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Military Grounds Stealth Bomber Fleet
Ponca City, We Love You writes "America's entire B-2 stealth bomber fleet, which has played a crucial part in all major US conflicts since 1989, has been grounded after one of the jets crashed near a military base in Guam. The crash — the first involving the B-2 — was the most expensive single aircraft accident in history. (The planes cost $1.2B each.) Officials assume the crash was caused by either mechanical failure or human error, but have grounded all B-2s to ensure there is not some fundamental fault developing in the 21-strong fleet. The crash occurred Saturday morning local time as the B-2 was taking off from Andersen Air Force base on Guam, a US territory south of Japan. An Air Force spokesman said, 'The cause of crash is unknown, pending an investigation. The pilots had ejected safely — no serious injuries. One is mobile, one is still in the hospital under observation.'"
It's not like "grounded" really means anything anyway.. if they were actually needed for an emergency they'd be in the air in minutes. They just won't be burning $9000 of fuel per second on training missions for awhile
> but what is the point of designing an untrackable aircraft
Am I the only one who think these aircraft are a bit like graphics cards? They may have been teh shit when they're first rolled out, but after ten years [of radar development] they're probably not that intimidating? There's just so much overclocking you can do to cope with new capabilities.
The B-2 Bomber fleet is over twenty years old. Not the technology, but the entire fleet. We (congress) authorized the purchase and maintenance of these vehicles, but at some point they will need to be replaced. Now, not only that, but these planes fly 44 hour missions, the longest on record. There are only, now, 21 of these planes left. Just under 5% of the fleet was lost in this one crash. At some point they will either need to retire the existing fleet and put in a new order, or expect the fleet to fall off one by one just like this. Still, we don't know if this was pilot failure or structural, but when you loose that much capability in one crash...it makes you think.
Victory is gained, not in knowing your opponents next move, but in preempting them.
So who are these guys?
In this case no one died, and the situation doesn't call for any immediate use of that plane so it's no big issue that the fleet is grounded.
It's also important to consider that much of the technology that is developed for military aircraft will find its way into civilian aircraft in one way or another. Fly-by-wire, composite materials, titanium details etc. are all a result from the military development. And if the accidents happens with military aircraft where there usually is an ejection seat available it also means that the risk of killing a lot of people is decreased. OK, the ejection seat can fail, it can eject at the wrong moment or the plane can crash into a bad position and kill people. But if a flaw with a design feature can be found on such an aircraft and not be put into the next generation of passenger super-aircraft it can mean a lot.
Of course it's bad that an expensive aircraft crashes, but it's still just money - and essentially the money is already paid and has already looped through the system a few times since. Leading edge tech is always expensive, but usually there are a lot of spinoffs coming through. Otherwise we would still be using artificial limbs using wood and hooks instead of carbon fiber structures, servo motors and computers for our handicapped. (OK, not everyone gets it but its coming through)
Then you may ask what the use there is for a B2 bomber in the end. It is useful in some cases, but the original intent spurned from the cold war is actually no longer there. It sure is a long way better at what it is designed for than the B52, but the B2 is a highly specialized craft while the B52 actually has found some other secondary uses too, which I suspect that the B2 will never achieve. And don't forget that the stealth aircraft business is always a developing part - which means that as soon as someone is able to spot the B2 as easy as a B52 then it will effectively be as obsolete as the B52 - or actually even worse. So in that case the B2 has to be replaced with something new. And I suspect that such work is already in progress regardless of what is said.
As for future military aircraft there is a high probability that they will be unmanned weapons carriers that gets updates from remote systems while still being able to function mostly autonomous. Such solutions will be cheaper per unit and still being able to pack a considerable punch. The disadvantage with such systems is that the picture sometimes changes by the minute in a battle and that means that they can end up doing the completely wrong thing. "Friendly fire - isn't". Of course - humans can also do that mistake so it's no real safeguard to have manned aircraft.
