Most Expensive Crash Ever?
 

Talk about some expensive pilot error...these guys won't be flying anything ever again...

Depends what caused the crash in the first place. Was it pilot error or electronic futz-up?

They haven't said yet, but I don't see how the USAF is going to let anyone lose a $1.2 billion aircraft twice.

Did the same pilots lose two planes? In that case, maybe they will be relegated :huh:

I guess their insurance rates are going up next month:dead:

Just hope it's an electronic failure, at least for the pilots sakes. But being so close to the airstrip when it happened? Well, even if they did stuff up, main thing is their alive.

Huh? :-? From the reports that I have read this is the first time a B2 has been crashed and lost.

Perhaps I should have phrased that differently...I don't see how the USAF is going to allow these pilots to be in a position where they could crash a second B-2.

I wish that they would release which B-2 it was (they all have names). I was fortunate enough to witness the flight of the Spirit of Pennsylvania when they named it at Willow Grove, PA back in 1997. It flew only a couple hundred feet overhead and did a barrel roll right over my head. Probably the most impressive thing I've ever seen.

Ok, much clearer now. :up:

Now you are just showing off. :lol: Right now I envy you. Wish I could see and photo one over here in the UK.

Kinda defeats the "steath" part ya think? :smug:

If it wasn't pilot error and a technical glitch I can see no reason for putting the crew back on flight status and in another B-2.

I've seen one too, but it was a thousand feet or so in the air. Was over the UK too which I found really surprising. I wasn't mistaken either, close inspection with a pair of bino's confirmed it was a B-2! I was really really surprised.

How about start developing new generation bombers that don't cost 1.2 billion dollars each ? The problem of having such costly bombers is twofold : first your fleet is very very little (I don't think 30 B-2 even exist) and second each unit you loose impacts financially and operationally on your fleet.
It has no economic nor rationale sense.
Tell me one thing that a B-2 can do that isn't possibile with a B-52 ?
Using a B-2 is like using the shuttle for putting a satellite into leo. Completely useless when their is alternative tecnology or existing tecnology that does the same thing for a fraction of the cost.

Last October I was walking home on an overcast day, heard an aircraft, and looked up. A B-2, banking lightly, skimmed out of the cloud cover for about three seconds, then slid back in. I'd say it was only a few thousand feet up.
I looked around the street, nobody else seemd to have noticed. Took me a while to realise it had actually happened :)

There were 21, now 20.

Penetrate enemy airspace, drop bombs and leave all undetected.