"STEALTHY FLIGHT - A B-2 stealth bomber takes off Wednesday morning from U. S. Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of the first B-2 delivery to Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri." GENE BRECKNER/Valley Press
Posted on 12/18/2003 1:43:35 PM PST by BenLurkin
On the anniversary of the Wright brothers' historic flight, the Air Force recognized 10 years of service for one of its most potent weapons, the B-2 stealth bomber. On Dec. 17, 1993, the first operational B-2, the "Spirit of Missouri," was delivered from Northrop Grumman's assembly site at U.S. Air Force Plant 42 to the 509th Bomb Wing at Whiteman AFB, Mo.
That memorable delivery flight was re-created Wednesday as "Spirit of Missouri" once again took to the skies from Palmdale, landing at its home base in Missouri.
"(The B-2) is probably the best flying machine ever built in this country," said Harry Kambarian, a master planner and scheduler in the B-2 program office who has been with the program since its early top-secret days.
"It means freedom for our nation, for my children, for my family," he said. "It does things for our country no other flying machine can do.
"It keeps the free world free."
One of the many Valley-produced aircraft in the Air Force arsenal, the B-2 holds a special meaning for those who developed and built it.
The "Spirit of Missouri" and other B-2 in the fleet are the result of the efforts of 12,000 Northrop employees, 4,000 of whom performed the final assembly of the aircraft in Palmdale.
"We used to kind of give birth to these things," said Alan Muller, a Northrop Grumman program integrator who began working on the B-2 as an engineer in 1990.
"They were like our children," he said. "Each one had its own quirky personality."
The work was long and hard to get the aircraft delivered on time. The team often worked "seven days a week, 12 to 14 hours a day, and lovin' it," Muller said.
"It was well-worth the effort," said Len Marsico, manager of system safety engineering, who has been with the B-2 since 1987. "There were a lot of obstacles to overcome and we did."
"It was a big effort by a lot of people to deliver it the first time," he said. "It was a thrill to see it come back and take off again."
"It was a tremendous team effort," Kambarian said. "No one did this alone."
Although production is finished, the bombers still return to Palmdale for maintenance and upgrades.
This continuing improvement - to onboard computers, displays, communications, weapons capability and durability - has made the bomber a more accurate and user-friendly weapon than when it was first delivered a decade ago.
"Over 10 years, I think the airplane has proved itself tremendously," Muller said. "We always knew it was good. What we delivered 10 years ago we're improving upon."
With continuing improvements, the Air Force can expect to use the B-2 as the "point of the spear" for many years to come, he said.
"In 100 years, look where we are, from the Wright Brothers to the B-2, it's got to be impressive," Marsico said. "To be part of that is thrilling."
During delivery ceremonies 10 years ago, then-Secretary of the Air Force Sheila A. Widnall said "This age of uncertainty demands that we stay capable and engaged. The B-2 embodies this concept of responsiveness."
"We may not be at war," she said, "but neither are we at peace."
In the intervening years, the B-2 has been called to action three times, first in the aerial bombardment effort in Serbia and Kosovo in 1999.
More recently, the stealth bombers were used in bombing attacks on Afghanistan, flying 40-hour missions from their home base in Missouri to their targets and returning home via Diego Garcia, an island in the Indian Ocean.
The bat-wing bombers also saw duty in the skies over Iraq during the early days of that war.
Seeing their handiwork succeed in action brings the same feeling for many who helped bring the B-2 into being.
"It really is a sense of pride," Muller said.
"For me, it's top of the line," Kambarian said. "Jack Northrop would be extremely proud."
One of the bomber's assets is its ability to deliver precision strikes with little collateral damage to the surrounding area, he said.
That precision bombing capability was evident during the Iraq war.
The B-2, unveiled in 1989 as a radar-evading bomber, was often a source of controversy and frequent cut-backs due to its cost. Originally, the program was intended to produce 132 of the aircraft at about $500 million each. The number of aircraft was steadily reduced through years of budget fights, causing the cost per bomber to grow to more than $2 billion.
In the 1994, Congress capped the B-2 program at 20 planes, with a total cost of the project at $44.5 billion.
The "Spirit of America," the last bomber to enter service, was dedicated on July 14, 2000.
A second ceremony, on Tuesday, christened a ground-test version of the bomber as "Spirit of Freedom" before its induction into the United States Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio. With this addition, the museum becomes the only place in the world where the public can see the once-secret aircraft up close.
The ground-test vehicle will also remain available to the Air Force for developing improvements to the active fleet.
"STEALTHY FLIGHT - A B-2 stealth bomber takes off Wednesday morning from U. S. Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of the first B-2 delivery to Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri." GENE BRECKNER/Valley Press
B-52: "A total of 744 B-52s were built with the last, a B-52H, delivered in October 1962." (AF web site)
Hard to believe that B-2 production has been halted for 10 years. If these planes are as good as described, their (low production) numbers will not allow replacement of the B-52, nor the likelihood of as long a period of service.
Except fly in lousy weather, deploy on a moment's notice to any clime or place or reach a 50% mission capable rate for the fleet.
If Boeing had only build 21 B-52s, accounting for inflation they probably would have cost more than that each.
B-2s "cost" 2 billion dollars apiece in that the procurement program cost 44 billion dollars for 21 aircraft. 25 billion of that was one time R&D costs - or more than half the price of each aircraft - and most of the rest of it was production inefficiencies of such a short run.
The full planned run of 133 aircraft would have cost about 80 billion - 600 million apiece, or a little more than 1/4 the price per unit.
We spent 60% of the original pricetage and got 15% of the original product. Pentagon cost cutting at its very best.
I also don't really have a problem with black budgets for defense. A little knowledge is worse than none as far as stirring up wrongheaded outrage, and the tactical aspects of national defense are too important to be left to opinion polls. From an academic standpoint I'd like to know where my money is going, but not if that knowledge will be abused to impede the military from doing their job.
The B-2 doesn't cost an additional $2 billion each to make. You are just repeating the numbers the DemocRATS use to justify the production halt. The $2 billion figure includes the fixed R&D costs allocated to each copy built. Quite a few Republican Congressmen are interested in building 40 new tactical B-2 bombers at a cost of $700 million each. The differences would mostly be due to less extensive EMP shielding in a tactical only version.
First of all, the black budget is of extremely dubious constitutionality.
Second, yes, the sticker shock helped end the program early. When the price tag came out in one lump sum, that soured a bunch of people.
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