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Bomber Zen

By The Armorer on August 6, 2010 | | Comments (15)
In which we suck up to the leisure class.
b-1b1.jpg 

08/03/2010 - A B-1B Lancer aircraft takes off from Ellsworth Air Force Base, S.D., Aug. 3, 2010, for a training mission. (DoD photo by Airman 1st Class Corey Hook, U.S. Air Force/Released)

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15 Comments

By Tim on August 6, 2010 10:15 AM
Sweet.  Gonna go practice dropping engines on the enemy.
 
By BillT on August 6, 2010 12:05 PM
Ya gotta hand it to those bomber guys -- they've never had a load miss the Earth, even though they don't have a chin bubble to look through to pick out an aiming point...
 
By Greyhawk on August 6, 2010 12:43 PM
Dang, that there's purty!

F#$% you, Jimmy Carter!
 
By Casey on August 6, 2010 1:26 PM
Yes, because a high-altitude supersonic bomber was such a great idea... ;)

 
By John of Argghhh! on August 6, 2010 2:03 PM
Now now, Casey.  Greyhawk is a retired AF WXWarrior, gotta cut him some slack.
 
By Justthisguy on August 6, 2010 2:07 PM
I do wish they were more resistant to bird strikes, and that we had more of them, and that they hadn't cost us so much.
 
By eric on August 6, 2010 2:13 PM
You are looking at the best CAS platform the US have, according to Petraeus (so it's true)!
 
By John of Argghhh! on August 6, 2010 2:18 PM
Heh.  That almost sounds like a "choose any two" triad, JTG.
 
By SFC D on August 6, 2010 9:29 PM
My pa (LTC D) was an old EW on BUFFS.  He was never sold on supersonic bombers...but then again, he started his career on B-24's and B-17's...ya think he was a little biased?  His crew picked up the last 52 built...days before I was born...and I'm 47.  You do the math.
 
By SFC (ret) Walter M. Clark on August 6, 2010 11:21 PM
I barely remember the B-47s at March AFB east of Riverside, California (where I spent most of my life before retiring and escaping to Pullman in eastern Washington state).  On Armed Forces Day they'd have an airshow.  I was probably six or seven and I still remember the B-47 demonstrating toss bombing, which was designed to loft that nuke high and far enough while the B-47 did  the old "bring it on over and roll out to run like hell in the direction from whence you came."  They had KC-97s and the B-47 was so (relatively) fast fueling behind a KC-97 was closely akin to fueling an SR-71/A-12 behind a KC-135.

Then they transitioned to B-52s, and yes, SFC D, they have been around a long time.  If they don't have to hassle with AAA, SAMs and interceptors they're perfect dump trucks for dumping smart bombs on the bad guys over that a way and they don't burn fuel as fast as the B-1 nor are they so expensive to keep as the B-2..

Oh, and John, thanks for explaining a few weeks ago what TINS meant.  A fellow could learn all kinds of neat and interesting stuff hanging around the Castle.
 
By Casey on August 7, 2010 2:52 PM
Ok, John. :) I do admit the Lancer looks very cool, but if they really wanted killer supersonice, why not continue with the B-70? Valkyrie; that was a kick-butt name.

Fun -but not so difficult- trivia queston: what other plane carried the name Lancer? 

JTG, the B-1 would show an even higher cost if they hadn't "reset" the program, so all the costs for the original supersonic B-1A program weren't counted. If a private industry company tried that, they'd be thrown in jail.

 
By John of Argghhh! on August 8, 2010 8:00 AM
Casey - the Seversky/Republic P-43, one of the forebears of the P-47.
 
By SFC D on August 8, 2010 9:33 AM
SFC Clark;

LTC D retired out of March in 1968.  I was in RIverside last month...I damn near cried when I saw what was left of March.  Felt like a huge chunk of my childhood was gone.
 
By Casey on August 9, 2010 1:36 PM
I figured that would be an easy question. :) I'm tempted to ask about the other Eagle fighter, John, but you prolly know that one too.

Bill, I may have conflated some memories about those low level passes. Only movie that comes to mind right now is Firefox, although I recall hearing a tale that some special forces guys once enjoyed watching a B-1 go low-level supersonic over a Taliban position, back in the first year of the war.

Terry Pratchett wrote a similar scene in his novel Guards, Guards! describing a battle between a very little dragon and a very big one. The little one could go very, very fast. ;)

 
By John of Argghhh! on August 9, 2010 1:42 PM
Casey - the P-75... body by Fisher?