Word: aircrafting
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...system jerked the B-1B up and down, causing considerable internal stress. Fuel consumption turned out to be enormous, particularly when the pilot kicked in the afterburner to accelerate through enemy defenses, raising doubts whether the plane can even reach its targets. So many difficulties emerged in flying the aircraft that some 40% of the training missions have had to be scrubbed...
...sophisticated electronic countermeasure devices -- the "black boxes" designed to jam antiaircraft radar and missiles. So dissatisfied is the Pentagon with the equipment that it is withholding payments to the manufacturer, Eaton Corp. Shortcomings in the jamming hardware, for example, have triggered difficulties with other elements of the aircraft's computer "brain," with unforeseeable consequences. Some $104 million of the money requested for repairing the B-1B is earmarked for this software system. Last week Eaton tacitly confirmed its problems with the black box by ousting the manager of the B-1B electronics project...
...Pentagon argues that the structural problems can be overcome and the bugs worked out of the electronic warfare system. "There are always problems with new aircraft," explains Lieut. General William Thurman, commander of the aeronautical systems division responsible for the B-1B. "There's nothing wrong we won't be able to fix." But many observers contend that the fundamental shortcomings of weight and fuel consumption will permanently limit the utility of the airplane. Even Air Force insiders doubt the ability of the troubled electronic jamming system to assure the B-1B's mission to penetrate Soviet airspace. In particular...
...many observers who have battled the B-1B for over a decade, current problems merely confirm long-held doubts. Says Georgia Democrat Sam Nunn, the incoming chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee: "For most of the aircraft's useful life, it will not be able to penetrate (Soviet airspace) and will be a standoff carrier of cruise missiles and conventional bombs." The U.S., concludes Nunn, "could have built that kind of system much cheaper than we have built...
...issue is broader than just the fate of the B-1B program, which will have cost nearly $30 billion by the time the last plane is delivered in 1988. Close on its heels is the successor aircraft, Northrop Corp.'s so-called Stealth bomber, supposedly even less visible to enemy defenses and better able to penetrate to targets. Plans call for producing 132 Stealth planes, with a projected price tag said to top $40 billion...