with cameras rolling and hundreds of personnel” attending to every detail. He likened the first operational sortie, carried out less than a week after the first B-2 arrived at Whiteman, to “a shuttle launch. The General was told that the B-2s would likely fly “maybe once or twice a quarter” in the initial phase of deployment, given USAF’s experience with other large, complex flying machines and considering the many unproven technologies rolled up in the new bomber. The months before the B-2 arrived were spent trying to figure out how to bring it to operational status “in a fashion that you don’t make mistakes that could, basically, end it all,” General Marcotte said. The unit flyaway cost of each bomber is a breath-catching $600 million, and in addition “there are all the people and the facilities put into it.”Īir Force officials knew that critics of the B-2 would be watching keenly for any error that would suggest the new bomber was unreliable, a technological failure, or unsafe. “You don’t have to think very hard to realize this is a lot of national treasure we’re talking about,” General Marcotte said. Though the B-2 had been wrung out in flight test, its novel technologies might still provide some unpleasant surprises in initial service. The experts, noting that the B-2 is still considered to be in development, cautioned him not to try to do too much too fast, the General said. When General Marcotte was organizing the unit for the B-2’s arrival, he asked those experienced with bringing new airplanes on-line what he could expect. The “steps” mark the location of the B-2 on a continuum of crawl, walk, run–a strategy the people of the 509th scrupulously follow. Marcotte, commander of the 509th Bomb Wing and the man who has shepherded the B-2 program at Whiteman since before the first stealth bomber arrived in December 1993. “We’re taking some pretty big steps right now,” reported Brig. They are quickly filling in the gaps of knowledge about the true capabilities of this aircraft, a huge wing with windows and wheels, crammed with dozens of new technologies. The hundreds of Air Force people who fly, maintain, and support the B-2s at Whiteman AFB, Mo., are “writing the book” on the new bomber, and it is now clear that they have raced a few chapters ahead of schedule. It’s almost routine, but no one expected it to be that way–not at this point.
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