B1 lands wheels up...!

[Nige321]

Ouch...:uhoh:
By Bruce Rolfsen
Times staff writer
A B-1B Lancer made a wheels-up belly landing at Diego Garcia Monday,
skidding down the runway for 7,500 feet, according to Air Force reports. The
four-person aircrew escaped from the plane. The B-1B was home based with the
7th Bomb Wing, Dyess Air Force Base, Texas.
The 20-year-old bomber was landing at Diego Garcia, a remote base in the
Indian Ocean, at the end of a ferry mission that started at Andersen Air
Force Base, Guam. The Air Force won't say why the crew landed the plane with
its landing gear retracted.
During the landing, the B-1B caught fire and emergency crews extinguished
the flames.
Because damage estimates are more than $1 million, separate Air Force
accident and safety investigation boards will look for the cause of the
accident.
Production of the supersonic bombers ended in the mid-1980s. With inflation
taken into account, today the planes would cost more than $283 million each.

[Not_a_boffin]

Hope someone, somewhere got footage of it. Must have looked fairly spectacular - lucky to get out of that one. Good thing there's another dozen-plus in the boneyard......

[Dr Illitout]

Glad there was only one broken bone

Rgds Dr I

[wg13_dummy]

skidding down the runway for 7,500 feet

Bet that was one hell of a ride. Glad the chaps are ok though.

[Anton Meyer]

What with the broken C5 recently, might we deduce that there is an element of overstretch in the US AF at the moment? So glad the crew was okay...

[SkyHawk-N]

Good thing there's another dozen-plus in the boneyard......
Although only four or five are still in one piece!

[SASless]

Anton,

Unlike the RAF....the USAF has more than four large transports in the fleet. Add in the civilian charter fleet and the numbers grow significantly.

One could wipe out the entire fleet of B-1's and still have more than adequate numbers of bomber aircraft to do the job. Old Buff will be around for many more years if not centuries it seems.

[Dan Winterland]

There aren't too many places to divert to with the runway blocked at DG!

[Ewan Whosearmy]

Dan

Parallel taxi way is certified at DG.

Understand there was a B-52 carrying live wpns at the hammerhead with brakes on fire just before the wheels-up incident - perhaps it served as a disctraction?

[Flatus Veteranus]

Having flown the Buff and the KC135 with SAC (as was, RIP) I suppose that there must have been a whole bunch of blokes chanting checklists in the B1 cockpit. It cannot have been finger-trouble (... can it ?). If there are only 4 or 5 B1s left in the boneyard at D-M or wherever, the RAF ought to get its bid in quick. Thats just the sort of capability we need for "power projection". I know Straw got fired for dismissing a pre-emptive strike on the Iranian nuclear sites as "unthinkable" (except by nut-cases) just as Bush was thinking about it; but if such a madcap task arises we would be much better off (financially and operationally) with a few B1s than with a bloody great carrier floating around in the Gulf, making a target of itself for bad guys in high speed RIBs loaded with explosives.

[Squirrel 41]

Flatus...

Interesting idea, but surely better to buy Russian - Tu-22M3s would do very nicely thank you!

Has anyone got any pictures of said B-1B?

S41

[D-IFF_ident]

The parallel taxiway is okay for landing, it is not being used for take-offs. Crews stuck on the ground tfn.

I'd be down the marina taking courses if I were they.

[ORAC]

Aero-news Net: Air Force B-1B Damaged In Gear-Up Accident

An Air Force B-1B Lancer was heavily damaged during a landing at a forward operating location, in SW Asia, May 8. The aircraft, with its crew of four, slid 7,500 feet before coming to rest on the runway with its landing gear in the retracted position....

They must have touched down at one h*ll of a speed. :ooh:

[SkyHawk-N]

One could wipe out the entire fleet of B-1's and still have more than adequate numbers of bomber aircraft to do the job. Old Buff will be around for many more years if not centuries it seems

http://www.spacemart.com/reports/Air_Force_Slates_F117_And_B52_For_Cuts_F22_Raptors.html

[ORAC]

How Long Will the Bombers Last?

The B-1 flies low-level, high-speed missions which take a physical toll on the airplane. Based on continued rough usage, and gauging the rate at which B-1s have been lost in peacetime training, USAF expects the B-1 fleet to dip below a minimum-required level of 89 aircraft in 2018. The overall fleet will wear out in 2038

No B-2s have been lost in accidents, so the Air Force guesses that its attrition rate will mirror that of the B-52, with one crash every 10 years. Based on that, as well as a design life of about 40,000 hours and a fairly benign flight profile, the B-2 fleet will likely drop below the minimum of 19 needed by 2027.

