Guess how many B-2s are available right now......

The Air Force has a current fleet of 20 B-2s. If President Obama ordered them to war (say in Syria), the Air Force would be hard pressed to get three of them on target, and that would be a full third of the available aircraft.

There are currently nine aircraft that are mission capable (the mission capable rate stands at 47%, compared to 56% for the B-1, and an incredible 75% for the B-52). Of the other 11, three are usually in California for upgrades, and depot level maintenance, another is usually at Edwards for testing, and the other 7 are at Whiteman, where they're usually undergoing routine maintenance.

Sequestration has played a role, and would appear to account for an 8% drop in availability. Maintenance accounts for both the Air Force and Navy have been cut due to sequestration, and now with the lack of a budget being passed, the Air Force has to wait to see how much money they get for programs in the coming year.

The most expensive warplane in history—and arguably the deadliest—is also one of the least available for combat.

The U.S. Air Force bought 21 B-2 stealth bombers from Northrop Grumman in the 1980s and 1990s at a price of more than $2 billion apiece, if you count development costs. One crashed on Guam in 2008, leaving 20 in the active fleet. But declining readiness—owing to maintenance and upgrades, wear and tear and cash shortages—routinely grounds 11 of the radar-evading, bat-wing bombers.

Just nine stealth bombers comprise America’s entire arsenal for directly striking, from the air, heavily defended targets over long range. And if you don’t count the several planes being used to train new aircrews, as the Air Force doesn’t, the number drops again to a mere handful.

medium.com...

reply to post by Zaphod58


however we don't speak about one can change humanity in a blink..
a single payload can turn tides...

reply to post by Zaphod58


It is astounding given the inventory but 3 of these are pretty effective given their point-to-point capability. I am more amazed at the numbers when it comes to the 52s. What a machine!

reply to post by Zaphod58


Mind boggling stats for a peacetime air force. What would the stats be like in a long term conflict. This is the problem for the ultra expensive air craft. Can't afford to deploy them, can't get enough of them because they are so expensive and one new type of radar could make them obsolete as tech marches on.

Good money spinner for Northrop Grumman. Over 42 billion $ for the fleet, nice money spinner indeed.

P

reply to post by ownbestenemy


Yeah, the BUFF is a beast when it comes to mission readiness. I can count on one hand, and have most of my fingers left over the number of times one broke coming through. And it was usually something where they had it fixed and airborne an hour or two later.

reply to post by pheonix358


Depending on what they're down for, they could still fly if we went to war and desperately needed them. It's like the B-1 fleet. At one point I had a crew chief tell me that there was no such thing as a fully mission capable B-1, but they were capable of flying the mission as needed. It was all little stuff like radio problems, or minor electrical problems.

Zaphod58
reply to post by pheonix358

 

Depending on what they're down for, they could still fly if we went to war and desperately needed them. It's like the B-1 fleet. At one point I had a crew chief tell me that there was no such thing as a fully mission capable B-1, but they were capable of flying the mission as needed. It was all little stuff like radio problems, or minor electrical problems.

Seems to me it is like me buying a Lamborghini and it spend its time in the shop, but, if I really need it, it can be driven. Seems counter intuitive that the most expensive has all these problems. I know they are very complex, still, doesn't seem like the way I would want my air force run.

P

reply to post by pheonix358


The problem with the B-2 was that it was the first large scale stealth aircraft. Even with the changes to the RAM coating that have been applied, the skin is vulnerable and hard to maintain. From what I've heard, most of the maintenance issues are related to RAM problems.

I'm sure the military have many other human killing options at their disposal. With some several trillion dollars spent on the last decade on killing apparatus, I'm sure they have plenty of death stockpiled, regardless of spending issues.

The US folks are remarkably effective at creating wonderful high powered killing human machines, we gleefully have spent trillions and trillions in the last 50 years on death machines - I expect should we need to kill someone, or millions of someone's, we'll be able to do it.

reply to post by Zaphod58

And the new F35, which was supposed to cost less than the F16 to maintain and operate has now gone far past that cost. And huge cost overruns. This is repeated constantly with out weapons. Our defense contractors get away with their cheating and lies over and over and over. Predicted costs are nowhere near actual costs. Same old game. My dad worked for the GAO and I grew up on stories about the corporate corruption in the military/industrial complex as we were warned about by Eisenhower. And generals retire to work for the defense companies....hmmmmm

reply to post by jaxnmarko


That's in the process of changing.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

The KC-46 started it, and it's spreading through the military. There is talk that the next carrier contract will be fixed price as well.

How 'bout this:

The B-52 has been in service a long time.
It is a more simple machine than the B-2.
Whatever quirks the B-52 has are well know to all maint. crews.
Out on a limb here, I am guessing the B-52 repair parts are generally a little cheaper and more abundant.

A 'few' years from now. the B-2 may fall into the same set of circumstances with the next generation.

Disclaimer: I am a B-52 fan. Not just the aircraft but what it represents with regards to military hardware. If you build something robust enough and flexible enough, it will go long into the future provided it survives the theater of acquisition.

Why is it that everybody blames defence contractors for everything? Congress has a lot to do with some of these overruns. I worked for a company that built the first 6 sets of flight controls for the B-2. There was a couple million dollars invested in setting up our facility. Right after we started building, Congress announced that it was reducing the number of B-2's that were being built and Northrop moved everything in house.

The V-22 is a good example of what I am talking about. The airframe is built in Philadelphia and then it is shipped to Texas to have the engines and avionics installed. While it would be cheaper to have the entire aircraft assembled in one place, it isn't politically expedient to do so.

reply to post by JIMC5499


Because when there are overruns, the articles and videos talking about them don't mention congress, just the defense contractor. That leads people to believe that it's only the contractor to blame, and not anyone else.

pheonix358

Zaphod58
reply to post by pheonix358

 

Depending on what they're down for, they could still fly if we went to war and desperately needed them. It's like the B-1 fleet. At one point I had a crew chief tell me that there was no such thing as a fully mission capable B-1, but they were capable of flying the mission as needed. It was all little stuff like radio problems, or minor electrical problems.

Seems to me it is like me buying a Lamborghini and it spend its time in the shop, but, if I really need it, it can be driven. Seems counter intuitive that the most expensive has all these problems. I know they are very complex, still, doesn't seem like the way I would want my air force run.

P

If something goes wrong on your lamborghini on the highway you pull over and get it towed. If something goes wrong on a B-2 you could lose the plane. So the comparison is a bit off.