How best to immortalize the incredible achievement that is the B-1 fleet? Create a monument to its lessons.
My fellow Americans, today I ask that you weigh this momentous national decision: The B-1B strategic bomber fleet is being seriously considered for early retirement by the U.S. Air Force and the Department of Defense.
The reasons given by the Air Force and DoD for this unusual action are:
► The operational problems with the aircraft are either irresolvable or too costly to resolve.
► The money saved would help purchase 20 more B-2s, doubling the size of the stealth fleet.
Citizens, I am here to help them bury the B-1 and to immortalize the spectacular national achievement the B-1 bomber fleet represents. So frequently men of achievement are left improperly rewarded.
No other nation has created such a military aircraft. The B-1B’s history is extremely instructive; it literally demands that its valuable lessons be learned.
The driving motivation for the B-1 program was to increase our ability to project global military power. The Air Force declared the B-1 necessary to replace the venerable, creaky B-52, which allegedly has neither the performance nor the technology to cope with threats facing our country in the modern world. Conceiving and generating the B-1 was the work of honorable, dedicated, and patriotic men. It was the product of military visionaries, of skilled, selfless, and powerful contractor executives.
The dreams of General Curtis LeMay, our foremost bomber general, were the starting point of the program. He assigned two activists to write the requirements defining the B-1: (1) a bright colonel who had not completed his undergraduate college education, and (2) a brilliant lieutenant colonel untrained in the fundamentals of aeronautical engineering and physics. Unencumbered by the scientific bases for aircraft design, they worked mightily and fulfilled the Dream with a physically unrealizable set of requirements.
The B-1 was to fly faster than the Concord and at very high altitudes to survive in Russia’s skies. Its crew was to operate in a shirtsleeves environment in a capsule that would save them from the effects of any control contingency, anywhere in the world. Difficult design problems were to be overcome by the developers bringing the promises to light. Contractors competing for the program did not balk at the contradictory requirements, least of all the contractor preselected to produce the aircraft.
A few in our government recognized that the B-1’s excessive cost would generate great overruns and deny the United States the numbers of aircraft that would be required in warfare. But the promise of its enormous military power was to mitigate this loss. The few objectors were overpowered by the visionaries.
Such is the value in pursuing a Dream.
President Jimmy Carter and his defense analysts seriously studied the problem and deemed the aircraft too costly and too lacking in capability to add power to our burgeoning nuclear ballistic missile arsenal. His studies indicated cruise missiles to be more cost-effective.
President Carter canceled the B-1 program; many similarly concerned congressmen were very pleased. General Richard H. Ellis, commander of Strategic Air Command, wanted to forgo production of the B-l in favor of the B-2. Some Air Force generals, disappointed in the B-1B's projected performance, desired cancellation of the program. Doing so then would have saved most of the program’s cost.
However, a few clever military officers continued to lobby Congress, despite the President’s order. Our elected representatives, made to see the lucrative business that their constituents would come to know, joined in clever schemes to keep the program alive. Representatives who disapproved of the B-1 were intimidated by Air Force congressional liaison officers, who hinted at moving their military operations to air bases in other states.
Then, President Ronald Reagan, skilled in the art and fundamentals of war, knowing the B-52 was nearing the end of its operational life, listening to his inspired patriotic lobbyists, cut through the confusion and returned the nation to the vital task of bringing the Dream to fruition.
The B-1 program was reborn! Now its promises might be realized. Its program cost of about $45,000,000,000 (in 1995 currency) was deemed a small price to pay for this unprecedented achievement.
The military now envisioned the possibility of expanding the bomber force to 230 B-1s and 130 B-2s. However, the B-1’s ever-increasing cost encouraged Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger to limit production to 100 bombers, less than half the planned buy. The higher technology, more expensive, but more survivable, stealthy B-2 remained in development.
The B-1’s advanced avionics suite was loudly proclaimed to be a pinnacle of achievement. The aircraft was flight tested and deemed ready to drop two types of nuclear weapons. It was demonstrated that the smallest unguided 500-pound bomb could be successfully dropped.
The B-1 was placed on limited nuclear alert, aimed at deterring Russia. Attempts were made to ready it for dropping conventional bombs in Desert Storm, but this higher readiness state was more difficult because of engine unreliability and other problems. Without precision-guided conventional weapons, it could only create collateral damage and hurt the innocents, but operational B-52s already could do this to excellence.
