[Wm Bach]

The B1 is just a beautiful ship ranking right up there with
the B-17 and Lockheed Constellation, and a real ground pounder when it goes to afterburner in a verticle climb.

[ladtx]

An absolutely tremendous aircraft. I may be a little prejudiced since my son is WSO on B-1's. He has had nothing but good things to say about the aircraft. Knowing him and his opinion of the A/C it will be interesting to get his side of this story.

[Valin]

This begs the question do we need/afford 2 heavy bombers?

[maximus@Nashville]

Good Lord, what idiocy is this? Only 2 weeks ago, we saw a story here about a new delta wing FB-22 in the planning stages because "We need a greater bomber capability" yet they will not spend the money to upgrade a bombing platform that would perform as well or better and have a much larger bomb-load.

Saying theat the B-52 is cheaper in the stand-off role is very short sighted. How cheap will this 50 year old bomber continue to be as the years roll by? Besides having a radar cross-signature of a veritable flying barn, the years of stress on this aging super-structure will eventually cause catostropic failure. Everytime I hear of a B-52 going down I wonder if that might be the cause.

[KellyAdmirer]

If all bombers are going to do is stand offshore and drop cruise missiles, why not just bring back the B-24 and the B-29? I bet those would do dynamite service in that role.