Sunday, July 15, 2001
Criticism of B-1 is not new
Supporters say bomber capable
despite decades of complaints
By Sidney Schuhmann
Reporter-News Staff Writer
It’s little wonder the B-1B bomber
is under attack.
Military experts insist the supersonic aircraft
isn’t stealthy, can’t jam enemy radars and can’t
be maintained without spending astronomical amounts of money.
Just last week, the Air Force secretary reported that the B-1
program is $2 billion short of what it needs for upgrades over
the next six years.
“It’s unbelievably expensive to
keep in the air,” said Loren Thompson, a defense analyst
at a conservative Virginia think tank. “I was told every
flight hour costs $12,000 in maintenance. You’re talking
real money, real quick.”
Its supporters, however, are rushing to
the defense of the much-maligned bomber, a mainstay at Dyess Air
Force Base.
“The Air Force has never supported
the B-1 with the necessary parts and funds it needs,” said
retired Col. Johnny Griffin, a former Dyess commander. “…
The reason they want to get rid of it is they need money. …
It has nothing to do with capability or anything else except money
and politics.”
A Defense Department proposal to mothball
one-third of the nation’s 93 B-1s, including eight from Dyess,
could be the beginning of the end for the bomber, its boosters
say. Having blasted the B-1 for three decades, critics say it’s
about time.
B-1 criticism has come from Air Force brass
who doubt the plane’s capabilities and efficiency, defense
contractors who are encouraging new weapons and B-2 supporters
who want the B-1’s money.
“Supporters of the B-2 have constantly
looked at ways to put down the B-1,” said U.S. Rep. Charles
Stenholm, an Abilene Democrat.
Most Air Force generals are former fighter
pilots who don’t like heavy bombers, Griffin and Thompson
said.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld recently
submitted a proposed 2002 budget to Congress that includes retiring
33 B-1s and consolidating the fleet from five bases to two, a
South Dakota base and Dyess. The $130 million saved in 2002 from
the cuts would be funneled back into the B-1 program for upgrades
and operational costs.
Congress and President Bush still must approve
the plan. Lawmakers who represent bases that would lose B-1s have
vowed to fight Rumsfeld’s recommendation.
The proposal was submitted two weeks ago,
but was a long time in the coming.
“They’ve never been happy with
it (the B-1),” Thompson said of senior Air Force officials.
Nick Kotz, a Pulitzer Prize winner and author
of the book Wild Blue Yonder: Money, Politics and the B-1 Bomber,
called the B-1’s story a “sad, sad tale of failure on
the part of the military, Congress and presidents.”
Retired Col. Bill Ehrie, another former
Dyess commander, charged that the B-1 has long been the media’s
“whipping boy,” a victim of bad publicity.
“It has lived its life at the mercy
of the unrelenting press that takes every incident and blows it
out of proportion,” said Ehrie, president of the Abilene
Industrial Foundation.
B-1 bummer
The B-1 Lancer was tagged a problem plane
from the beginning.
In the 1960s, the Air Force began designing
a super bomber to replace the aging B-52, which is still in service.
The new bomber would fly low, fast and undetected, and carry a
devastating arsenal of nuclear missiles. The Cold War bomber was
meant to send a shiver through the Soviet Union.
The bomber would do “everything,”
said Kotz, who wrote his B-1 book in 1988.
Instead, technical problems drove up development
costs and raised doubts about the bomber’s capabilities.
President Jimmy Carter killed the B-1’s
development in favor of cruise missiles after he was elected in
1976, dashing the hopes of Abilene leaders who craved a fleet
of B-1s to replace the B-52s at Dyess.
But politicians, lobbyists and defense contractors
kept the B-1 alive.
Ronald Reagan resurrected the bomber after
he was elected president in 1981. During the Reagan years, the
military build-up included the purchase of 100 B-1s at $200 million
apiece. Six of the bombers have since crashed and the first one
was used for spare parts.
The first B-1B Lancer was delivered to the
Air Force at Dyess in June 1985.
The Air Force touted the sleek new plane
as a supersonic, long-range bomber with electronic jamming equipment
and warning systems that could sense enemy radar. But the Air
Force’s rosy reviews of the plane didn’t ring true.
Within months, problems came to light.
The press began reporting that B-1s were
suffering from cracked landing gears, leaking fuel tanks and faulty
engines that fell out of planes. Alarms sounded in flight for
mechanical problems that didn’t exist. False images in the
terrain-following radar and incompatibility in the advanced systems
used to execute bombing runs also plagued the B-1.
The bomber broke down frequently and was
rarely ready for combat.
Critics started calling it the “B-1
bummer.”
The aircraft was supposed to have some stealth
capability, meaning it was hard to detect by radar. But Thompson
said, “Any good radar can track that aircraft.”
Ehrie acknowledged the B-1 had problems
with its electronic countermeasure system, which jams enemy radar,
when it was first built. Those problems were corrected, he said.
