bird in the air has issues. Al least they used to, maybe it has gotten better. Though I heard at one time they were almost at a 70% mission capable rate in the not to distant. That may have been a cherry picked stat from one day for all I know though.

a reply to: Flipper35

It goes up and down, like most aircraft. It was down last year largely because they were going through the Depot at record levels because of required upgrades to almost all systems on board the aircraft.

a reply to: BigTrain

The least ready aircraft in the Air Force’s fleet in fiscal 2014 is also one of its busiest — the B-1B Lancer. The long-range strike bomber saw a mission capable rate of 47.7 percent in fiscal 2014, down from 57.7 percent the year before. The aircraft saw a 23.2 percent break rate in 2014, with 38.4 percent of those fixed within 12 hours.

“Just to give you an idea of the B-1, the average age of the fleet is 27 years old,” Henderson said. “It’s over its designed life span. Each aircraft has 8,700 hours on them. Over the past 10 years, there’s 23,000 hours per year on the fleet. They’re doing a lot of flying, and doing a lot of flying in combat environments. ... We’ve done a good job adapting.”

Because of this, B-1s are finding “new and inventive ways” of breaking, he said. To combat this, Air Combat Command has several upgrade, maintenance and testing plans for the fleet. These plans take multiple B-1s out of service at a time, contributing to its low mission capable rate.

The upgrades include: a new wheel brake systems improvement program, which will make the aircraft’s wheel and brake system 500 percent more reliable. Crews are inspecting and repairing the B-1’s wings after discovering cracks on the structure of the wings, along with pre-emptively fixing the skin on the aircraft’s wings. These changes are taking place while the Air Force is upgrading the B-1’s integrative battle station, which is the largest modification ever done to the aircraft’s weapons systems.

archive.airforcetimes.com...

The average age of the Air Force fleet, using some creative number crunching is 28 years old. The average readiness rate for most of the force is in the 70s, which fleet wide is about as good as you get with the size of the fleets in question.

As for sending 50 brand new aircraft to the Boneyard, the Air Force wouldn't hesitate to if they saved money.

pros of the b1. looks cool. loud as hell.

cons. inefficient, maintenance queen. gas hog. watching it a auger into the dirt during an emergency controlled crash landing in the Mojave desert cause her nose gear wouldn't deploy. zaph you remember that one?

a reply to: BASSPLYR

That one was nothing compared to the one that landed with the wings at 55 degrees.

a reply to: Zaphod58

yeah the desert crash landing was actually well coordinated since they had time to prepare when she flew to edwards from Texas for the emergency landing. ground emergency crews were right there along side her as she set down.

didn't hear about the landing you're talking abou. do tell.

a reply to: BASSPLYR

They were on a training flight in Europe with the wings swept and when they went to sweep them forward the wing sweep mechanism failed. They diverted to Rhein Mann and made a high speed landing. They stopped less than 100 feet from the end of the runway with a brake fire.

a reply to: Zaphod58

bet those wings locked up more than once like that.


guess theres no way or technique to try and slow the bird down enough to make a semi normal landing with the wings swept back?

a reply to: BASSPLYR

They have to sweep forward for low speed flight. Otherwise you can't generate lift and crash.

a reply to: Zaphod58

would major redesigns like giving it f18 styoke wing roots or some sorta chine along the neck help give it more lift?

a reply to: BASSPLYR

Not enough to make a difference. Without the wings swept forward nothing will generate enough lift to keep it airborne at low speed.

growing up my neighbor worked on the radar for the b1. Said the bird it's self was a lemon, nobody enjoyed working or developing her and it's was all politics pushing her through. said we had better designs. wouldn't say more than that. was a nice guy.

but b1 is loud n proud! used to love when she'd sneak up on the crowd at Edwards from behind the hangersvand Buzz the apon at .8 mach. it shook everything including your guts.

Understanding many do not want to see one dime taken from gee-whiz programs due severe budget restraints is there sense in using 2 billion or even 500 million dollar aircraft against targets such as we've been hitting in middle eastern countries?

Even B-52's and B-1s are wasted on these targets, notwithstanding, B-1 seems such a waste as designed.

I wonder if resources would be better used to re-hab some 2nd and 3rd generation airframes from boneyard for these target types and save the shiny objects for 1st world opponents and training.

If boneyard airframes are not suitable then is there any reason using off the shelf components, a lower cost alternative cannot be manufactured ?

a reply to: BigTrain

I'm sorry, but I have a really hard time believing that we have dropped over 20,000 bombs/missiles over the last 15 months.

Really? 20,000 bombs have made almost no affect on ISIS?

I call BS on all aspects of this situation.

a reply to: Anosognosia

BDA, sir, to date we have displaced 2,343,566 tons of sand !

a reply to: Zaphod58

I wanted to add this just to back up the zero hedge story, not to say the B-1 numbers of 20,000 are dead on the money, but Blomberg is saying 32,000 total....

www.bloomberg.com...

Anyways, Zaphod, you're not even responding to the topic, you've now bashed the workhorse bomber in multiple posts, instead of addressing the issue that this POS you claim it is, IS in fact, doing all the work.

Soooooo, the big nasty dirty turd is the go-to bomber. I don't know what else to say here, why isnt the B2, if its SOOOOO amazing and way less maintenance intense and way better, not running the bombing missions 24/7? Why is the B-1 doing it if its such a pile to .... like you say it is? Something doesn't add up in your argument?

On one hand your claiming B-1 is so expensive, so costly, so worthless, YET, its running the show??

And you use that logic to radically support 100 new shiny B3s, when the B2 isn't even being used. AND yes thats a fact, they are hardly using the B2, give me mission hours B2 versus B1.

You've got to clean up your argument, you can't have it both ways.

a reply to: BigTrain

The B-1 is hardly the workhorse of the campaign. That falls on tactical air, not heavy bombers. Why do you think the fighters are there? They're certainly not there for their health or to fly air to air missions.

But hey, the Internet says the B-1 is the greatest bomber ever built so it must be true. The Air Force reporting a less than 50% mission capable rate for the year, or huge upgrades going on are all lying because zerohedge says otherwise. Yes, yes, you're right. Yet again actual hands on experience means nothing because some Internet expert knows better.

According to your previous article they've dropped 32,000 bombs. The B-1 carries 48 GBU-54s. That's the largest payload of PGMs. To drop 32,000 they'd have to fly roughly 700 sorties. There have been thousands of sorties flown by the coalition. The B-1 makes up a fraction of that total. They're dropping bombs in record numbers FOR THE B-1. That doesn't mean they're the workhorse of the campaign.

The B-2 is barely used because it isn't necessary. That simple. And your precious B-1 still isn't using that fabulous speed that you're so impressed with.

a reply to: BigTrain

Just going by the numbers and according to the article you linked:

32,000 munitions used, divided by 11,000 sorties, equals an average of roughly 3 bombs dropped or missiles fires per sortie.

So the average aircraft in the air campaign is carrying about 3 weapons. If the B-1 was doing the majority of the bomb dropping that average weapon per sortie number would be much higher given the B-1's loadout. Your math just doesn't add up.

In reality, going by that number, it looks to me that MQ-1 and MQ-9's are actually doing the lions share of the targets struck.

a reply to: Zaphod58

It is so great I hear the early radar jammers were so efficient that they worked on the host aircraft!