But in all - in today's world the use for heavy weapons is very limited since most conflicts of today are no longer on the scale of nations but reduced to conflicts within nations or even small groups as terrorists and using a bomber in such situations is like using a sledge to eradicate cockroaches in a kitchen. The collateral damage will be too great. And it doesn't matter how great an army you have if you don't have the information to use that army. Failure to get the correct intelligence about your enemy is just leading to overall failure.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Sorry it' no longer the shit. And China and Russia have developed a passive system that can track and identify all steatlh craft. Its very cheap and simple. All it does is track the disturbance of civilian broadcasts caused by aircraft. Very hard to destroy as there are no active radar signals to track. This is not a good development.
According to this story, you can use the path disruption caused by stealthy aircraft flying through areas covered by mobile phone masts and fix the aircraft's position to within 10m or so. Apart from the mobile base station, the system sounds vehicle portable. The issue is that until they get to your territory, you won't be able to get advance warning.
See my journal, I write things there
Actually, I believe you meant "This is not a good development for the US." The rest of us think being able to detect your stealth bombers is actually a good thing since it decreases the risk of your leaders deciding to "liberate" us for one reason or another (I'm in northern europe so this is unlikely but it is still nice to have some way of detecting possible threats).
/Mikael
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
...and the fact that their wing sweep angle in relation to the tip of the nose is way too low to even approach supersonic speeds. You have to be below the mach angle in order to stay away from Mach drag divergence and the resulting huge increase in drag. Check out this for more info.
You are dating your understanding of history - calling into question your credibility. As a matter of fact, Canada's navy at the time boasted one of the largest fleets in the world, behind only America and the UK. By the end of WWII the RCN had exercised dominance over the northwest Atlantic.
Apart from the 'badger in the cockpit' scenario, yes, I can think of many other ways for planes to theoretically potentially crash, some of which are quite obvious: sabotage or bomb on board, being shot down, deliberately (e.g. kamikaze/suicide/treason etc. of pilot), in-air accident/collision, hit by meteorite, etc. etc.
Part of the reason for the low MC rate of our stealth aircraft is special maintenance. LO surfaces are a bitch to work with, not to mention the toxic chemicals you need to deal with.
B-52: open panel with screwdriver (they use airloks, right? or camloks?). Maintain your little heart out. Install panel with screwdriver.
B-2: Call structural folks. Cut LO material around every screw, cut and loosen LO material around panel seam. Oh yeah, you need to use stands or padding to work on it. No scratches allowed. Then do your maintenance. Then call structural again so they can reinstall the LO material over every screw hole and panel seam, and then touch up the paint. God help you if you forgot to do something under the panel and you need to have them take it off right when they get done reinstalling it.
I love the B-2 airframe but I'd rather work at McDonalds than work structural at a B-2 base.
-b
No offense, but I've stopped responding to AC's.
I'll get modded down for this one, as it is Slashdot, but here goes:
Many of America's client states are rebelling against the economic burdens placed upon them. A clear example of this is seen in South America, where several countries (Venezuela included) are acting in contravention to America's economic wishes.
Which explains why the U.S. and Peru just struck a free trade agreement and why the U.S. already has a free trade agreement with, pound for pound, what is arguably the most powerful and stable economy in South America - Chile.
Oh, but Chavez. He makes a lot of angry speeches against the U.S.! He MUST hate us! He must just be screwing us and cutting us out!
Try again. Venezuela's main export partner - still by massive, massive margins (46% in 2006, according to the CIA world factbook) is the U.S. He still sends vast majorities of his oil to the U.S. Economically speaking, he's lining up just fine. Security wise, he's causing a few issues with neighboring countries that we would like him to stop, but as far as his massive oil industry - which is the only real engine his economy has - massive amounts of it are coming here, and there's little reason for him to change that.
