April 17,
2008: The U.S. Air Force is having a hard time keeping its 67 B-1B bombers
ready for action. The availability rate (aircraft you can send into action) is
about 51 percent. Five years ago it was 56 percent. The B-1Bs are used to drop
smart bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan. They are particularly popular in
Afghanistan, because you can put one in the air, and it can cover the entire
country. While the B-1B is twice as expensive to operate (per hour in the air) than
the B-52, the B-1B can more quickly move to a new target over Afghanistan. Last month, B-1Bs flew 84 combat sorties.
However, most of the time B-1Bs spend in the air (about 31 hours a month per
aircraft) is for training. Combat sorties average about 11 hours, while
training sorties tend to be shorter.
B-52s are
not only cheaper to maintain, they have a higher availability rate (65
percent.) As a result, the air force wants to keep 76 B-52s in service (despite
a Congressional mandate to reduce that number to 56.) With the development of
GPS guided bombs (JDAM), heavy bombers have become the most cost-effective way
to deliver support to ground forces. The B-52 is the cheapest American heavy
bomber to operate.
In the
last fifty years, the air force has developed six heavy bombers (the 240 ton
B-52 in 1955, the 74 ton B-58 in 1960, the 47 ton FB-111 in 1969, the 260 ton
B-70 in the 1960s, the 236 ton B-1 in
1985, and the 181 ton B-2 in 1992.) All of these were developed primarily to
deliver nuclear weapons (bombs or missiles), but have proved more useful
dropping non-nuclear bombs. Only the B-70 was cancelled before being deployed.
The well
maintained B-52s are quite sturdy and have, on average, only 16,000 flying
hours on them. The air force estimates that the B-52s won't become
un-maintainable until they reach 28,000 flight hours. The B-1 and B-2 were
meant to provide a high tech replacement for the B-52, but the end of the Cold
War made that impractical. The kinds of anti-aircraft threats the B-1 and B-2
were designed to deal with never materialized. This left the B-52 as the most
cost effective way to deliver bombs. The B-1s and B-2s are getting some of the
same weapons carrying and communications upgrades as the B-52, if only because
these more modern aircraft provide an expensive backup for the B-52.
The B-1B
and B-2 are more expensive to operate because they haul around a lot of gear
that is not needed for the current counter-terror operations. The B-1B can
travel at high speed and very low altitude, to evade enemy air defenses. The
B-2 is very difficult to detect on radar, but this ability is achieved with
some expensive to maintain design features. Back in the 1950s, when the B-52
was designed, air warfare was a lot simpler, and so was the BUFF (Big, Ugly,
Fat Fella, as the B-52 has long been known.) There are still potential enemies
out there with Cold War grade air defenses, and the B-1s and B-2s are
maintained to deal with that eventuality.
