Inspecting US Monstrous B-1 Lancer Before Hypnotic Takeoff at Full Throttle 

I like the TU-160

The Russian White Swans still can fly and are effective until this present day. Look up the availability rates of the B1... you'd be surprised the F35 availability rates of around 40% and I think that is way too high, make the B1's availability rate look extremely low. If none can fly, do they really matter?

should be for the obscene money it took to design and build it

The B1 was beautiful, but the B2, with the curvier wing, more so. We are talking about Avro Vulcans, aren't we?

My dad was stationed at Dyess also , he retired from there in 1973. During an air show on base we were able to get up close to the B1's there. To me they realy appeared to be just oversized jets, like the F-5's. I wasn't impressed. Dad ran the jet engine shop, retired Tech Sargent Harold L. Carpenter

It wasn't really a fighter; it was a bomber.

Your math is wrong.

@@Johnjtest you are right. It’s $27 dollars a second. Good job. I threw that out there for fun. It’s an amazing jet. I’ve only seen one fly and it was at an airshow. It was awesome.

Wow maybe they were too "hypnotized" (???) to follow proper PPE procedure.

they all have different uniforms, or gear, lot of profiles, not shaving…

MTOW is 477,000 pounds

Dollars and cents for the military industrial complex...

It makes perfect sense. [0] The B-1 was designed to fly between 8,000-10,000 hours, or about 30 years, depending on the rate of usage, but the heavily abused & misused fleet is 35 years old & those old bones are creaking! Stress cracks & wear on absolutely everything. [1] maintenance requires many hands - this is a huge heavy beast, thus one hour of real time maintenance requires perhaps 12 "man hours" of maintenance. [2] These are critical sharp end aircraft with around 60% of them ready to go within hours [takes a long time to prep for a mission] - the remaining 40% are in a rolling program of upgrades, replacement of fatigued components & testing [3] Every fault on one aircraft is analysed & then all other aircraft might need attention in various ways [4] Some upgrade/repairs/replacements are major events such as longeron replacement means taking the thing apart back at Boeing & this has to fitted in to a calendar where they ALL get that replacement - 10,000 hours minimum per aircraft [5] QUOTE: The B-1 has been used hard, and not in the way intended. Former Chief of Staff Gen. David L. Goldfein explained in September 2019 that the B-1 was used in Afghanistan and Iraq as a high-speed close air support platform, loitering for long periods at high altitudes with its swing wings swept forward, until getting a call to dash to support troops needing air support. However, the aircraft was designed as a strategic penetrator, flying low and fast, with wings swept back. Flying with the wings extended for long periods, while carrying heavy loads, put years of heavy extra stress on the swing mechanism and attach points. “Now we’re having to pay the piper,” Goldfein said.

No, it isn't.

@@hyperbaroque not for Americans but for everyone else it is

Shows how little you know. The Germans were not the first to create the all wing design. And if Germany is so great why isn’t it a super power? I believe the thought of you being the greatest was worked out in the 40s.

@@NickMacer-ui3pr You are like most Americans, you don't know much about history, even about your own history.😉😁.

@@matrix54190 Yeah but Nick is good at throwing bigoted ageist comments at older and wiser folks. Ignorant and prejudiced.