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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.'"
A stealth bomber crashes? Nobody saw that coming.
Maybe I'm being naive again, but what is the point of designing an untrackable aircraft and then telling the whole world its fleet status? Why is the B2 in the news at all? Or should I be reaching for a tinfoil hat?
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
>Not just overclocking, the latest drivers support SLI too.
Man, that hood ornament must really fuck up the radar cross section.
We can also rule out "Act of God," because we all know He's on our side.
It wasn't hit by falling bits off a classied satellite, was it?
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
So who are these guys?
It isn't as though this really changes anything. There aren't any nations that will go "Oh well with those aircraft gone we can certainly take the US! Their 12 carriers, hundreds of ICBMs and such aren't any worry at all!"
You also have to remember that the planes aren't being destroyed or anything, just taken out of operation until they do a review. In the event of an emergency, they could be put right back in service. Also, the B2 isn't untrackable, it is just very hard to see on radar. It isn't invisible or anything. Any nation with reasonable satellite intelligence can easily keep watch on the bases (or maybe just base, they used to only fly out of Whiteman, not sure if that's still true) where they fly from and tell when they leave.
The B2 is a stealth jet, and there certainly are some things about it that are classified, but it isn't as though it is some big secret anymore. You can go and see them at air shows and such. It generally isn't even secret what they are being used for. They are just high altitude bombers for whatever conflict the US happens to be in. They are only special in that they are extremely difficult to track on radar (and thus to get a missile to lock on) and that they have a truly world-wide range with refueling (and like a 6000 knot range even without).
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.
It cost $1.7bn to replace the space shuttle Challenger. http://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/about/information/shuttle_faq.html#1
... if a stealth bomber crashes and nobody sees it does it make a sound?
The only reason there are B52 still in service is because they built over 1000 of them orginally. It's not a particularyly good aircraft (maintenance wise), but by the shear number of airframes and spare parts it continues to serve.
A B-52 replacement would only need to satisfy a "dump truck" roll. There are plenty of modern airframes that could be modified to fill that role at a considerably cheaper cost than keeping the B52's flying.
Which is pretty comparable to commercial 4 engine passenger and cargo jets.
Oh -- that means it carries 20 tons at less than 5 gallons per ton-mile.
A 22 mpg pickup with 3/4 ton load is 29 gal/ton-mile.
A Prius at 45 mpg and an 500 lb load (4 pax) is 11 gal/ton-mile.
I don't think they make a Stealth Prius yet.
Pacifist paratroopers yell, "Ghandi!" when they jump.
Dear insane military-industrial complex,
We lost one of your ultra-secret, 1.2 billion dollar stealth planes on a routine mission in the Pacific. The nation was wondering if you would consider replacing this one for free. We've given you just about all the extra money we had saved up for years and years, and we've taken out serious loans to be able to pay for increasingly flamboyant and unnecessary toys. I'm only asking for this freebie because it is getting more and more difficult to convince people that we really need to be spending money on weapons like this when an insurgent army can bring us to our knees in the middle of Iraq. Plus, people are starting to wonder if 1.2 billion dollars would be better spent teaching more intelligence analysts how to speak Arabic, Urdu, and Pashto, and I really think that 1.2 billion would go a long way toward helping us really fight terrorism.
------ Tim O'Brien
The USSR was a big part of it.
The other reason why the B-52 is still in service: cruise missiles. The other two heavy bombers can't fire them. There's a study for sticking a rotary launcher in the B-1's bomb bay, but that's expensive and keeps getting delayed.
Re maintenance: O RLY? The B-52 fleet has over 95% readiness rate, because they are a well-understood problem. The B-1 and B-2 have a far lower rate, on the order of 50 to 60%, because they are more complex and less mature (can't get more mature than a 50-year-old aircraft). Plus the '52 is easier to stick new ECM tech into, because the original ECM was so huge that there are nice big ECM bays in the aircraft, and more room equals more room for the ground crew to work; compare working on a stuffed microATX case versus a sparsely-populated full-tower ATX.
Don't get me wrong, the Buffasaurus has its problems, but it's not as bad as you think.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
A classic sign of a declining empire is a massive surge in military spending. During the rise of an empire, many countries will voluntarily join the empire because it is in their own economic interest to do so. As the empire ages, satisfaction with the empire in outlying states begins to decline. The dominant power makes increasing economic demands on these outlying states, while providing decreasing benefits to them. In order to quell the dissatisfaction, the dominant power needs to use increasing amounts of force to preserve imperial power. The increased military spending becomes a huge economic burden for the dominant power, which in turn further increases the economic demands on the outlying states. This becomes a vicious circle of surging dissatisfaction in the empire, and surging military spending. It ends when the economy of the dominant power can no longer sustain the large military. The outlying states fall away to form other alliances, and the former imperial power becomes "just another country".
History has shown this to be true. The Roman Empire collapsed partly because its outlying states rebelled against a huge economic burden. The Spanish Empire collapsed after building a huge armada of ships, only to see the fleet destroyed by an upstart Britain. The British Empire collapsed, as outlying states fell away, despite its huge military power. The Soviet Empire collapsed under the burden of massive military spending. I believe that something similar is happening to America.
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. One can arguably say that the Islamic insurgency in the Middle East is also a symptom of dissatisfaction by outlying states in the Empire. As the American dollar has declined recently, other currencies, such as the Euro are displacing the US dollar is the currency of choice for international trade. 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).
I don't want this decline to happen because I am a part of this empire, but make no mistake: it is happening. Our only hope in this is that America will fade peacefully, like Britain, to become "just another country".
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'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.
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.