Also of note, according to CIA World Factbook figures from 2006: Brazil imports almost twice as much from the U.S. as it does Argentina and exports twice as much to the U.S. as well.
Furthermore, the American economy is in deep trouble, largely because it has borrowed hundreds of billions of dollars to build expensive weapon systems (and also to build too many unproductive but expensive toys such as big screen TV's).
Oh please. The American economy has stalled a bit, but we're not even at the point of a classic recession (failure to increase GDP).
The economic system you are discussing is referred to generally as "neo-Marxism", with its focus on large states ruining the outlying countries for their wealth in an evil capitalistic world. What neo-Marxists never came to realize is that the world is not a zero sum game - and that rhetoric rarely translates into cold hard cash.
Now, what the U.S. likely is experiencing is more akin to hegemonic diffusion. The U.S. is, pretty much, an undisputed world Hegemon at this time. However, to maintain this hegemony, it must maintain trade (using its own resources) and trade a great deal with other countries, slowly diffusing its wealth to others. The great examples of this at the moment would be China and perhaps India. China is building a massive military based on income largely from U.S. trade, for example. China improves quickly, and the U.S. finds it increasingly difficult to maintain its relative position. The big question is whether this will switch to a bi-polar world (U.S./China), remain a uni-polar world (U.S., possibly China) or become multi-polar in the end.
Those types of comparisons are kind of silly. Consider that a lot of countries don't even pay their soldiers other than room and board. Ah, your link provides some info about that: the US military budget includes $110.8 billion to pay salaries (and college tuitions I would guess). Your selective quote also conveniently neglected to paste the line before your quote which says that comparison, "... is not adjusted for purchasing power parity." In other words, the same item both militaries have to buy might actually cost 8 times more in the USA vs China.
I don't dispute that america spends a lot on military, but the way people like to exaggerate and bias to make it seem more than it really is is annoying. My ex-gf used to ignorantly claim the *majority* of US government spending is military thanks to her believing disingenuous people misleading folks with selective stats and the like.
History differs from the statement expressed in your last paragraph. "Healthy tension" and "Equilibrium" is what led to all the European wars of the 1700s, 1800s, and finally WWI. WWI, of course, led directly to WWII.
A plurality of nations of equal military strengh would lead to WWIII in short order, unless you think something basic about people has changed in the last 60 years.
Brian
Funny that that you criticize an American for saying they saved the world yet you are unable to admit that they played a major roll. Seems like you are also in need of removing your head from your ass. Stalin wanted an empire and he wouldn't have left Europe alone just because the US wasn't involved. And without economic assistance from the US the allies never would have managed a proper beachhead on the mainland until the soviets were at the gates of Berlin.
And overplaying your own countries roll in military conflicts isn't something isolated to the US, read any high school textbook in Europe and you will find that every country tends to overplay there roll, not that it surprises me.
You make some good points, but I don't entirely agree with you.
I disagree. I am not discussing a "neo-Marxist" system. The simple fact is that American client states send America resources, and America sends them back other resources in trade. If the client state is sending America goods in return for a pittance, then this situation is in America's favor. This imbalance in the trade of goods is highly comparable to the situations in previous empires. It doesn't matter whether the trade takes place in the context of a free market system between private corporations, or within the confines of a neo-Marxist empire. You still have a dominant power receiving a huge amount of goods without having to give much back in return. That for me is at the heart of what it means to be an empire.
I didn't say that Venezuela had stopped trading with America. What I said was that Venezuela was not acting according to the economic wishes of America. They have expropriated oil producing properties from American oil companies, including Exxon Mobile. They are keeping a larger amount of the proceeds of selling oil in the country, and they are redistributing those resources. They are also selling oil in currencies other than the US dollar, which is a huge blow to America's economic power. The moves in South America against the US are largely moves to demand more from America in compensation for the goods they ship to the US. And although there are still some US friendly governments in South America, opposition is growing.
