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New B-2 Bomber Crash Photos Show Carnage Up-close
Gizmodo ^ | 15 July, 2008 | Gizmodo

Posted on 07/15/2008 12:32:22 PM PDT by CarrotAndStick

Joe Pappalardo got some crisp, high quality military close-ups of the Spirit of Kansas, the $1.2 billion stealth B-2 bomber that crashed in Guam last February. We published other images of the crash scene before.




 

Head to Popular Mechanics to see the official timeline of the crash. [Popular Mechanics]


TOPICS: News/Current Events; Technical
KEYWORDS: aerospace; b2; bomber; crash; gizmodo; planecrash; usaf
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To: meandog

B1-Bob will always be an idiot to me. He treated his house district in Orange County, CA as his personal fiefdom that he never ever had to visit or do anything for.

Then Loretta Sanchez stole it from him by winning the one precinct with an overwhelmingly Mexican majority (Santa Ana) using vote fraud and illegally registered Mexicans.

I believe that was the only precinct that she won.

He deserved it, though. He was an insular, its all about me, sort of representative.

I kind of enjoyed it even though Sanchez is a ... I won’t go there.


21 posted on 07/15/2008 1:18:38 PM PDT by montomike (If you didn't find this funny or amusing...have a worldwide riot.)
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To: CarrotAndStick

What was the cause?? Enemy Fire, Mechanical dificulties, lack of spare parts, or just President Bush’s fault???


22 posted on 07/15/2008 1:18:40 PM PDT by BobinIL
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To: CarrotAndStick

UGH!


23 posted on 07/15/2008 1:19:05 PM PDT by Virginia Ridgerunner ("We must not forget that there is a war on and our troops are in the thick of it!"--Duncan Hunter)
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To: BobinIL

According to an earlier article, it was moisture in one of the sensors at the rear end of the plane. Atleast that was the *official* explanation.


24 posted on 07/15/2008 1:25:43 PM PDT by CarrotAndStick (The articles posted by me needn't necessarily reflect my opinion.)
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To: montomike

Dornan was a great public speaker but he did have his downside. He jockeyed for camera position in marching with MLK ...and he was in uniform !! He was always too comfortable in ticking off Birchers and states-righters who should have been safely in his base.


25 posted on 07/15/2008 1:30:30 PM PDT by Monterrosa-24 (...even more American than a French bikini and a Russian AK-47.)
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To: IronKros
Nope. See the PopularMechanics link posted in the article above.

The pilot's rotated too early because indicated V2 was 8kts lower than required. The autopilot sensed a nose down condition based on the same flawed sensor input as the indicated V2 error and induced a pitch up attitude of 30o.

Stall onset was almost certainly immediate. Aircraft typically yaw during takeoff, and the trailing wing tip loses lift first and dips as a result. The pilots ejected the instant the left wing-tip scraped the runway.

THere just was no margin for recovery given the circumstances.

26 posted on 07/15/2008 1:31:40 PM PDT by raygun
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To: CarrotAndStick

I grew up around Naval aviation and have seen quite a few crash aftermaths. All I can say is that is one TOUGH airframe.


27 posted on 07/15/2008 1:37:42 PM PDT by ExpatGator (Extending logic since 1961.)
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To: ccmay

A worthy sacrifice. I gladly pass up mine as well.


28 posted on 07/15/2008 1:39:34 PM PDT by ExpatGator (Extending logic since 1961.)
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To: raygun

I wonder why they were using autopilot on takeoff.


29 posted on 07/15/2008 1:40:39 PM PDT by Moonman62 (The issue of whether cheap labor makes America great should have been settled by the Civil War.)
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To: doodad; Nailbiter
Why the hazmat and what are trying to recover?


30 posted on 07/15/2008 1:45:57 PM PDT by IncPen (We are but a moment's sunlight, fading in the grass ...)
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To: doodad

Hydrazine maybe?


31 posted on 07/15/2008 1:46:34 PM PDT by eyedigress
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To: BobinIL

Has Obama, Pinky Reid or Madam obnoxious declared the B-2 a failure yet? Better not let them see these pics.


32 posted on 07/15/2008 1:47:51 PM PDT by Always Independent
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To: CarrotAndStick

bump for later read


33 posted on 07/15/2008 1:49:36 PM PDT by RightField (The older you get .... the older "old" is.)
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To: montomike

During his presidential run in ‘96 Bob seemed like a cocky guy. Too bad for him he didn’t forgo his joke of a campaign and pay more attention to his own district.


34 posted on 07/15/2008 1:54:40 PM PDT by LiveFree99
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To: Moonman62
Well, autopilot was probably not the proper nomenclature to use. The fact is that nowadays, modern jet airliners implement autopilot for almost all phases of a flight.

I was informed of this by a retired F-16 pilot who now is an MD-11 driver for FedEx. He said during one of his training session, he was working with the captian, one of the senior FedEx pilots, they spent 45 minutes trying to get the computers programmed correctly for a particular flight. When in exasperation he exclaimed, "Damn it! Why don't we just fire this bird up, and FLY it to where we're going?" The senior PIC just looked at him with absolute incredulity like he had three heads.

The fact of the matter is that except private aircraft, nobody does a whole lot of flying these days (at least not commercially).

The connations of autopilot are incorrect, however, in that more properly it was the flight control computer (FCC) that is part of the flight control system (FCS) that induced the control inputs for 30o pitch up. This is really no different than the G-limit FCS in the -16; regardless of pilot control inputs the FCS will NOT allow given inputs to overstress the airframe. The -16 is inherently unstable and without the FCC continuously monitoring all aspects of the flight aerodynamics, the air craft would be immensely difficult to control; essentially the FCC is doing 95% of the work.

The B-2 is even worse in that regard (much much worse); without a functioning FCC the B-2 is essentially uncontrollable.

35 posted on 07/15/2008 1:59:41 PM PDT by raygun
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To: CarrotAndStick

I’m glad the crew got out safely.

Heck we could buy 50 of these a year for what we subsidize HIV research for. Still no vaccine.


36 posted on 07/15/2008 2:01:22 PM PDT by <1/1,000,000th%
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To: Moonman62

It was a ‘flight computer’ not an autopilot. Apparently an automatic control system that helps fly the plane.


37 posted on 07/15/2008 2:01:49 PM PDT by TalonDJ
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To: CarrotAndStick
Atleast that was the *official* explanation.

It is a very believable explanation. My take based on the timeline is that it was a procedural error. They should not have done the sensor calibration before the sensor heater was active.

Based on that dependency I would also speculate that the design was not as robust as it could have been concerning this sensor system. Lack of redundancy and dissimilarity perhaps. I can't be sure without access to stuff that is classified though. I am an Avionics Systems engineer by profession.
38 posted on 07/15/2008 2:06:03 PM PDT by TalonDJ
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To: CarrotAndStick

What a waste to be eating through these aircraft bombing 7 guys and a goat in some valley somewhere.


39 posted on 07/15/2008 2:07:41 PM PDT by Leisler
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To: Leisler
What a waste to be eating through these aircraft bombing 7 guys and a goat in some valley somewhere.

I am sure the goat was a 'high value target.'
40 posted on 07/15/2008 2:09:11 PM PDT by TalonDJ
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