The B-1 Lancer: An Odyssey of Tenacity and Transformation in American Airpower

Uncover the epic saga of the B-1 Lancer, a bomber that's weathered the storm of politics and emerged as a linchpin in America's aerial might. In our latest podcast episode, we trace the Bone's journey from its Cold War roots, designed to outmaneuver anti-aircraft defenses, to its current status as a formidable force in modern combat. As you join us, expect to grasp the sheer resilience of an aircraft that's been both axed and exalted, navigating through the advancements and setbacks that have secured its place in the annals of aviation history.

We're not just talking about an ordinary war machine; the B-1 Lancer is a tale of transformation and tenacity. This episode peels back the layers of the Bone's multifaceted role in today's battlefields, from its relentless daily missions to its unexpected versatility in maritime operations. Get ready to explore the potential future of this supersonic legend, as we speculate on the B1R model and consider the strategic implications of its extended service life. The B-1 Lancer is a story of survival, and you're invited to witness how this aircraft continues to shape the strategic landscape, ensuring that America maintains its edge in the skies.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

You're listening to the Pilot Photog podcast, where every airplane has a story. Imagine a machine that combines the speed of a supersonic hustler with the devastating punch of the heavyweight buff. A marvel of military engineering that skirts the edge of legend and reality. An airplane that's like the F-14 Tomcat's big brother they never warned you about. Welcome to the world of the B-1 Lancer, affectionately known as the Bone. This isn't just the story of any bomber. It's a tale of resilience, a blend of power and speed that has defied the odds, outperforming the legendary B-52 in bomb load. The Bone strikes fear into the hearts of its adversaries, so much so that it has specifically been restrained by international treaties. But here's the twist it was canceled not once but twice, and yet it's soared back stronger than ever, while obtaining over 60 world records. Today we're diving into the secrets of this iconic aircraft, the last of the American swing wings. From its troubled origins to its crucial role in modern conflicts, the B-1 Lancer's story is more than just metal and machinery. So fasten your seatbelts, hit that subscribe button and join me on a high-octane journey to uncover why the Bone is an indispensable Titan of the Skies, is stealthier than you think and is needed now more than ever Today, america uses three types of bombers, each with a different primary mission the stealthy B-2 Spirit, the venerable B-52 Stratofortress and, of course, the fast B-1 Lancer.

Speaker 1: 2:01

When you need to strike a target with total surprise, you send in the B-2. When you want an overhead presence that can strike at any time, you send in the B-52. So when does the B-1 come into play? Well, when you need a rapid low-level delivery, flying under the radar, you send in the Bone. To really understand where the B-1 fits in today, you have to go back to its origins.

Speaker 1: 2:27

By the late 1950s, new anti-aircraft missiles made flying at high altitudes a risk for bombers. This was proven beyond a doubt when Gary Power's U-2 plane was infamously shot down in 1960. As a result, the US Air Force started flying its bombers lower to hide from radar, using hills and valleys in a tactic known as terrain masking. Low-flying bombers are harder to detect because the radar would get confused with ground objects and couldn't see below a certain angle. This made anti-aircraft missiles less effective against low-flying aircraft. Case in point the B-58 Hustler was designed for high-speed flying, yet it wasn't good at low levels. After just under 10 years in service, the B-58 program was cancelled.

Speaker 1: 3:15

Meanwhile, the B-52 bomber, though originally not made for low-flying, could perform the task, but it was not really suited for it. Because of this, new designs called penetrators were developed for long, low-level flights. The F-111 fighter bomber was the first true penetrator aircraft and, as a result, the Air Force wanted a bomber that could combine the Mach 2 speeds of the B-58 Hustler with the range and payload of the B-52. This new bomber would eventually replace both the B-58 and B-52, or so the Air Force thought. These requirements led to the Advanced man Strategic Aircraft, or AMSA project, which was about making a new bomber that could perform similarly to the F-111.

Speaker 1: 4:01

As the AMSA project timeline wore on and on, the joke was that AMSA actually stood for America's most studied aircraft. However, some people questioned if a new bomber was even needed, since long range ICBMs and submarine launch missiles were seen as better for defense. Defense Secretary at the time, robert McNamara, preferred ICBMs and limited the bomber program to just studies and developing parts. These bomber studies went on, focusing on advanced technology, but McNamara didn't want a new bomber, preferring to improve the B-52s and use F-111s for shorter missions. The AMSA project looked like it was in jeopardy. As with many defense projects, there were those who favored keeping it alive and those who wanted it canceled. We would see this later again. In its development. In what would become the B-1 bomber, its fate became divided, almost solely on political party lines. Republicans were for the new bomber while Democrats were against it. While the AMSA project was essentially canceled in the late 1960s, richard Nixon bought it back after he became president.