We'll see. However, let's look at some of the facts. Firstly, if America is such an economic juggernaut, then why is it such a huge net borrower? One would think that such an economic superpower would be a net lender. And it might not be such a problem if that money was loaned out to finance increased production, to finance the building of factories and infrastructure. But instead, much of that money has been spent on unproductive consumption of disposable consumer goods, or indirectly on outrageously expensive weapons systems. The only redeeming factor of the American debt is that it is in American dollars, and will thus shrink as the dollar loses value. The simple fact is that the American manufacturing sector has been hollowed out, as evidenced by their shockingly large trade deficits. Close to 70% of the American economy is based on consumer spending.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
I would mod you down, because your comment doesn't have any logic or basis, but unfortunately I'm out of mod points.
Take for instance your comment on Chile (Most powerful nation in South America? Is this a joke?). You gotta be kidding. You are just taking facts out of your ass and making a pretty weak hypothesis on how US is becoming a Mercantilism hegemony. If you had some understanding on how economics work you would know that US of Amrica doesn't need to strike ridiculous commercial agreements to survive such as it is today. What is needs is a reform from the inside, and from there everything will just fall into place.
It is as bad as I think because I've worked on all three bombers. The B-52 is robust much in the way an old pick-up truck is, things work because they're old school electronics. The only problem is that they're just like working on an old truck. If you need a replacement part alot of the time it meens a trip to the junk yard. I also got real sick real quick trying to trace down wiring problems on 50 year old wire bundles that are not necessarily wired the same on every aircraft. Of course while the newer digital aircraft are easier to fix, they can be nightmares when things don't show up on the diagnostics or don't hard break but fail erratically. That'll even have the engineers scraching their heads. Space wise I've only run into a few times where things were too cramped to work on. Typically of things that I'm sure some dumb ass design engineer said "They'll never need to get to that the plane is only going to be used for 20 years then replaced" Even the "brand new" B2 is over twenty years old
To say the B-52 has extra space is an understatement since most electronics these days are hundreth the size they were in the sixties, but again most of the Buff's problems are not lack of space or the inability to be upgraded, it's just the simple fact they are freakin ancient.
With the new weapon systems & munitions you don't need a specialized military aircraft to deliver them anymore. You just need something reliable that has a long endurance and can fly high.
My ideal B-52 replacement would be a B-747-8, (New Boeing 747 model coming out out). It's a well vetted design, with commonly available off the shelf commercial parts. It could carry 105,000lbs of cargo (bombs) and a full load of fuel with an 8000 mile range. For those keeping count that's 210 Mk 82 bombs compared to the B-52's 51. Park two or three of those in a race track pattern at high altitude along with two extra flight crews each and you could keep them up there 24/7. Throw in a little air refueling and they'd stay on station until either they ran out of bombs or out of hot pockets and little debbies, which ever comes first.
Possibly funny story: when the FAA came out with the first generation of the Aircraft Situation Display (since superceded by the amazingly similar Traffic Situation Display), one of the filters available when selecting flights to display was "aircraft type". That lasted for a while, and then somebody giving a tour to some Air Force generals decided to impress them with the Agency's technowizardry and said "Wanna see where all your B52's are?" (This was almost 20 years ago--before the B2--and the B1's never go anywhere.) He made a couple entries on a keyboard and all the little airplane silhouettes dropped off except the B52's over the continental U.S. The generals promptly crapped themselves, and soon thereafter the FAA got a phone call from somebody important, and since then it's a little harder to track the bombers and the fighters. But not very hard.
Ha ha. Dumb ignorant fuck. There is no way WWII would have ended with the Axis powers being pushed all the way back to Germany without US intervention. Your country wasn't able to take care of itself. Get over it. It is ok to need help sometimes.