The B-1’s developers, its flight test pilots, and the Air Force’s top generals were all very proud of the advent of the B-1 in operations. Many speeches commemorated the event. No one in DoD or the military was to report defects or problems with impunity. Misguided patriotic rebels reporting problems to their military superiors were disciplined or reassigned. They were putting the Dream at risk!
General Peter W. Odgers, in command of the B-1 program, admitted to media inquiries that “the capabilities [of the B-1B] are far less than we hoped they would be.” He was immediately replaced for revealing the truth.
A few problems did somehow manage to surface anyway. They all were pronounced reparable or irrelevant by the Air Force.
- The variable-sweep wing, designed to permit the B-1 to fly high and supersonically while retaining efficiency in long-range subsonic cruise flight, proved less than adequate. The flaws implicit in all variable-sweep aircraft escaped the contractor’s competent designers and engineers. Variable-sweep made the aircraft heavier and unforeseen drag was introduced, reducing its performance.
This problem is now irresolvable.
- To fix the high-speed engine-inlet incompatibility, the high-speed, high- altitude requirement was removed, and the aircraft was required to penetrate at very low altitude. Operational versatility suffered. This clever decision rejustified the variable-sweep, which does improve the aircraft’s resistance to buffeting that can occur at low altitudes. Ride qualities are very important in long flexible bombers, but range and radius-of-action were thereby lost.
- The ratio of aircraft weight to wing area (wing loading) is excessively high. The B-1B, routinely loaded with bombs and full mission fuel, must begin its initial cruise-climb at very low altitudes, making it the first jet military aircraft that cannot overfly most mountain ranges at will. Fortunately, its sophisticated electronics system permits bad weather flight in mountain canyons. The restriction to low altitudes during its long initial climb-out is inefficient, reducing its range.
This problem is now irresolvable.
- At mid-fuel weight over its target with a full bomb load, the B-1 cannot overfly antiaircraft guns. It is also very vulnerable to surface-to-air missiles at these altitudes. But, no problem, the aircraft is restricted to very low altitude penetrations for survival in enemy country. The versatility of bombing from other than low altitude is lost.
- With its very low engine thrust to aircraft weight ratio, the bomber is terribly underpowered. Combat take-offs require long runways, restricting the bases that can support the B-1 worldwide. The B-1’s maximum speed is far less than that demanded by General LeMay. Instead of a high-speed, supersonic bomber, it is merely a transonic bomber in a narrow range of altitudes.
When stealth (generally meaning only radar stealth) became the fashion, a few post-design changes were made to improve the B-1. Contractor and Air Force reports claimed that the B-1’s radar signature was dramatically reduced. In relative terms, it was deemed to be 100 times less than that of the B-52, in the frontal aspect. A governmental agency review of the same data concluded that the reduction was overstated by a factor of ten in the front quarter and that the signatures were essentially comparable in other aspects. Senator John Glenn (D-OH) accused the Air Force of a deliberate attempt to misinform Congress.
The Air Force ultimately admitted that the B-1 and the B-52 were about equally visible to Russian radar nets. Attempts to make the B-1B stealthy proved futile.
It was long suspected by connoisseurs that the B-1’s defensive avionics would have difficulty coping with Russian defensive systems. This awareness spotlighted the unusual action taken by Systems Command to write separate contracts for the defensive and offensive avionics. The incredibly egregious error? No one had integrated the entire avionics system!
The two components conflict with each other—when one is functioning, operation of the other is flawed. Air Force studies revealed the cost of rectifying the error to be unthinkably expensive. Hence, the insightful and courageous move to retire the fleet after it was paid for, built, and partially tested.
First citizen: “Did the Air Force not try to cope with these grave difficulties?”
The Air Force mollified our citizenry by setting some world records for bombers. Surprisingly, they were speed records and time-to-climb-to-altitude records.
First citizen: “How can this be rationalized in view of the reported difficulties?”
The records were accomplished without full mission loads of bombs and fuel. Nearly empty aircraft can dazzle the eye with their performance. As the insightful Senator Edward Hebert (D-LA) said of the F-15 Streak Eagle’s record-breaking flights: “They were stunts meaningless to combat.”
