![]() The B-2 received “Initial Operating Capability” in 1997 and saw their combat employment in Maby kicking off the NATO bombing campaign pressuring Yugoslavia to halt the ethnic cleansing of Kosovar Albanians. Today, the Air Force continues to invest billions updating the B-2’s radar-absorbent materials, fiber-optic wiring, computer processors, and datalinks. Over time, Northrop Grumman phased in two improved models, introducing a Terrain Following System, GPS navigation, satellite communications via laptop (instead of very terse high-frequency radio messages), and most importantly, integration of smart bombs and cruise missiles. Like today’s F-35, early production B-2s were not really delivered ‘feature complete,’ lacking full payload, weapons, navigation, and defensive systems. Thankfully, the crew successfully ejected from the most monetarily expensive airplane crash in history. In 2008, Spirit of Kansas crashed shortly after takeoff in Guam due to an air-moisture sensor miscalibrated by a storm led to a malfunction of the fly-by-wire system. The exception is Spirit of Kitty Hawk, said to be possessed because it once mysteriously started its engines in the hangar while unmanned. state, starting with the Spirit of Missouri. The Spirits are flown by an elite corps of around eighty pilots who often fly globe-spanning missions directly from Whiteman, though B-2s have also been forward based at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, Guam, and England.Įach Spirit is named after a U.S. With development factored in, the Spirits come out to $2.1 billion-by far the most expensive airplane ever built.Īll but one test aircraft serves today with the 509 th Bomb Wing based in Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri, a unit descend from the group which dropped two nuclear bombs on Japan. This caused the B-2’s half-billion dollar unit price to surge to $737 million-or $929 million counting spare parts, upgrades, and technical support. An additional B-2 prototype was converted to operational status under Clinton, for a total of twenty-one. ![]() ![]() On this mission, the B-2 crew members are instantly gratified with blips on the scope representing a bumper-to-bumper mass of tanks.The Spirit procurement was first reduced to seventy-five, then cut to twenty by the Bush administration in 1992. That`s not much for finding an armored division that, 16 hours before, was on the march somewhere between Baghdad and Basra. Their radar has about a 20-mile field of view. The crew arrives over Saudi Arabia, perhaps under the influence of stimulants, which Buchan suggested could be used to counter fatigue. ''Now we have a tired pilot who`s got to grab the handle bars and fly an iron airplane,'' he said.Īssume there are no mechanical glitches en route. Automation redistributes the workload, and what happens if the flight management system fails?'' he asked. ''The Air Force will rely on the shibboleth that automation reduces the workload, but we`re finding that it doesn`t. ''You don`t want a guy going into the target area at night who`s been staring at TV tubes (on the instrument panel) for 16 hours.'' Tom Foxworth, an international airline captain and ex-Navy pilot, said, Franz estimated that B-2 crew members arriving in the target area after a 16-hour flight would have lost about half of their mental effectiveness.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |