And, like with threads about beautiful women, beautiful craft need pics:
Posted on 06/30/2010 10:14:12 PM PDT by ErnstStavroBlofeld
Last week, we wrote that the Air Force Council, the blue suiters board of directors that advises the air chief, was considering deep cuts to force structure to meet aggressive savings targets laid out by Defense Secretary Robert Gates. One option they are reportedly considering is early retirement of all 66 B-1B Lancer bombers, last delivered in the late 1980s.
Yesterday, the Lancer fleet got a hearty shout-out from new installed Afghan commander Gen. David Petraeus. “It is a great platform,” he told senators at his confirmation hearing. “It carries a heck of a lot of bombs… and it has very good intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities.”
It can loiter for long periods of time in a combat-air patrol, using its Sniper Advanced Targeting Pod which contains a laser designator, 3rd Gen. FLIR and digital cameras that function well both day and night to search out insurgent movements or IED emplacers. “It is almost like having another unmanned aerial vehicle in terms of full motion video and so forth,” he said.
“So it’s not just a case of a very, very capable bomber just boring holes in the sky waiting to open the bomb-bay doors, it is also the case of a platform that’s very capable even as it is just flying around in circles.”
So take heart Lancer pilots!
Of course Petraeus isn’t just randomly throwing out compliments to aging bombers, he was prompted by Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.); the Lancer equipped 28th Bomb Wing operates out of Ellsworth Air Force Base in Thune’s state.
(Excerpt) Read more at defensetech.org ...
Ping
” ... aggressive savings targets laid out by Defense Secretary Robert Gates ... “
This Bush appointee is a treasonous wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Yes, in this case it is Bush’s fault!
BTTT
Setting aside some of the B-1B’s minor issues,
Next to Stealth and F-22 is one of the coolest Military Jet’s to be produced, similar to a Great White Shark: big, bad and fast.
The “blue suiters”, of which I have great admiration, need to be politely told by the American tax payers... SUCK IT UP and STFUP.
You bought em and made nice little careers and nice little retirements out of flying them.
So fly those pigs until the rivets fall out.
Anyone who uses the term “shoutout” has a “screwloose”, IMHO.
But this cutting is without a doubt the agenda of the "disarm America" crowd who, remember, did indeed kill the B-1 program once, under President Carter, and then Ronnie brought it back in modified, more-modest form.
So Gates could be fighting a rearguard action against a crowd of Benedict Arnolds and Quislings, or he could do us a greater service by resigning in protest over all this PC buncombe, reinforcing what Gen. McChrystal did in walking the plank.
The episode with Saddam during the fall of Baghdad, when the B-1's almost got Saddam and his boys with all their thugs in a west Baghdad parking lot, made a useful point to all sorts of unpleasant people all over the world.
If an American with a cell phone can see your sorry ass, North American Rockwell and Raytheon are only seconds away.
bookmark.
You got to love a Heavy bomber that can out-run a concorde.
Yep He could choose one of your suggested paths: but if he is, as I suspect, a Corporate (as in Soros) bought player, then he will march forward with the destruction of US military power IMHO
And, like with threads about beautiful women, beautiful craft need pics:
It’s alway nice to look up and see one over Khost. Great airplane.
Ouch! That didn't help.
It’s worth noting that the Russians have restarted production on their imitation B-1.
I really do not think they will be of high quality due to the state of the Russian industrial military complex.
The B1 Lancer to me is the most sexiest big aircraft that I can think of for the modern era, as a modelmaker its on my winter hobby list, a really nice big kit.
I was at the Reno Air Races back in the early 90’s and saw a low to the deck flyby, one big impressive aircraft! Yet for its size I had a weird image of it capable of dogfighting.
Top Speed on the B-1B is ~ mach 1.2 at sea level. Cruise speed of the Concorde was much higher, mach 2.00 at 55,000 feet. The Concorde would not accept a climb clearance above 29,000 feet until it was cleared to accelerate and climb to its cruise altitude of 55,000 to 59,000 feet. I believe this was for fuel consumption reasons.
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