Most robust of the three bombers is the B-52, built at a time when little was known about aircraft life expectancy. To be safe, the B-52s were built to take twice the expected punishment. Now serving as a high-flying bomb truck, the B-52's main limiting structure is the upper wing surface, which will give out sometime after 32,500 hours. Expected mishaps and fatigue will bring the B-52 fleet below the 62 required in about 2044. First built of the three, the B-52 will outlast its newer stablemates by up to 26 years.

The Air Force noted that the predictions for all three bombers will be affected by actual wartime usage, changes in tactics, unexpected technical problems, or changes in the threat.
--------------------------------------------------------

Amended to point out that these figures were produced on airframe hours usage prior to GW II and also assumed that only 1 x B-1B would be lost every 5 years. On that assumption a new bomber was to be required in service no earlier than 2038. Those figures have been re-assessed, as has the need for a bomber able to penetrate Chinese defenses. The DoD now wants a a new bomber/strike force (http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2006/060113-j-ucas-terminated.htm) in service around 2018.

Some want a hypersonic spaceplan, but it is not really achievable in the required time frame. Others are pushing a new B2 size UAV with long on-station loiter time, others a FB-22 variant. It will probably be a mixture of the last two.

[Blacksheep]

Only 32,500 hours :confused:

They should have done better than that with a combat aircraft...

707s and VC10s did well over 65,000 hours before retirement. Any 747-200s left flying will be well past that and the average 767 is knocking 48,000.

[ORAC]

You build for the planned design life. The Eurofighter is built for a design in-service life of 25 years/6000 hours.

Anyone want to take bets on when the first FI mod programme will start? (Assuming it hasn´t already....) :hmm:

[Ivan Rogov]

Spotter time.

In the 90's I remember reading about the idea of buying Russian fighters and fitting western engines (Mig 29 & EJ200?). It went on to mention you would need 3 airframes per pair of engines as the Russians only lifed them for 2000 Hours. Any truth in that?

Seems there are some cracks in the B-2 program. http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/systems/b-2-upgrades.htm
What will the US do if equipment becomes available in the next decade that can detect it's Stealth aircraft, will the B-2 still be viable financially? Bring on the frick'in space lazer!


Oh yes back to the thread.
Glad to see everyone was OK, new pants (draws is Americaneese) all round.

So is a wheels up landing the prefered option to ejection for the B-1?

[Green Flash]

B1 sliding down the strip must have made a hell of mess of the tarmac! Wonder how long it will take to re-surface? Glad all crew are more or less OK.

Slight off at a tangent, talking b-52 longevity - wasn't there a plan to replace the engines with 4 x RB211 derivatives????

[RAF_Techie101]

Only if you read Dale Brown's books.....:8

[ORAC]

Green Flash,

IIRC, It has been looked at a couple of times. Got rejected both times. The first time the argument was that it was supposed to pay for itself over the remaining life of the fleet, but no one would fund the money up front. The USAF/DoD also, as this year, wanted to reduce the size of the fleet so were unwilling to accept a program based on maintaining the size of the fleet. They also made the case based on higher reliability and savings on maintenance, but there were arguments about maintenance intervals and costings.

The second time round the additional case was made that the extra endurance/range would relieve the load on the KC-135 force. But, to be honest, the hours they actually fly a year I wouldn´t it would have made a lot of difference.

It´s a nice idea, but there are so many higher priority calls on any available funds, its never going to happen.

[speeddial]

They finally saw sense and realised you couldn't replace 8 engines with 4, the dangers of asymetric thrust due to an engine failure were too nasty.

[LowObservable]

The re-engining idea has been around since the Boeing 757/C-17 engines went into service in 1982. The asymmetric issue can be dealt with. The last look was by the Defense Science Board in 04, I think, and chided the AF for using an economic model based on $1/USG fuel - not the $17/USG that it costs out of the back end of a KC-135.
It makes technical and economic sense but never happened and never will. The fighter generals simply never imagined that the B-52 could be this important for so long.

[Argonautical]

Found a photo of it....

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c2/argonautical/B1Boner.jpg

[Zoom]

The following part-quote from the link given in post #14 alarmed me a bit:

"...would save the Air Force $681 million in procurement, operations and manpower costs, and allow the service to eliminate or reassign nearly 4,000 airmen."

Imagine the scene as airman speaks to boss: "Sir, I'm not terribly keen on being eliminated so can I be considered for reassignment instead?"

[Condition lever]

I had a couple of extra days on the ground at DG due to this accident.

Unconfirmed rumour is that the 7500' of runway was used as the boys touched down they attempted a go-around (hard to believe that the pre-landing checks had not been done - but that seems to be the case). Luckily no one hurt, but I was not aware as a previous post intimates that the B1 was ever on fire.