chenj@cmcl2.NYU.EDU (James Chen) (10/09/89)
From: chenj@cmcl2.NYU.EDU (James Chen) I caught the tail end of a radio news tibbit on another accident involving a B1-B bomber recently, i.e. within the last week. Has anyone else hear it? I ask because I never heard about it again either in the papers or on TV. It seems from my faulty memory that there's been a large number of accidents with the B1-B's, e.g. birds sucked into the intakes, tanks ruptures by the swept wings, etc. Does anyone know how many and if this is unusual for a relatively new plane? [mod.note: The press I heard last week said that the B1B was on a training flight, and was preparing to land when the nose wheel refused to lower. The plane was sent to the shuttle runway at Edwards AFB, refueling in-flight during the trip, where it was landed on the two rear wheels (which properly locked), and then nosed down. Damage was said to be "minor", whatever that means, and there were no injuries reported. - Bill ] I read in Insight that the M16 rifle & M-1 Abrams tank got a lot of bad press early in their development. They have, however, turned out to be excellent weapons and the early fears unfounded. Perhaps, one could attribute the initial press to the media's tendency to sensationalize. If so, then should one attribute the current problems of the B1-B's to the media or is this a bad plane? -Jimmy Chen (chenj@cmcl2.nyu.edu)
rdd@cs.utexas.edu (Robert Dorsett) (10/11/89)
From: ut-emx!walt.cc.utexas.edu!rdd@cs.utexas.edu (Robert Dorsett) In article <10019@cbnews.ATT.COM> chenj@cmcl2.NYU.EDU (James Chen) writes: > > >From: chenj@cmcl2.NYU.EDU (James Chen) >Has anyone else hear it? I ask because I never heard about it >again either in the papers or on TV. It seems from my faulty >memory that there's been a large number of accidents with the >B1-B's, e.g. birds sucked into the intakes, tanks ruptures by >the swept wings, etc. Does anyone know how many and if this is >unusual for a relatively new plane? The bird intake problem is endemic for all aircraft. The frequency of the B-1 hits suggests the B-1 is being flown at low altitudes. Airplanes--any airplane--can be destroyed by flying into birds. On airliners, disintegrated engines, radomes, broken windshields, etc. are all fairly common. The solution would be to conduct training missions at a higher altitude (need to get up to > ~5000 MSL to miss most birds). Considering that we only have 97 B-1's left, it might be a good idea. The punctured tank problem, on the other hand, stinks of bad design. 'Course, to get out of bad design, manufacturers often simply place the onus of respon- sibility on the *operator*--the pilot. So as long as they cover themselves on paper, they can point fingers at operator error (which is how least one tank- puncture incident ended up). >I read in Insight that the M16 rifle & M-1 Abrams tank got a >lot of bad press early in their development. They have, however, >turned out to be excellent weapons Actually, I think it might be pointed out that the M-16 was replaced by special- ty weapons in many of its problem areas. Can anyone substantiate this?
shafer@drynix (Mary Shafer) (10/11/89)
From: Mary Shafer <shafer@drynix> James Chen (chenj@cmcl2.NYU.EDU) wrote: >I caught the tail end of a radio news tibbit on another accident >involving a B1-B bomber recently, i.e. within the last week. >Has anyone else hear it? I ask because I never heard about it >again either in the papers or on TV. It seems from my faulty >memory that there's been a large number of accidents with the >B1-B's, e.g. birds sucked into the intakes, tanks ruptures by >the swept wings, etc. Does anyone know how many and if this is >unusual for a relatively new plane? And our moderator added: >[mod.note: The press I heard last week said that the B1B was on a >training flight, and was preparing to land when the nose wheel >refused to lower. The plane was sent to the shuttle runway at >Edwards AFB, refueling in-flight during the trip, where it >was landed on the two rear wheels (which properly locked), and then >nosed down. Damage was said to be "minor", whatever that means, and >there were no injuries reported. - Bill ] It refueled, flew here to Edwards AFB, and did an incredible number of go-rounds. We had live coverage on the LA news and it was very interesting. (It's incredible how long it takes to fly the pattern when one's watching in suspense. Think of how the crew felt!) They tried "bumping" the nose gear down once, I think, with a hard touchdown on the mains and, when this had no effect, did another low approach. Then they set it down on the mains and held the nose up for a really long time for the aerodynamic braking. They finally got slow, nosed over, finished sliding out on the nose and two mains. It looked like a really nice piece of flying. Nobody was injured and the airplane looked really good. This was on Monday evening, 2 Oct. When we came into work on Tuesday, it was sitting about a mile from NASA Dryden, looking strange and pitiful. When I came into work on Sunday, they had about 25 vehicles and a crane out there, getting ready to lift it, manually extend the gear, and tow it away to be repaired. It's gone now (Tuesday) I don't want to sound blase, but this is no big deal. We get B-52s, KC-10s, and other big planes in here with landing gear troubles all the time. They come here because we have this huge dry lakebead, very low traffic, and good emergency services. About a month ago a B-52 came in with its gear crabbed hard over. He did about 5 low approaches and then landed without any problem. You never even heard about it, probably. You don't hear about the fighters either, because they don't get on the news. The folks in rec.aviation have been talking about gear-up landings, both pilot and mechanically induced. They're not that uncommon. Wasn't there an airliner that used its Pratt & Whitney "fixed gear" for landing about a month ago? BTW, it wasn't the usual shuttle runway (17). It was the longest runway (33) across the lakebed. It was dead calm, so direction wasn't a problem and using this runway gave them about 7 mi to work with. (Just for the nitpickers, the shuttle has landed once on 15, which is the "other" end of 33.) -- Mary Shafer shafer@elxsi.dfrf.nasa.gov ames!elxsi.dfrf.nasa.gov!shafer NASA Ames-Dryden Flight Research Facility, Edwards, CA Of course I don't speak for NASA