05-09-2013, 21:27
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חבר מתאריך: 13.11.04
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The Stealth Bomber Elite
כתבה חדשה מבטאון חהא"א מספטמבר 2013. את האשכול הייעודי לכתבות מבטאון חהא"א, כאן , אקדיש לכתבות היסטוריות מגליונות ישנים יותר, כפי שהיה עד כה.
http://www.airspacemag.com/military...-220257381.html
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Today, the fleet has served in four wars: Kosovo (1999), Afghanistan (2001), Iraq (2003), and Libya (2011). After 20 years of service—the Air Force is planning a celebration at Whiteman in late September—the B-2 is a different bomber than the ones pilots flew on their first training missions.
“The Blue Line is a key part of stealth tactics, and tactics are just as vital as the airplane’s design and the secret materials that reduce its radar cross-section. Uniquely crafted for each mission, the Blue Line stitches the assigned targets onto a flight path calculated to avoid the most dangerous enemy defenses. Pico, a pilot who flew in both Iraq and Kosovo, says that surviving a mission depends on intense planning before takeoff.
Flying to Iraq and back takes 38 hours, requiring at least four fill-ups by KC-135 or KC-10 tankers. When the airplane is at its ideal cruising altitude, refuelings take place about every six hours.
“Asked to compare flying F-16s to the B-2, Pita says the F-16 is more physically demanding, but B-2 combat missions leave the pilots exhausted: “There’s so much going on. The biggest challenge comes when you have to deviate from the plan. We build that into the training so when the shit hits the fan, [new pilots] can cope. So it’s not the first time they’ve seen something like that. But [during training], the worst impact was just me yelling at them.”
After Kosovo, the Air Force fitted a laptop to each B-2 to provide an interface more like email, but that wasn’t the perfect solution either. He describes a mission in which he had closed his laptop before going into the combat zone, then heard from another B-2 crew nearby that he should refresh his messages because a late-breaking update on the target list had just come over the network. “If I hadn’t checked, we would have dropped just three bombs out of 16; the message added four more.”
Part of the B-2’s mission is mapping the state of the enemy’s air defense system by getting the enemy to turn on radars and missile batteries, especially on Night One
In all, a B-2 mechanic’s bookshelf holds more than 1,000 Technical Orders; according to Hodge, a typical job requires pulling out 10 books, whose cross-referenced directions must be followed exactly.
For example, the airplane usually finds its way into articles that speculate what the United States might do about nuclear centrifuges buried deep at Fordow, Iran, since it’s the only stealthy aircraft that can carry the 15-ton Massive Ordnance Penetrator, a precision-guided, 30,000-pound “bunker buster” bomb.
““I’m perfectly comfortable in executing missions anywhere in the world,” says Bussiere. Neither Iran’s shootdown of a stealth RQ-170 drone in December 2011 nor talk of late-model Russian anti-aircraft systems in the Middle East have raised concerns among the pilots. Ironically, all major damage so far has originated from unexpected side effects of the program’s own stealth measures: one bomber lost in 2008 due to a crash on takeoff in Guam (when tropical moisture got into a sensor used to calibrate airspeed and altitude), and one nearly lost to an engine fire in 2010 (when fire crews were unable to put foam on the B-2’s buried-in-the-wings engines). The latest casualty is still undergoing repairs, leaving the fleet size at 20.
“Though the B-2 can haul 80 quarter-ton bombs (or a smaller number of heavier bombs), that big a load hasn’t yet been tried in wartime, even in the most recent engagement: three B-2s attacking Libyan airfields on March 19, 2011. (The trio destroyed a series of hardened aircraft shelters near Sirte, a strike that almost completely wiped out Muammar Gaddafi’s air forces.) Along with more advanced situational awareness tools on board, the extra capability such a load would offer might overtax pilots and mission planners. |
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