Second citizen: “Doesn’t this mean that the dream is not being realized, that the country is less secure despite grave expenditures?”
Yes. The dream is shattered.
Those who coped with the conflicting design requirements failed to make the impossible happen. This, despite support from all the vast resources of our government. This, despite the financing of overruns by compliant politicians. This, despite the brilliance and competence of contractor personnel.
Forty billion dollars were allocated by our government and managed by the military, only to create a non-weapon.
But the cost of operating the B-1B fleet is comparatively small: only $1 billion a year, 1.3% of the Air Forces’s annual budget.
The ironic result is that the Air Force and DoD are seemingly correct in scrapping the B-1B, even though it is just beginning its operational role.
The Air Force believes the money may be better used for a higher technology promise, the B-2 stealth bomber. Unhappily, the roles and missions intended for the B-1 must now be accomplished by the B-52H. With no B-1s and 40 B-2s, our nation’s bomber fleet will be reduced to 100 bombers, 60% of its current size, with 60% of the fleet composed of the allegedly soon-to-be-retired B-52s.
But DoD and the Air Force always have preferred high-technology weapons to large numbers of weapons. They speak eagerly of employing “silver bullets” in future wars. Yet, curiously, we always have won our wars with a preponderance of numbers; for they will ensure victory. Even more curiously, when our military seeks new weapon programs, it is the enemy’s alleged preponderance of numbers that is used as justification.
Third citizen: “Is all hope gone for the B-1? Is there anything to be learned? Is the now-total expenditure of approximately $60,000,000,000 (in 1995 currency) lost forever?
No! All is not lost! Lessons can be learned. And the money is recoverable! The solution requires unconventional thinking and a little creativity.
To serve in strategic warfare, long-range bombers must carry many individually targetable precision-guided conventional weapons, controlled by autonomous on-board targeting systems, which allow the bomber to function survivably at high altitude. The weapons must glide and guide into their targets with precision, through any kind of weather or atmospheric condition, day and night.
Systems fulfilling this total vision do not exist. Nor does this vision guide the development of current precision- guided weapons under development.
The ascendant importance of conventional weapons was missed by all the commanders of Strategic Air Command (SAC). SAC commanders were blindly committed to nuclear weapons, never recognizing that the most usable and most important weapons in modern wars were and are nonnuclear, conventional weapons.
They believed carriage of conventional weapons to be a misuse of their powerful asset, the heavy bomber, much as a sledge hammer is misused in driving tacks. Nuclear weapons, awesome for their widespread damage, have little requirement for precision.
For decades the unacceptable collateral damage generated by nuclear weapons has been anathema to the ruling elements of all rational nations. This is also true for the damage created by large loads of imprecisely aimed, ballistic, conventional bombs.
Without proper weapons, racks, and targeting capability, bombers cannot perform their military missions.
Third citizen: “But, tell us, how do we recover our money while still learning these lessons?”
By using the B-1 fleet to create a monument to the memory of the incredible achievement of all the valorous individuals so vital to completion of the program.
Giving this operationally expensive non-weapon to the National Guard, as of old, is not a solution. Like the regular Air Force, the Guard cannot provide battle effectiveness with an ineffectual weapon, and the states have a lesser ability to afford its operation.
Letting the B-1B fleet corrode in the hot sun and dusty winds of the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base desert graveyard offers no compensation for its great cost.
The key lies in using the remaining 96 B-1s to create such a spectacular edifice, a monument so dynamic, that tourists will come from far and wide to view it.
Tourism is the key!
When the allegedly “mad” King Ludvig of Bavaria spent much of his country’s wealth on four luxurious castles, no one dreamed that Bavarian Germans would profit forever from the seeming misappropriation of funds.
When the pharaohs sponsored the Sphinx and pyramids at Giza, the pyramids at Luxor and Kamak, and the colossi of Ramses II at Abu Simbel, they probably were unaware that Egypt’s major source of hard currency 3,000-5,000 years later would be tourism; tourism made possible only by their dreams.
Have the leaning tower of Pisa or the Eiffel Tower lost their attraction? The Louvre? The Statue of Liberty? Never.