Actually they brought the SR-71 out of retirement... Back in 1995...
http://www.fighter-planes.com/info/sr71.htm
"The SR-71 entered service in 1968 and was retired in 1990, but in 1994 the US Congress directed that the SR-71 should be re-instated to operational readiness and deployed to meet the need for a broad area coverage reconnaissance platform. The aircraft were brought out of retirement and two aircraft were mission ready by the third quarter of 1995. "
NASA also owns and operates two SR-71's still to this day for scientific testing.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
I think highly of the British and recognize her many achievements during WWII even if American history texts are lacking in that respect.
I'm not on about who was better (and I recognize you're not, either), but you may be making my point - and you have a few inaccuracies.
The Japanese won a moral and military victory over the British Navy in the Pacific before the US involvement. Wish I could remember the names of those ships lost or the Japanese admiral who devised the plan. Point is, the east colonies were largely out at that point, leaving those you mention. The only protection for such shipping would have the US and British Navies - no disrespect, but the other countries didn't have sufficient size Navies for surface force escorts.
US casualties were on par with the UK - but the US had more in its Army alone than the combined services of the UK. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties
I submit the following points:
1. I don't know if it's true that the Spitfire (a marvelous airplane) won the air war or not, but I'll accept the statement at face value. That being said, and given you're not referring to the Battle of Britain, to which particular aspect do you refer? Ground support? Where was the UK going to get the men to double its effective fighting force for these ground battles, if not the US? Bomber escort? The Spit lacked the range, and that's assuming that the Lancasters, et al, would have been able to take to the air without US resupply. In addition, those Spitfires didn't do the job themselves, as the top three fighters in sheer numbers alone were all US - the P-47, P-51, and P-40. http://www.chuckhawks.com/p40.htm
2. Resupply. Had the US not entered the war, where would those supplies come from? The US and US Merchant Marine would have stayed out of harm's way. Snorkel detection did not allow Britain to win the sea war, neither did Britain win the sea war, neither would it have even it did without re-supply from the US. I guess for your argument to work, the US would have had to have been a den of mere shopkeepers, willing to supply the UK with Liberty Ships without any interest in the outcome (or something - the self-references become tangled at this point, but the historical inaccuracy in such a viewpoint alone would be worth a book - that no one would read). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_ship Those 2751 Liberty Ships weren't used to sail between the British Isles or Canada or India - they were bringing materiel with them - from the US. The production capacity of the UK was seriously threatened and would have diminished beyond your theory's basis had there been no US resupply, and without that resupply, the UK's ability to fight this hypothetical protracted war stretches the imagination to the breaking point.
3. Production capacity of Russia? No. http://www.amazon.ca/Russias-Life-Saver-Lend-Lease-U-S-S-R-World/dp/0739107364 Production capacity you ascribe is something they specifically lacked. The Ju-87D sucked against modern forces, but did quite well in the USSR, until US P-39s, with Soviet pilots, took to the air. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-39_Airacobra
4. It was not a war of attrition in 1942 when the US arrived in the European theatre. It was a war of bold strikes and new tactics for mechanized warfare.
I suppose in the US, Hollywood generally ignores the British in telling the story of the war; I find a lot of people think of the Brits like a Ladies Auxiliary or something. But you're doing the same thing in reverse. From the simplest (and not unreasonable) reading of statistics, then according to your version of history, the UK was going to win on its own, taking longer time,
Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
>(Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, Kuwait, Somalia, Iraq - hardly an empire)
You forgot Afghanistan, as well as the operations that the US performs for the Colombian government.
However, US military power also operates via the CIA. Chile (Pinochet), Argentina (Videla), Iran (the Shah), Bolivia, and Brazil have all had popularly-elected left-leaning governments overthrown by CIA-funded, CIA-armed right-wing puppets, who almost always became brutal dictators who depend/ed on US weapons and money to keep the people in line.
I'm not mentioning the communist dictatorships that were overthrown by US influence, since a) there's not many of them (although the Orange Revolutions are an interesting new development), and b) overthrowing a communist dictatorship is a good thing, usually.