Comments on: B-2 Suffers Fire in Crash

By: Vladislav

Vladislav — Sun, 04 May 2008 14:16:36 +0000

B-2
1. Crew was push at “red knob”, when understand that bomber was out they control and catapulted from plane.
2. Very intricate flight control not able to distantion fly in air. “Simulator” crushed.
B-1B When very new bird crushed will use more primitive plane and case — in full air and at base. As a child toy: if new toy is complicated for child use, you purshase new, more easyest.

By: Vladislav

Vladislav — Sun, 04 May 2008 13:38:09 +0000

1. This is part of chain of cases.
Second case is B1B damages.
2. These cases, I’m shure in it, was trying of distantion manage of battle mashines.
Both of these aicraft use computer-based systems of control system.
In first case crashed plane was destroyed, because noones wanted open true. US Federals — because this is end of they carriers, firms — because this fact is very dangerous for aircraft buisiness. In B-1B case, this motivation is too. Only in this case work more clearly.
Cases seems like Boeing-757 at 911, but I think that in this cases was amateurs. Not clear result — is my artifacts. This not profy.
Professionals will make bombing over Washington or nuclear impact at anyone points. Unfortunately it will. It will evil day. Bad day of all humans.
At this — may be russian computer systems geniuses (who invent principial new way of manage computer systems) was “pari” at 23Feb (Day of Soviet army we use as “man day”) and 8march (“woman day” in Russia): “Who better make it”? May be it girl and gay. B-2 and B-1 is very fine device for it. Big military birds.
In Russia we “very love” US after Serbia. We understand that we will like Serbia at 2017-2023years. These geniuses have respect for human life, in contrast to US and Russian goverments. You can seem — no one man not killed. Only real games. Homo ludens.
May be, in one day this homo sapiens sapiens safe us from Third World War. They can do it.

By: George Skinner

George Skinner — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 16:29:29 +0000

Conrad,
Would you feel better if there was a direct mechanical connection from your brain to your leg muscles instead of those unreliable neurons transmitting electrical signals? Perhaps you’d also be happier if you were a quadruped instead of relying on that inherently unstable bipedal locomotion.
Sorry about the sarcasm, but fly-by-wire technology solves a lot more problems than it introduces. Direct mechanical back-up hasn’t been used in decades. Most of the “mechanical” systems in the jet age have been hydraulically-boosted in any case — good luck managing stick forces otherwise! It’s also made a huge difference with aircraft stability & control. Take the flying wing design, for example: the original YB-49 had serious stability issues in the 1940s. The introduction of fly-by-wire solved those issues and made the flying wing a viable design. That enabled the B-2, which takes advantage of the inherent stealthiness and aerodynamic efficiency of the flying wing. Inherently unstable designs aren’t limited to military aircraft either — every airliner designed since the 1980s has used that approach to increase fuel efficiency.

By: Tom Wilson

Tom Wilson — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 14:29:13 +0000

Though that you may be interested in this report

By: Roy Smith

Roy Smith — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 02:25:53 +0000

It may be like wearing belts & suspenders at the same time,but stealth aircraft in concert with aircraft with electronic jamming capabilities,like what was used by Israel against Syrian anti-aircraft sites would be the best way to go.
I thought that they used F-117s against Iraq during “Iraqi Freedom?“
How hard would it be to replace the stealth skin or tiles on the F-117 with the skin or tiles used on the B-2,F-22,& F-35?
The powers that be really need to investigate this fire on the B-2,because if another one goes down in peace time(& safety records on the over all safety of B-2s be damned) then there will really be a lot of red flags going up.
I remember that they interviewed a retired AF officer “talking head” on Fox News last week about the B-2 crash,& he didn’t spit out glowing safety records of the B-2.No,quite the contrary,he talked about how all of our B-2 bombers most likely are not on active duty,but remain in storage(could those “stored” B-2s be used for cannibalizing parts for the active B-2s?).He talked about how losing this B-2 would hurt our capabilities.

By: Conrad The Crazed

Conrad The Crazed — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 00:56:30 +0000

Ahhh yes…the wonders of 100% fly by wire. I’ve never quite understood the concept of placing your very life in the hands of electric wires…with NO mechanical actuation system. At least the old but venerable F-15 has a mechanical flight control system which uses fly-by-wire technology as a backup. Yes, the instantaneous response to pilot input is nice, but the human body is limited in how aggressive the maneuver can be, so any overly zealous inputs have to be dampened anyway. Naturally, I imagine the B-2 is quite unflyable by hand, so my argument may be a non-starter. But why do we consider designs that are THAT unstable in the first place? By the way, the F-117 is very likely worthless now since the Bosnia shoot-down. Someone figured out how to track it, and if you notice…it has not been deployed in combat since. Stealth is a gamble without something to offset the eventual loss of that advantage…whether by accident or intent.

By: icchan

icchan — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 22:40:45 +0000

Considering the immense reliance on computer systems for stability in the B-2, a fire could easily have overheated or damaged the processors that handle the aircraft. It doesn’t need to be a direct-effect like a fire in a hydraulics bay or a broken part, it could simply be a PC overheat and fail. Yeah, I’d expect there to be redundancy, but if the multiple computers are stored in the same location to facilitate maintenance and minimize cutting holes in the stealthy airframe, then it’s possible one small fire in just the right place could crash multiple systems, and kill the aircraft’s stability.

By: SMSgt Mac

SMSgt Mac — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 01:18:43 +0000

What makes the control surface a rudder is not its location or shape but its function. The B-2 uses what is commonly called ‘drag rudders’– of the same basic method of operation as the first Northrop flying wings. While there were various approaches considered for the B-2, it was found that the original concept was best. The Northrop designer responsible for the original design, Irv Ashkenas, was contracted by NASA for an aeronautical report on the aerodynamics and control of the flying wing in the late 80’s and a kind of crappy copy can be found here:http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19890011628_1989011628.pdf — that will tell you all you will want to know about how the rudders (and most other controls) work.
Has anyone heard if the names of the pilots have been released yet?

By: Asterix

Asterix — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 00:46:44 +0000

Ok, I may be missing something obvious, but in the story photo I don’t, uh, see any rudder. Is this referring to the control surfaces at the outer rear edge of the wing?

By: Logan

Logan — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 22:24:30 +0000

I’m interested to see what the cause turns out to be.. I always figured that the maintnance on the stealths must be borderline religious.