Speaker 1: 5:16

By April of 1969, the program officially became known as the B-1A. Proposals by General Dynamics, boeing and Rockwell were submitted in January of 1970, with Rockwell winning the contract in June of that year. The initial design of the B-1A was incredible. The airplane featured an escape capsule in case the pilots had to eject at high speeds, with swing wings that could sweep out for takeoffs and landings, then sweep back for high-speed flight. Interestingly, with its wings fully swept out, the B-1 could land in airfields that the B-52 couldn't. When it came to speed, the B1A was fast reaching Mach 2 plus at high altitudes and even Mach 1.2 at low altitude.

Speaker 1: 6:06

However, the problem for the bone was cost. In 1970, a single B1 was $40 million, but with the runaway inflation of that era, that cost jumped up to $70 million in 1975. As a result, rockwell began finding ways to lower the cost of the bomber. So ejection seats were used instead of the escape capsule and the low-level speed requirement was decreased to Mach 0.85, which allowed for less use of titanium in the wings and fuselage, keeping costs down. More on that in a minute. Despite these efforts by Rockwell to scale back costs, by the time Jimmy Carter took office in 1977, the estimated cost of each bomber had risen to $100 million, which was a huge amount of money for the time.

Speaker 1: 6:57

And there were several competing projects. First, president Carter was made aware of a top-secret stealth bomber which was under development, known as the Advanced Technology Bomber or ATV. This would eventually become the B2 Spirit. Secondly, pentagon officials stated that the new AGM-68 Air Launch Cruise Missile, or ALCM, could be launched at safe distances from a B-52 and penetrate Soviet air defenses. Based on this, president Carter announced in June of 1977 that the B1 was cancelled in favor of submarine land-based nuclear missiles and a modernization program for the B-52. In an interesting twist of fate, the ATB program that produced the B2, which was a deciding factor in the cancellation of the B1, actually helped bring the B1 back to life.

Speaker 1: 7:49

As we'll soon see Publicly, carter's cancellation of the project was split among partisan lines. Republicans were for keeping the B1 program, while Democrats were against it. During his 1980 presidential campaign, ronald Reagan strongly argued that Carter was not doing enough for defense, often pointing to the cancellation of the B1 program as a prime example. Upon being elected to office, reagan had to decide if the ATB stealth bomber would be ready in time or if the B1 program should be resurrected as a stop-gap. With the ATB bomber taking longer than expected, the decision was made In January of 1982, the Air Force gave Rockwell two contracts totaling $2.2 billion to develop and build 100 B1 bombers.

Speaker 1: 8:42

The design was updated for the missions they now expected, creating the B1B. These updates included slowing down the maximum speed to improve stealth. This allowed for the use of simpler, fixed geometry intake ramps instead of the variable ones. Along with changes to the air intakes, the Lancer also makes use of serpentine or S-shaped ducts to hide the engine fan blades from enemy radar emissions. And, although not technically a stealth aircraft, the B1 has a radar cross-section that is about 1.50th of a B52. These and other changes made the B1B slightly less visible on radar, a worthwhile trade-off for the slower speed.

Speaker 1: 9:24

As air defenses were becoming more sophisticated, the new focus was all about higher subsonic speeds at low altitudes, which produced an increase from about Mach 0.85 to 0.92 on the deck. The B1B's top speed is around Mach 1.2 at higher altitudes. Although at the time there were still critics of the B1B, the main arguments in its favor were the ability to carry nuclear and conventional bombs and the takeoff performance that allowed it to operate from a much wider variety of airfields as compared to the B52. The first production B1B rolled off the assembly line in 1984, and the one-hundredth Lancer was delivered in 1988.

Speaker 1: 10:10

In looking at the B1, you may have noticed some small canard-like wings or veins near the nose of the bomber. These are part of an anti-dampening system known as Structural Mode Control System, or SMCS. This combined system helps smooth out what would otherwise be a very bumpy low-altitude ride while protecting the structure of the aircraft. When it comes to the engines, the Lancer packs a punch. The bone is powered by four afterburning GE F-101 engines each putting out more than 30,000 pounds of thrust. With afterburner, that's 120,000 pounds of freedom. Imagine the sound of this thing on takeoff. The powerful F-101 engine would go on to be developed into the GE F-110 engine, which was used on the Super Tomcat and the F-16 Fighting Falcon, aka the Viper.

