There goes a cool $1.4 Billion

[RocketMan]

$1.4 Billion up in smoke:  The B-2 crash on Guam.  Video included.

Foxnews

Story here:  http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,364185,00.html

[The Annoyed Man]

That sure is a lot of dollars down the toilet. You would think for 1.4 billion they could have sealed the systems against moisture.

[41magsnub]

Could you imagine being one of those pilots and thinking "well, there goes that career."  Bet being the pilot for the only loss of a stealth bomber does not look good on the old personnel record whether it was his/her fault or not.

[Bigjake]

Could you imagine being one of those pilots and thinking "well, there goes that career."  Bet being the pilot for the only loss of a stealth bomber does not look good on the old personnel record whether it was his/her fault or not.

Did you watch that?  He punched out roughly before that thing landed HARD.

[Fly320s]

My father-in-law has ejected.  Twice.  He made it to Colonel (Marines) after "disposing of" two aircraft.

[doc2rn]

I think whom ever didn't produce a quality moisture proof product owes the American Tax payers $1.4 billion.

[Sergeant Bob]

Could you imagine being one of those pilots and thinking "well, there goes that career."  Bet being the pilot for the only loss of a stealth bomber does not look good on the old personnel record whether it was his/her fault or not.

It won't have any effect on his career. I'm glad both pilots made it out safely. My brother told me about this right after it happened, he's in charge of maintenance data collection at Whiteman AFB.
The 1.4 billion doesn't take into account the half billion dollar hangers they keep them in, or all the special equipment needed to maintain them either.

[Manedwolf]

With a high performance aircraft like that, there's a certain level of system failure where you no longer have an aircraft, just a collection of composites, electronics, fuel and high temperatures traveling roughly in the same direction for a short time more. At that time, it's time to leave. Because it's going to continue to go dig a hole whether you're on board or not.

[The Annoyed Man]

I think the Wright Brothers even had that one beat.

"Control, requesting permission to fly from one end of the runway to the other."

At least the crew was okay.

[MechAg94]

I have heard the number of crashes the Wright brothers had while perfecting their glider was pretty high.  Can't move forward without taking some risks.

[The Annoyed Man]

I have heard the number of crashes the Wright brothers had while perfecting their glider was pretty high.  Can't move forward without taking some risks.

Good thing there wasn't any FAA back then .

[Tallpine]

I read the article yesterday and couldn't figure out if they meant the system had moisture in it, or the moisture in the air mucked up the density/airspeed computation?

I know humidity will screw up an altimeter reading.

[Manedwolf]

$1.4 Billion up in smoke:  The B-2 crash on Guam.  Video included.

Foxnews

Story here:  http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,364185,00.html

Um, try more like around 2.5 billion in today's dollars to replace it.  What a goddamned shame for the US taxpayers, especially in this assed up economy. 

The only thing I care about is that pilots ejected safely. Pilots who fly those things put THEIR asses on the line every day to protect your freedoms. The airplane is just an effective tool.

[Gewehr98]

I was never concerned about what the jet cost, and my future employment status, vs. remembering to "Rotate and Squeeze" before I became one with the ground. I didn't have those nifty Zero/Zero ejection seats, either.

I could either be alive to flip burgers later, or just become so much well-done organic matter in a pile of burnt aluminum.

Funny how that works...

[Declaration Day]

The airplane is just an effective tool.

Except for that one, unless the objective is to have a really pricey bonfire. 

[mek42]

Would a fully manual flight option have helped in this scenario or are these high-performance craft just plain not flyable without the fly-by-wire computer systems doing most of the actual piloting?

This is a question out of ignorance - no disrespect to anyone intended if I made bad word choices.

[MechAg94]

I have heard that flying wing design requires computer controls to maintain stability. 

[Gewehr98]

Yup. Aerodynamic stability is no longer a mandatory design parameter for high-performance military aircraft, and hasn't been since the F-16.  Some won't fly at all without electronic stability augmentation, to include the F-117 and aforementioned B-2. 

[Sergeant Bob]

In addition to what G98 and Mech said, judging from the video, I doubt they would have had time to do anything, even if there were anything they might have done. They barely had enough time to punch out. Things happen pretty fast when things start falling apart.

[Balog]

Question for the Air Force types.

Is it normal to video the take off as was done in this case?

