U.S. B-1 bomber explodes on landing in Qatar: Jazeera

reply to post by bodrul


An A10 crashed here not too long ago..but it was not widely reported. I guess because we are forgotten about here in Alaska. LOL The pilot died too

Also, they dont call F16s lawn darts for no reason.

Considering how many sorties the U.S. flies now with all the combat aircraft we should be shocked that we don't have more crashes. This one hurts although not as bad as loosing that B-2. I love the B-1, It is a great plane and they have a plan to make them all Mach 2 plus planes again with a new upgrade of turbo fans and other avionics if they decided thats a good idea. I think the plan was to call them the B-1R. R must me race lol. I think its a good idea because they have now figured out that they can drop bombs at high speed and do more damage with the same size bomb.

When I was younger I stood and gazed at one of these bad boys up and close at McDill AFB and the B-2 had not been unveiled yet so I just had to ask the plane captain who was their if I could have a ride in it . He told me no that everything in it is classified and he would get in big trouble for even letting me go inside it. Later that day some young kid pulled the ejection handle on a F-111 that they had the canopy open on, You could get up and look inside the cockpit by ladder as I had been there that day and seen it for myself. The safety was on the handle that prevented the seat from blowing out, Although that did not prevent the canopy from getting blown off into the tail fin of the plane and doing a lot of damage. The kid was a little burned but otherwise OK at least till his dad kicked his butt after getting a bill from the Air Force.

The BBC says the 4 man crew got out ok after landing.

B-1 plane catches fire in Qatar
The crew of a US B-1 bomber aircraft are safe after their plane caught fire in an incident in Qatar, the US air force has said.
The long-range bomber was "involved in a ground incident and caught fire" at Al-Udeid Air Base, Qatar, an air force statement said.
The incident occurred while the plane was taxiing after landing, the statement said.

A defence official had earlier told Reuters news agency the plane crashed.
The crew members evacuated the aircraft and are safe after the incident, which occurred at 2120 local time (1820 GMT), the air force said.
The fire has been contained and the incident is under investigation, the statement said.
...........

[edit on 4-4-2008 by stikkinikki]

[edit on 4-4-2008 by stikkinikki]

i wonder when the real news will come out...

reply to post by wenfieldsecret


maybee the ` real news ` will come out if people just wait - instead of running off half cocked - attempting to get the " scoop " and speculating needlessly

it's not the news i saw....still nothing new...

Doesn't look "Contained"

I found this articel could this be true?

Could it be true that resistance inside the US arme is growing against Bush his plans for invading IRAN!

Link to source

The site looks speculative but if there is truth to this story then there is somthing very wrong between the relation US army and Bush Cheney administration.

From 2001:

www.nationaldefensemagazine.org...

While the Air Force has thousands of tactical combat aircraft, capable of short-range strike missions, it has no more than 208 long-range bombers in its active and reserve forces, and many of them are more than 40 years old. They include:

94 long-winged B-52s, which were first deployed in 1955.
93 supersonic, swept-wing B-1s, which entered service in 1985.
21 B-2s, which were introduced in 1993.

I wonder if these numbers are correct?

reply to post by Buck Division


why would those numbers be incorrect , any evidence or reasonable suspicion ?

Originally posted by Buck Division
From 2001:

www.nationaldefensemagazine.org...

While the Air Force has thousands of tactical combat aircraft, capable of short-range strike missions, it has no more than 208 long-range bombers in its active and reserve forces, and many of them are more than 40 years old. They include:

94 long-winged B-52s, which were first deployed in 1955.
93 supersonic, swept-wing B-1s, which entered service in 1985.
21 B-2s, which were introduced in 1993.

I wonder if these numbers are correct?

They've changed a little bit, due to the retirement of some aircraft, and the loss of 1 B-2, but they haven't changed a lot. As Ignorant_Ape stated, why wouldn't they be right?

reply to post by Buck Division


Current numbers for the fleets:

B-1B - 66 (Was 67 but this one makes it 66)
B-52H - 94 (Considering cuts to either 76 or 56 no decision yet)
B-2A - 20 (1 lost in Feb this year)

Originally posted by Zaphod58
They've changed a little bit, due to the retirement of some aircraft, and the loss of 1 B-2, but they haven't changed a lot. As Ignorant_Ape stated, why wouldn't they be right?

I was just thinking that the actual number of bombers might be classified, so the values above might be wrong, or just a crude estimate. Thanks for the responses.

#

I'm struck by the fact that the USA has a much more limited supply of bombers than I thought. We have less than two dozen B-2 bombers? That is surprising to me. I would have thought we had a much higher number.

For example, according to this source, there are around 10,000 large commercial Boeing aircraft delivered as of 2002:

www.aerospaceweb.org...

We certainly don't have an endless supply of modern long-range bombers, do we? The loss of a single bomber is a fairly significant (although not overly worrisome) event.


[edit on 20-5-2008 by Buck Division]

That's because since the end of WWII we have moved slowly to a Tactical Bombing role instead of a Strategic Bombing role. Heavy bombers are great for taking out a large number of targets, or hitting a large area with a lot of bombs. With the new guided weapons, we can send in large numbers of fighters carrying a few bombs, and have more of a "one target, one bomb" type attack.

As for the B-2, the original plan was to buy over 100 of them. As more were delivered, the cost per unit would have dropped significantly. However, the bean counters looked at the $1.2B cost per unit of the initial delivery, and balked at buying more than 21 of them, which kept the cost at $1.2B per unit.

There is video of this event, but you all will have to find it and get it posted. Good luck.

PS, it was not a freaking electrical problem.

Simultaneous hydraulic failure of the #2 and #3 hydraulic systems, the pilot increasing #4 throttle setting to try to maintain steering control of the aircraft, dark nighttime environment were all factors.

The Mishap Aircraft landed safely after the mission and was on the taxiway heading in, when it suddenly jerked left and got a nosewheel steering and hydraulic failure light in the cockpit. The parking brake failed due to the hydraulic leak, so the pilot engaged the emergency brake and notiifed the control tower they had to shut down. The emergency brake failed shortly after, and the pilots tried to use differential thrust to maintain steering, as they were heading towards a C-130 parking area. There was a jump in speed as they used the throttles to steer, and the crew shut down the engines. After shut down the MA impacted a 7 foot tall concrete barrier, rupturing the fuel tanks, and starting a fire.

ooo. where did that news come from?

i never heard anything after the fact.

but the news still isnt out.

That's quoted directly from the AIB report. They released the report recently on this one, and on the one that was on Guam.