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Posted on 08/12/2002 7:13:02 PM PDT by Excuse_My_Bellicosity
08/12/02 - DYESS AIR FORCE BASE, Texas (AFPN) -- A year after the B-1 Lancer consolidation plan was first announced, people here are seeing the first steps take shape.
The plan, announced last year, calls for the B-1 fleet to be consolidated here and at Ellsworth Air Force Base, S.D. The other three bases where B-1s were assigned have already ceased bomber operations. McConnell AFB, Kan., and Robins AFB, Ga., have begun transferring aircraft to Ellsworth and Dyess. All seven of the B-1s that were originally at Mountain Home AFB, Idaho, have already moved to Ellsworth. The plan also calls for the fleet to be reduced by more than 30 aircraft.
"The consolidation effort is on track at Dyess; it's going well, and we're handling any pop-up issues as they come," said Col. Mike Moeller, commander of the 7th Operations Group here.
The B-1s here are a sign the consolidation is under way. Another visible change is the recent addition of two units to the base. Detachment 1 of the U.S. Air Force Weapons School and Detachment 2 of the 53rd Test and Evaluation Group transferred here from Ellsworth. The detachments train B-1 instructors and perform B-1 operational tests and evaluations. The move to Dyess consolidates all B-1 aircrew training here.
"Once complete, Dyess will truly be the center of B-1 training and combat excellence," Moeller said.
Despite some facility construction delays, the transition to Dyess is going well for the new units.
"We've had a pretty smooth and seamless integration into our operations," said Capt. Andy Streicher, Det. 2 project officer. "Det. 1 has already flown its first sorties, and Det. 2 will be ready to start its first test flights next month. This is a valuable opportunity to get a new perspective at a new base with a new wing. We are really looking forward to the (future at Dyess)."
The B-1 consolidation plan calls for 12 Air National Guard B-1s to transfer to Dyess, Air Force officials said. Of the 52 planes that Dyess will then have in its fleet, 12 are slated to be stored at the Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Center at Davis-Monthan AFB, Ariz. Another eight will be sent to bases for static displays, including one at the Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio.
One display aircraft has already been sent to Mountain Home, and the first B-1 transfer to Davis-Monthan will begin later this year.
"All the '83 models are going, and that's true for most of the '84s," Moeller said, describing how the base will decide which planes stay and which will go. "When we are done, we will have a standardized fleet (because they will be the latest models) with the lowest flight hours on them."
The money saved with a smaller fleet will be invested into the defensive systems and weapons-modernization efforts, Air Force officials said. The next major upgrade, named Block E, will integrate the Wind Corrected Munitions Dispenser, the Joint Stand-off Weapon and the Joint Air-to-Surface Stand-off Missile systems into the B-1's arsenal. The upgrade also calls for new avionics computers.
"The consolidation will give us a fleet that is fully funded and completely combat-capable for the next 20 years," Moeller said. "The bottom line for the consolidation is we will be better able to continue doing what we already do at Dyess -- ensuring combat capability in the weapon system and training new aviators to use it."
The consolidation plan is scheduled to be completed by Oct. 1, 2003. (Courtesy of Air Combat Command News Service)
You're reading a not very publicized report about what's going out the back door. This matter might be more settling to you if you had access to the more calssified what's comming in the front door.
Defense is the one thing they are supposed to spend money on...yet they have a gazillion other (useless) things in the budget that are never cut. Go figure.
And that's not a small reduction either, it's more than 30% of the total fleet. There were only 100 built in the first place, a few have crashed and at least one is likely used for flight tests of upgrades and such.
Meanwhile the B-52H has to soldier on for another 30 years or so, accornding to the current plan. The avionics and munitions systems have been steadly upgraded, but they are still flying around with the original engines, while the tanker fleet has been re-engined, the active fleet with much more modern and better performing (fuel burn and max thrust) engines, and the reserve/guard fleets with engines cast off by airlines, a version of the same engine on the -H BUFF to be exact.
There are so few B-2s, they barely count when it comes to delievering lots of iron, but they do have their advantages in certain situtations. (Killing the other guys air defenses at the outset of a conflict, for example)
After 8 years of "I loathe the military" as CinC? Probably not so very much. The only possibility is some program that was started under Bush I or Reagan, and kept going on a shoestring during the Clintonian regime. Something that under normal circumstances would have been available for 4 or 5 (or more) years now. Big budget items like another bomber fleet are impossible to hide once they go from R&D into production. That's why the B-2 went "white" before the first aircraft flew. There could be a few special mission aircraft, "Aurora" for example, but not anything in the numbers you need in your bomber fleet. The fact that they are keeping the B-52H's around is evidence against that notion. This move is pure cost savings, and the savings will be applied to the remaining B-1 fleet, not to some "pie in the sky" phantom.
I'm sure they're great...all 20 of them. (That's all folks, thanks to a Democratic Congress in the early days of the production program). Take away the ones that are in the depot, or aren't fully capable because their stealth invisibiliy cloak is slipping, and you don't have much of an asset there. The ones you've got are SH, but you don't have many.
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Yes ... but what's going today is not the traditional procurement process.
You're thinking of massive, complex weapons systems that take years and mega bucks to produce. While some of that is still going on the emphasis has shifted to cheap, components off the shelf, remote or autonomously controlled systems. Sort of like a model airplane from Toys-R-Us with a small nuke in it's belly.
Incidentally, agencies traditionally associated with our national defense have money (literally comming out their ears) with which to develop and produce these new generation weapons systems.
It's a matter of economic perspective. The cost of just one traditional system, say the B1 for example, could equally fund enough of these new toys to kill every man, woman and child in Iraq, one by one, with no risk to any US combatant.
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