[InfidelSerf]

I'd rather see 1.4billion taxpayer dollars lost at the hands of a man who has dedicated his life to the preservation of my freedom, and whom I have no doubt is one top notch patriot and a true gentleman. Than spend 1.4billion towards another corrupt program that allows bobby joe to buy a Monster drink at the expense of my freedom.
No I have to disagree guys.
This is not a loss to the taxpayers as a whole.  It's a gain in my book.   Sad loss of a fine piece of modern aircraft yes.   A gain overall as the knowledge obtained from such an accident will go to prevent another future loss of a bird.
I'm still proud anytime I see taxpayer dollars spent on the equipment used to defend us.  Regardless of whatever the twit in command does to waste the opportunities to defend, they provide.
JMHO

[Tallpine]

Aircraft carriers do the same during flight ops.

There was film of the Forrestal accident (in which John McCain's plane gets "shot down" while sitting on the deck).

It's pretty grainy, and the camera was pointing to a launch when the missle mis-fired.  The camera man was inside some sort of bubble and fire was reflected and at first made it look like the plane being launched had caught fire.  But the crew on deck were looking and pointing aft and so the camera man turned around to film the disaster.

[Marnoot]

I have heard that flying wing design requires computer controls to maintain stability. 

Nope, they don't require it.  Look up the B-49 that first flew in the late 40s.  No computer controls back then.

Yeah, they attempted the flying wing, but it was a failure, specifically because there were no computer controls.

"Flight testing revealed stability problems which could not be corrected with existing technology."

[Manedwolf]

Yup. Aerodynamic stability is no longer a mandatory design parameter for high-performance military aircraft, and hasn't been since the F-16.  Some won't fly at all without electronic stability augmentation, to include the F-117 and aforementioned B-2. 

Inherent instability is a good quality for a fighter, provided a computer is constantly adjusting flight parameters to give it an appearance of level flight when you want that, too.

That was found out long ago, that instability is good. The Red Baron's favored triplane was unstable in all three axes, which was good, provided the pilot could stay ahead of it. You don't want a fighter to be slushy to move away from level flight. You want it to dance.

At the speed of an F-16, a human pilot just could not keep up, and the aircraft would be into a flat spin or all over the sky in probably seconds without the computer.

[Sergeant Bob]

I have heard that flying wing design requires computer controls to maintain stability. 

Nope, they don't require it.  Look up the B-49 that first flew in the late 40s.  No computer controls back then.

Yeah, they attempted the flying wing, but it was a failure, specifically because there were no computer controls.

"Flight testing revealed stability problems which could not be corrected with existing technology."

Nope, The B-49 crash was attributed to the wings coming off the center structure.  In-flight structural failure cause the crashes and NOT controllability issues.  The B-35 was the piston driven version which pre-dated the B-49, so the flying wing concept has been around a LONG time before digital computer control systems.

I'm assuming you have a link to that info? Everything I've read has pointed to uncorrectable stability problems as the cause for the YB-49 programs demise.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/systems/b-49.htm

In May 1948, Capt. Glen W. Edwards was selected to join the team of test pilots and engineers at Muroc who were then evaluating the Northrop YB-49, the all-jet version of the exotic flying wing bomber. After his first few flights, he was not favorably impressed, confiding to his diary that it was "the darndest airplane I've ever tried to do anything with. Quite uncontrollable at times." Then, on June 5, 1948, he was flying as co-pilot with Maj. Daniel Forbes when the airplane departed from controlled flight and broke apart in the sky northwest of the base. All five crewmembers were lost.

Judging from this, the acft departed from controlled flight, then broke up.

Flight testing revealed stability problems which could not be corrected with existing technology. The designers had not been able to anticipate the critical control requirements needed for a large all-wing airplane, especially for a system that could anticipate and correct problems before the pilot was aware of them. That, of course, would have to wait for the computer age. The Air Forces flight evaluators soon found that the YB-49 was sloppy in turns, and took too long to steady up for an effective bombing run. The YB-49 was a sleek airplane, its upper surfaces marred only by four wing fences and small auxiliary fins added for greater control. Wing fences were added to the YB-49 to control the spanwise movement of air toward the wingtips [today's electronic stability augmentation systems would have made them unnecessary]. Its 1940s control technology was inadequate to the big planes needs. Worse, it could not provide the necessary margin of flight safety.