Already, technical marvels—the failed B-70, B-58, and Navajo missile—embellish our first-class Air Force museum in Dayton, Ohio, and continue to attract tourists.
We must create a structural achievement rivaling those of old.
The 96 B-1s can be embedded onto an artful structural steel and titanium sculpture, designed with majesty and sweep, reaching for the sky. It need not be symmetric. The variable sweep feature can be highlighted by having the aircraft at varying and increasing sweep angles as they are placed ever higher on the structure.
With a fuselage length of 170 feet, the monument built in many tiers of upward pointing B-ls can be made to reach twice the height of the Eiffel Tower. Lighted, its magnificence may be seen for many miles, day or night.
Where to locate it? How about near the home of its building; south of Rogers Dry Lake near Palmdale and Lancaster, California? Placement in the environs of the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards Air Force Base will commemorate the dedicated, professional test pilots who flew the B-1 and brought it to fruition. Or place it on a high mountain peak overlooking Los Angeles, to be continually in view for 10-30 million people.
A very large airy, glass-paneled building with a full view of the monument is needed to present pictures, videos, and relics of the epic program to tourists. It must contain a research library with all the voluminous records defining the history of the program. The building must contain the central memorial: a three-sided polished granite stone engraved with the names of the key honorable men who worked so valiantly to create and retain the dream on one face; with the names of those who never had the dream and contested the program on another face; and, finally, with the names of a smaller set of military-defense executives perspicacious enough and courageous enough to cancel the failed program on the third face.
Occasional background music must be provided, of course. Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries, Handel’s War March of the Priests, Respighi’s The Pines of Rome, and Gorecki’s Three Sorrowful Symphonies must remain a permanent part of a constantly refreshed repertoire.
The design and building of the memorial must be truly competitive. Only our best and brightest architects, structural designers, aeronautical and mechanical engineers, artists, and advertising consultants should be assigned to the project.
The task of coping with the enormous weight, the great aerodynamic loads induced by 96 B-1s in high desert winds, and the poor desert base will test our best engineering talent. It will be years, decades in the building, and even its construction will begin the flood of tourists.
A great number of rewarding jobs will be created, involving a full spectrum of skills. The grand final structure projecting the B-1 into the blue skies above the Mojave Desert, properly done, will reasonably recover the misspent funds by 2150. From then, into the foreseeable future, the United States will know almost pure profit.
This favorable gold flow will last until the monument is badly transcended and outclassed by another.
This is not very likely.
In addition, perhaps more important, a great amount of money will be saved if the monument serves its primary purpose: to suppress the repetition of our errors.
- The monument must remind us of our human frailty and our propensity to err—such as by ignoring the fundamentals of physics, thermodynamics, and aerodynamics in aircraft design.
- It must remind us to scrutinize closely the requirement sets for complex systems for possible conflicts. It must reduce the tendency of politicians addicted to pork to intervene in purely military decisions. Generals must not dream without military bases for their dreams.
- It will encourage contractors to be objective and truthful and involved in decision processes. Contractor executives must not promise the moon when they know they cannot deliver it. They must be made accountable for failure to deliver on their promises defined in the contract.
- Jobs must not be made more important than the country’s defense.
- The democratic process must not be undermined by astute lobbying of Congress by military officers and contractor executives.
- True patriotism must transcend the lust for promotions by civilian and military personnel.
- Funds must not be misspent by the military to create a hollow military.
The monument will remind members of the military, government, and civilian contractors that they may not deal in mendacity, misinformation, and disinformation with impunity. At minimum, they will be remembered in perpetuity with their names emblazoned on tablets of stone.
But now, citizens, it is up to you. Make your opinions and voices heard. Legislators will do “the right”—once they see the power you have over their tenure in office.
It is up to you to turn this seeming disaster into a consummate achievement.
Colonel Riccioni retired in 1976, after more than 30 years with the Air Force. An experimental test pilot and fighter pilot, he created air battle doctrines and worked on the conception and design of a new fighter aircraft for the Air Force while on the Air Staff at the Pentagon and the Flight Dynamics Laboratory in Ohio. After a second career with Northrop as an analyst and fighter aircraft designer, he still occasionally acts as a consultant to the Air Force, Department of Defense, and Government Accounting Office.