The B-1 Bomber Has a New Mission

originally posted by: Flipper35
The services are like siblings. They can pick at each other and fight, but no one else can.

The rule at least when I was in the Navy was.
Your shop against everybody in your division.
Your division against everybody in your squadron.
Your squadron against the rest of the Air Wing.
We got along real good with the Marines, so it was squadron and MARDET against everybody.
Air Wing against ship's company.
Ship against other ships
Battle Group against the world.
Navy against rest of the world.
Navy and Marines against rest of the world.
It goes on from there but you get the picture.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: verschickter

Such a sexy aircraft!

Such a pain in the ass.

To back up Zaph on this (not that he needs backup), I did aircraft refueling in the Air Force for 13 years (ground refueling, not the cool aerial refueling guys) and have refueled B-1s before. On a deployment I was on, we had 3 or 4 B-1s show up halfway through the deployment and stayed the rest of the time I was there. They did get them off the ground pretty often to fly missions, but at least one of them was pretty much always broken. While numerous maintenance issues can result in us having to defuel the aicraft, it really sucked for us if the problem had anything to do with the fuel system, because during fuel system maintenance they will repeatedly call us to refuel-defuel-refuel-defuel the aircraft, and those suckers hold a LOT of fuel. In my experience, they tend to leak more than most aircraft too.

The other thing I can back up is how cool it is when they take off, especially at night. Talk about bone-rattling, no pun intended. I had my hearing protection on while refueling a KC-135 down one end of the airfield and didn’t notice these 2 B-1s taxiing down to the end of the runway. I noticed it when everything started shaking as the first one powered up and scared the hell out of me. The crew on the 135 thought that was pretty funny. We stopped what we were doing to watch the other one take off. Damn.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: verschickter

Yes and no. There are rude jokes and insults between all the services, but let an Air Force pilot go into the water and the Navy guys will damn near kill themselves to find him and get him home. Or an Army patrol get ambushed and you'll have aircraft stacked up waiting to bail them out.

This has been my experience as well. Of course there's healthy inter-service rivalry, but any real animosity is usually confined to the lower ranked, inexperienced guys. Once you've had your ass saved by an air strike, you tend to be a little more appreciative of what "Chair Force" does haha. I always respected the other services and enjoyed working with them when I had the opportunity. We're all part of the same team, and each service has its role and importance.

From what I’ve heard though, a lot of those battles resurface at the higher ranks, although that’s usually driven by the fight for funding from what I understand.

On the OP, cool new toy. According to Wikipedia, the range on this version is "greater than 200 nm", while the missile it was based off of had a range over 500 nm. Is this thing that much better that it's worth it to sacrifice that extra range?

originally posted by: verschickter
a reply to: Zaphod58
He must be sitting on it like it´s a treasure! Damn it, I´ll try to get it now to hell with the much needed sleep! I hope the hotel doesn´t cut me off in the middle of it while leeching plane-porn.

Good night / evening / day anyone, depending on your timezone.

verschickter, out

(it´s the kruscovac speaking)




YES, the KBs are already creeping in...

I have a copy of the pdf if you'd like it I've sent it to a few members on here already?!

a reply to: Woody510

Please. May I have a copy of the PDF? I have to babysit the 3D printer this weekend and could use a good read.
I can message my e-mail.

a reply to: JIMC5499

Certainly can mate pm me your address and I'll send it right over work is very quiet atm

Hey Woody, I just saw your post

Could you send me a copy too, please? I already digested the "Sled Driver" but it was a OCR PDF with tons of typos/replacements and real bad quality. I sent you my emailadress via U2U if you don´t mind.


I really enjoyed all the details, it´s really an amazing read.