Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!psuvax1!rutgers!att!cbnews!military
From: chenj@cmcl2.NYU.EDU (James Chen)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: B1-B accidents
Message-ID: <10019@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 9 Oct 89 04:22:31 GMT
Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM
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From: chenj@cmcl2.NYU.EDU (James Chen)

I caught the tail end of a radio news tibbit on another accident
involving a B1-B bomber recently, i.e. within the last week.
Has anyone else hear it? I ask because I never heard about it
again either in the papers or on TV.  It seems from my faulty
memory that there's been a large number of accidents with the
B1-B's, e.g. birds sucked into the intakes, tanks ruptures by
the swept wings, etc.  Does anyone know how many and if this is
unusual for a relatively new plane?

[mod.note: The press I heard last week said that the B1B was on a
training flight, and was preparing to land when the nose wheel
refused to lower.  The plane was sent to the shuttle runway at
Edwards AFB, refueling in-flight during the trip, where it
was landed on the two rear wheels (which properly locked), and then
nosed down.  Damage was said to be "minor", whatever that means, and
there were no injuries reported.  - Bill ]


I read in Insight that the M16 rifle & M-1 Abrams tank got a
lot of bad press early in their development.  They have, however,
turned out to be excellent weapons and the early fears unfounded.
Perhaps, one could attribute the initial press to the media's
tendency to sensationalize.  If so, then should one attribute
the current problems of the B1-B's to the media or is this a
bad plane?

	-Jimmy Chen (chenj@cmcl2.nyu.edu)