The Air Force investigated the first crash of a costly B-2 stealth bomber after one plunged to the ground Saturday shortly after beginning the last flight of a four-month deployment.
Both pilots ejected safely, though one was being transferred to Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu to be treated for spinal compression.
Four of the bombers were taking off at the end of deployment to Andersen Air Force Base, officials said. At least one had taken off safely but was brought back after the crash…
Each costs about $1.2 billion to build. The three that did not crash are being kept on Guam.
At least the pilots are OK. I guess taxpayers could send in their rebate checks to buy a replacement.
There is no replacement cost, because the production lines are now gone. They can’t replace it with a new one.
The “Scratch 1.2 Billion” is also a bad title for the post, because any object is only worth what the market will pay for it. Since there would be no buyers for a used B2 bomber, it is not worth anything in terms of real dollars… you can not resell it… the money was ‘scratched’ when it was bought.
#31 – If I had Bill Gates type money I’d buy one just to have it. Talk about cool.
#32–I’d rather have a Catalina Flying Boat all tricked out. That would be way more cool.
Surpised nobody’s gone here yet:
Wiki says B-2 empty weight is 158K lbs. (2.5M ounces). Gold is around $945 per oz. A golden B-2 would be $2.4B today (some assembly required). As recently at Jan 2006, when gold was at $475, you could say the B-2 was worth its weight in gold.
As important as the price of its technology (bleeding edge at the time and still significant) was the price inflation due to production cuts. That’s got to inflate all costs associated at the “per” level, from per unit to per spare part to per trained aircrew, etc.
The thing about deterrence is you never really knwo what you’ve deterred. They tell the strategic submarine forces that one shot fired in anger means the entire 50-year program has been for naught. Care to imagine what the US has spent on the sub-launched part of the nuclear triad?
Lastly, in low-threat environments, you probably don’t want to use your best stuff (F-22 and especially B-2). There will always losses to the “golden BB”, and no matter how slick an aircraft is, someone will get ahold of one sooner or later (F-117 for instance). If B-52s can orbit close enough to Baghdad to bring JDAMs to bear, there’s really no reason to risk one of your twenty one, I mean twenty, B-2s.
#3 JVP
You my friend are a Jackass. Why don’t you do us all a favor and kill yourself.
That’s what the Air Farce get for going with WinBlozs for Warplanes – a BSOD Crash and Burn !!! I don’t think we will ever know why this happened …
1.2 Billion? 20 years worth of depreciation should have depressed that figure a bit.
1.2B is a lot, But if one plane can replace 5 or 6 300M dollar planes, plus their maintenance, fuel, support personnel, and 5-10 man crews, the price doesn’t seem so bad.
Hey come on guys! 1.2B dollars is nothing! Jeese, all of you sound like a bunch of old ladies whineing about the price of a potato.
If China can drop 1.3B dollars on a magnetic levitation train in Shanghai that goes nowhere and is completely useless surely the US can shake the tin to buy another B2 that at least does something useful!
Cheers
What does the B2 cost for what it does? How many Americans are dead because of it? How many of the “enemy” are dead because of it? How much is an American worth? How much is your son or daughter worth?
We pay taxes to build incredible killing machines so somebody else can’t kill us first. A lot of Americans with living children seem to have forgotten that. Our Grandparents knew that and that’s why they didn’t want to get into WWI and WWII. We jumped right in to Iraq because of our arrogance, even with Vietnam as recent memory. I swear our generation must have the worst memory in American history. Further more, we deserve to get kicked in the teeth for being so stupid. Unfortunately Americans who were only small children when I got married, are now dieing or be crippled for our vanity.
You can not kill cleanly. It is a fantasy. War has always be hideous with no description. If we are not willing to do to foreigners what Sherman did to the South in the American Civil War, we should not fight.
The Ronald Reagan Legacy strikes again, a worthless group of 15 B-2 bombers costing the taxpayer billions.
The Russians already know how to shoot down stealth technology so they never were too worried about it. Missiles are always cheaper than bombers.
The government does use microsoft. I think they should have upgraded to the latest servi ce pack. Or at least reinstall the os every other day.
Microsoft “What do you want to crsh today”
Something that has not been brought up in that economic question, and saying that this is all a “waste” of 1.2 billion… well where heck did all that money go?? It did not go down a hole, it did not evaporate into nothing… No it went somewhere and keeps doing things to this day. It is so easy to just put a dollar value on it and not see the human impact beyond the plane and the crash. First it went to a company, actually it went to many many companies, and each company it had “real people” working at them, all in all there were multitudes and multitudes of them. They all worked and worked and designed, and built, and tested, put it all those ideas and materials together with such a tremendous effort very complex thing and was able to make that plane fly and do the special kind of magic that it does…
Each and every one of those “real people”, each were compensated for all of their work… given a salary with some part of that 1.2billion. Some were smart and brainy ones and sometimes they got a bigger salary, and others good with tools and building stuff, they did pretty well too, others handled and took care of those people, and swept the floors, and keep the place safe, and kept them productive… they too got their money too… and they all got their piece of that 1.2 billion…. and all of those “real people” had “real people” families to that shared in that salary… they got fed, and the bills paid, and a roof over their heads… and money to buy things like health care and braces and buy other things that made them happy and enriched their lives like buying music, or TV, or games or cars, or what ever… that keep yet more people employed through… yes you guessed it “trickle down” through goods and services to almost every segment of the economy…
So that money is still here, and helped to simulate the economy….
as always… it is Guns or Butter.
#42
> The Russians already know how
> to shoot down stealth technology
> so they never were too worried about it.
Really. And you have proof of this of course. At the time it was built, the Soviets had nothing that could track it and it is possible that they still do not. The Ronald Reagan legacy is that you now refer to them only as Russians instead of Soviets.
look you assholes im in the military and im stationed in guam that crash really happend and peoples lives are at stake i cant believe you you would reag on the people who watch over the country every day.
Just think, the upgrades will be running vista…Cripes
#4 Pierre
Your third world figure of raising a child for $360 a year means you could feed 3 children for a bit over a $1000. Surely you’ve done your share and sent your money in. When those B2s are needed to save those kids from genocide, will it be worth the cost?
The cost of a B2. It is rediculous to say tht aB cost 1.2 billion dollars. Consder these facts.
Manufacturing techniqes were developed to build the thing that are now being used to manufacture buses and commuter train cars.
The giant autoclaves that were used to bake the 3 very large pieces had to be built for this plane.
This dosn’t even come close to all the technologies that were deveped to build the plane, everything from radio antenna development to fuel moveing systems. Al these things have gone on to the private sector and are in our day to day lives.
The only reason you can say the plane cost that much is that we didnt build more, if we had, the cost per plane would have decreased.
So congress’ cost saving measure of repeatedly scaling back the B2 program acutally made it seem more expensive.
The crash was coused by water in the system. And you better be happy that we still have 21 more bc they have saved everyone’s ass. why in the hell would you want all 4 of them to crash?