[MilCom] B-2 Bomber Crashes on Guam; Pilots Safe

[Jack L. Metcalfe]

At 01:21 AM 2/23/2008, you wrote:
>http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,332038,00.html
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I'm glad the pilots are safe, but I hope this opens debate again 
about the wisdom of putting an incredible amount of money into 
relatively few airframes.  We've just lost almost 5 percent of the 
total B-2 force & the loss didn't occur during combat.  Also, if the 
article I recently read was correct, only 5 - 7 B-2s are available at 
any one time for combat operations, so the loss could very well be 
called as high as 14-20%!  In comparison, the total number of F-15 
A-E models in the USAF inventory is listed as 522 (or 665 if you look 
at another reference).  Taking the lower number, today's B-2 loss 
would be equivalent to the loss of 25 F-15s in a single day.
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Jack L. Metcalfe
Stanford, KY
jlmetcalfe at hughes.net
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