More recently, the B-1 was equipped with
a towed decoy system that lures enemy missiles away from the aircraft.
“It can defend itself,” Ehrie
said. “And with some of the recent upgrades … the airplane
is perfectly capable of penetrating enemy airspace.”
Col. Christopher Miller, who oversees B-1
flying operations at Dyess, said the B-1 was built with stealthy
characteristics, such as having fewer flat surfaces and sharp
angles that reflect radar.
“We are much more difficult for a plain-old,
garden-variety radar to find, particularly if we are heading for
them in an attack,” he said. “We’re not stealthy.
We just don’t make an enemy radar’s job very easy.”
No money, no parts — no flying
The B-1 was sidelined during the 1991 Gulf
War because of engine problems and its nuclear capability, which
made it incompatible with the war’s missions.
The B-1 didn’t see combat until Operation
Desert Fox in 1998 — 10 years after the last B-1 was delivered
to the Air Force. By that time, the Cold War had been won and
the B-1 was no longer a nuclear bomber. It had been modified to
drop conventional weapons.
During Operation Desert Fox, the B-1 struck
Iraqi military bases. A year later, the B-1 flew 100 combat missions
against heavily defended targets in Kosovo during Operation Allied
Force.
Despite the B-1’s combat success, the
Air Force had trouble finding money for upgrades, parts and operational
costs. Readiness rates plummeted. In August, B-1s were available
for missions less than half the time.
Raiding B-1s for spare parts — or “cannibalizing”
— to fix other Lancers is detrimental to the fleet because
it keeps bombers out of service.
“I view this as a force that has low
capability rates, (and) very, very high cannibalization rates,”
Air Force Secretary James Roche said Tuesday during a U.S. Senate
hearing. “It’s just not as relevant as it should be.
And I wish to make it relevant.”
Money saved from the proposed B-1 cuts will
be reinvested in the program, he said. The bomber competes for
funds with the B-2 stealth bomber — a bat-winged aircraft
that some defense analysts say would be a better investment for
the Air Force than the B-1.
“It’s the best we’ve got,”
defense analyst Thompson said.
Ehrie insists the B-1 can fly lower, faster
and carry more weapons than the B-52 or B-2.
To free up money in 1994, the Air Force
announced some B-1s were being placed in “attrition reserve,”
meaning they were sidelined and not funded to fly. The Air Force
promised to “buy” the planes back and fully fund them
to pay for crews, maintenance and flight time.
It never happened.
At Dyess, 30 of the base’s 40 B-1s
are fully funded. Three are partially funded.
Now the Air Force is seeking permission
from Congress and the president to retire 33 B-1s — not sideline
or ground them, but strip the bombers of parts and send them to
the “boneyard.” Located at an Arizona base, the boneyard
is the final resting place for most Air Force aircraft.
Once again, the Air Force promises to funnel
money saved from the B-1 cuts back into the bombers. But Abilene
city leaders are hesitant to believe it.
“There are still several issues that
need to be worked out in regard to aircraft and funding,”
Ehrie said.
Under Rumsfeld’s proposal, it’s
not yet known how many of the 32 bombers that would be assigned
to Dyess would have full funding.
B-1 supporters say retiring one-third of
the fleet will harm the remaining 60 bombers.
“A small fleet is not economical to
support,” said Griffin, the former Dyess commander who is
now executive director of the Concho Valley Workforce Development
Board in San Angelo. “They’re (Air Force) trying to
kill it off by making it strangle itself.”
Griffin said the B-1 is economical for the
power it delivers and would “bring a lot to a conflict.”
Maj. Gen. Larry Northington, a Pentagon
official and former Dyess commander, said the B-1 has “performed
well, but … at an increased cost.”
“Its combat effectiveness has degraded,”
he said. “… The computer systems are largely 1980s and
they need to be upgraded.”
Eighty-one B-1s received major upgrades
in the last two years. The upgrades increased the bomber’s
weapons, navigation and communication capabilities. The bomber’s
free-fall bombs were converted into “smart” weapons
that use a global navigation system to hit a target precisely.
Other advanced weapons are being tested
for the B-1 as well.
“We definitely need the new technology,”
said Dyess’ Col. Miller. “… That will make a huge
improvement in our capability. Of course, we think we’re
pretty capable already.”
Even B-1 supporters admit the plane probably
won’t fly forever, though the B-52’s long life proves
anything is possible. Stenholm said the bomber is in no “immediate
danger” and predicted it has another 20 years of life.
“No one in the Air Force believes there
is any other plane that is the backbone of the bomber force but
the B-1. Nobody,” Stenholm said.
“The B-1 is not a perfect airplane.
It never has been. But it is the best we’ve got.”
Contact military writer Sidney Schuhmann
at 676-6721 or schuhmanns@abinews.com
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©2001, Abilene Reporter-News / Texnews / E.W. Scripps.
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