Saturday, February 23, 2008

B-2 Down

A B-2 Spirit stealth bomber crashed on takeoff in Guam yesterday; both pilots ejected to safety.

There are only 21 of these bombers, which cost about $2 billion each, and this is the first one to crash. At the same price as a major warship, the B-2s are not disposable. In fact each one is officially named, like battleships, after states. There is a Spirit of Kansas and a Spirit of Missouri and a Spirit of Oklahoma. I've not heard yet which one crashed.

The oldest B-2s are fifteen to twenty years old and one hopes that it might have been one of the older airframes versus one of the newer ones. If you have to lose one, lose one of the high mileage models.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Don't they ALL have pretty high mileage? Ya know, flying around the world on a single mission?