| Submit your comments on this article | |
| Home Front: WoT | |
| B2 Hanger Queen augers in on Guam - 2 billion dollar junk pile - 20 left | |
| 2008-02-23 | |
A B-2 stealth bomber crashed early Saturday morning local time in Guam, according to the Air Force.
Emergency responders were on the scene of the crash. A board of officers will investigate its cause. | |
| Posted by:GolfBravoUSMC |
| #19 BTW, if I remember correctly, the 21 B-2s had a fly away cost of $350M. Think the Air Force could be interested in a B-767 or is it required to spend $40B on R&D before congress cuts the buy to 10 airframes? Ed, I hear that the Communist Chinese are very interested in B-767's for the US Air Force. |
| Posted by: Abdominal Snowman 2008-02-23 22:11 |
| #18 More seriously, thank G*d the pilots are okay. We stressed our F15s heavily during the no-fly days of Saddam. We're using the B2s more than expected other than in a force-on-force war, too. |
| Posted by: lotp 2008-02-23 20:03 |
| #17 That's what you get when you rely on stuff you find in saucer crashes. |
| Posted by: lotp 2008-02-23 20:01 |
| #16 It's anti-gravity system probably failed. |
| Posted by: Bob 2008-02-23 20:00 |
| #15 Glad the pilots ejected safely. They were on take off to return to Whiteman AFB in Missery after completing the Guam deployment. They were just a few feet above the runway and the wreckage came down onto runway. Maybe a fuel failure or engines shut down due to malfunction. Too bad, we don't have any extra. Joe M., any poop on this ? |
| Posted by: Woozle Elmeter 2907 2008-02-23 16:34 |
| #14 I sure hope the Air Force isn't using up B-2 flight hours flying circles over Afghanistan and Iraq. If long duration is needed better to use up airframes that will soon be retired. BTW, if I remember correctly, the 21 B-2s had a fly away cost of $350M. Think the Air Force could be interested in a B-767 or is it required to spend $40B on R&D before congress cuts the buy to 10 airframes? |
| Posted by: ed 2008-02-23 15:56 |
| #13 Doing the same thing to the F-22, cutting the production run after paing such a huge price for the R&D and prod line setup. Idiots. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2008-02-23 14:17 |
| #12 You still have a career in politics if you build an assembly line that can build a hundred of these a year and have it shut down after building twenty at five a year. Congress and the Air Force signed off on that monstrosity of a production plan. If they want to be assholes to the crews that risk flying the thing I'm _sure_ they can find volunteers from the PLAAF to fly it for them instead. (And I'm sure they'll actually do a proper production run with it, like sober people instead of crackheads, once they're through with their measurements). |
| Posted by: Abdominal Snowman 2008-02-23 12:37 |
| #11 1.2 billion! Can I have just the 0.2 billion? |
| Posted by: Clem Fliter2506 2008-02-23 11:41 |
| #10 Yeah, you still have a career: http://www.thule.af.mil/ The good news is that I hear there is a woman behind every tree! |
| Posted by: crosspatch 2008-02-23 11:24 |
| #9 Do you still have a career in the Air Force if you lose a bird like this? I think you are gently asked to perform sepukku. Sake and poem provided by the Air Force. |
| Posted by: JFM 2008-02-23 10:35 |
| #8 Reminds me of a story from the World War 2 era. A GI in training slips on a rope bridge and drops his M-1 Garand into a fast-moving Georgia stream. All efforts to retrieve the weapon fail. Payday rolls around and our hero goes to collect. He receives just a few dollars and change. "What gives?" he asks the paymaster, "there's just a few bucks here." "Simple," replies the paymaster, "We took out for the rifle you dropped. If you lose government propery you have to pay for it." "Sheesh, now I see why the captain always goes down with his ship." |
| Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy 2008-02-23 07:54 |
| #7 ...since they're so controlled by computer. Maybe they confused the eject button with the reboot button... |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2008-02-23 07:51 |
| #6 Do you still have a career in the Air Force if you lose a bird like this? |
| Posted by: john frum 2008-02-23 07:40 |
| #5 I'm surprised more of them haven't crashed, since they're so controlled by computer. |
| Posted by: gromky 2008-02-23 05:25 |
| #4 Uncle Sam is NOT going to like this! |
| Posted by: gorb 2008-02-23 04:53 |
| #3 What's it like to punch out of a $2 billion dollar plane? "Eject! Eject! Eject!" "But this plane cost 2 giga-bucks!" "THEY CAN BILL M----" WHOOOOOSH! |
| Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy 2008-02-23 04:24 |
| #2 The B-2 was cheap, it was just the assembly line that was expensive. We stepped over dollars to pick up dimes... |
| Posted by: Abdominal Snowman 2008-02-23 01:55 |
| #1 Maybe the Air Farce shouldn't be in such a hurry to retire the F117s. Specs on B2 Hanger Queen here |
| Posted by: GolfBravoUSMC 2008-02-23 01:26 |