Speaker 1: 11:07

It's hard to understate how fast the B1 is for a bomber. As we mentioned earlier, the Lancer holds over 60 world records in the form of speed, payload, distance and time to climb. One of the more memorable records was set in 1993, when three B1Bs set a long distance record, showcasing its ability to perform strikes anywhere in the world without any stop. However, what's a bomber without bombs? We've hinted earlier at the bone's massive bomb load, which is greater than the B-52. It turns out that the B1 can carry 75,000 pounds of bombs inside not one, not two, but three internal bomb bays. On top of this, the Lancer has six external hardpoints which can carry a total of 50,000 pounds of ordnance. It's a lot of firepower hanging on the outside. These external hardpoints give the B1 flexibility in carrying oversized weapons that may not fit inside the internal bomb bays. And the amount of weapon options the Lancer can take are staggering Everything from long range anti-ship missiles to conventional free fall bombs, cluster bombs and, of course, precision guided bombs. The B1 also uses rotary mounted launchers to dispense JDAMs, giving new meaning to the phrase reach out and touch someone. Speaking of precision guided weapons, the Lancer can make use of Lockheed's Sniper XRPOD, which allows the B1 to use multiple sensor formats to positively self-identify targets before prosecuting them.

Speaker 1: 12:47

External weapons, initially an add-on for the B1 program, may have been what actually has kept the bomber in service. The idea of a supersonic capable low-flying strategic bomber gave the Russians nightmares during the Cold War. In fact, the B1 was so feared that it was specifically called out in a nuclear arms treaty and had to be reconfigured as to not allow it to carry nuclear weapons. These modifications included adjustments to the hardpoints to prevent nuclear weapon pylons from being attached, the removal of weapons bay wiring bundles that could arm nuclear weapons and the destruction of nuclear weapons pylons. These conversions were completed in 2011, and Russian officials inspect the bombers every year to verify compliance.

Speaker 1: 13:36

Officially, the B-1 first saw combat not in 1991's Desert Storm, but in the 1998 Desert Fox campaign, where it dropped mostly unguided general purpose weapons. Since then, b-1s have seen action in the Kosovo Allied Force campaign, the Operation Enduring Freedom campaign in Afghanistan and in the 2003 Second Gulf War. During these conflicts, the B-1 dropped both conventional and precision-guided bombs more than sharing the load of all ordnance dropped. For example, in the first six months of Operation Enduring Freedom, eight B-1s were responsible for dropping almost 40% of the bombs used by coalition air forces. This included about 3,900 JDAMs, making up 60% of the total dropped During Operation Iraqi Freedom. The B-1 played a significant role, despite flying less than 1% of the combat missions, as it delivered 43% of the JDAMs used. That works out to about 480 JDAMs dropped per lancer.

Speaker 1: 14:44

In 2012, the 9th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron returned from a six-month tour in Afghanistan. The squadron's 9 B-1s flew 770 sorties, making it the most of any B-1 squadron on a single deployment. During this time, the squadron spent 9,500 hours airborne and always kept at least one of its bombers in the air at all times. In doing this, the 9th accounted for a quarter of all combat aircraft sorties over Afghanistan, while fulfilling an average of 2-3 air support requests per day. And while we all love the A-10 swooping in and supporting troops on the ground, sometimes we forget that the B-1 has saved the lives of many an allied soldier, possibly even some viewers of this video. B-1s also participated in operations against ISIS in Syria as part of Operation Inherent Resolve, during which, on 31 separate occasions, the bombers went Winchester, meaning they dropped all their payload.

Speaker 1: 15:50

Today, the B-1 remains active, continuing to fly missions daily in ongoing operations. With its high speed and long range, the B-1 has evolved into a quasi-self bomber that is effective in conventional warfare against ground targets. Interestingly, the B-1 is seen as a useful asset for maritime duties, such as patrolling shipping lanes, a feature that could come in very handy in the Pacific Theater of Operations. Currently, there are plans to upgrade the BONE to keep the aircraft viable, with some estimates showing it being in service until 2038. And, as you have now heard, the B-21 Raider is in development and already flying.

Speaker 1: 16:33

However, if there are delays in the Raider program, then history could repeat itself. After all, the BONE was green-lit because the B-2 Spirit was taking longer than anticipated. In a similar way, what if the B-21 takes longer and the Lancer gets an extension on its operational life? In many ways, it would be a fitting addition to the story of the twice-canceled, misunderstood and feared bomber that is the BONE One. Last thing the Air Force had proposed an updated version of the BONE, one that would have slightly less range but more speed. It was referred to as the B1R, with R standing for Regional. The B1 Lancer Fear the Bone. Now you know this podcast and the YouTube channel as well. I will leave links in the description. Slash show notes below. Now, you know.