Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uflorida!ukma!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!att!cbnews!nak@cbnews.ATT.COM
From: nak@cbnews.ATT.COM (Neil A. Kirby)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: B1A vs. B1B
Message-ID: <6254@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 5 May 89 00:34:47 GMT
References: <6185@cbnews.ATT.COM>
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From: nak@cbnews.ATT.COM (Neil A. Kirby)
In article <6185@cbnews.ATT.COM> punch@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (William F Punch) writes:
>
>
>From: William F Punch <punch@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu>
>
>My question is how big a difference is there between the A and B? I
>know the A was supersonic and the B subsonic, but how about payload,
>range etc. What were the technical reasons for changing the B to
>subsonic (or was it all just political/money)? Does the B1 program
>suffer a lot from getting only B's instead of the original A's.

	One of the BIG differences is radar cross section.  The B1-A had a
    huge radar cross section.  My electromagnetics prof did work on the RCS
    measurements for the two birds.  I'm not sure what they did to reduce
    the RCS, he wouldn't say.  Funny, this work happened about the same
    time that Carter announced Stealth...

	Is the B1-B subsonic?  

    Neil Kirby
    ...cbsck!nak