The Pentagon's Flying Edsel

From its conception in the late 1960s, the B-1B bomber has been a child of controversy. A breathtakingly beautiful airplane with slim-silhouette wings that meld into a fuselage that breathes speed, the swanlike aircraft is designed to penetrate Soviet air defenses, unleashing nuclear-tipped missiles at targets deep inside the country. But skeptics lampooned the B-1B -- at $283 million a copy the most expensive plane in aviation history -- as an unnecessary and probably unworkable interim successor to the aging B-52s, and in 1977 President Jimmy Carter scuttled the project. Newly elected Ronald Reagan revived the B-1B in 1981, ordering 100 of the bombers, but as production approaches the halfway point, critics in the Pentagon and elsewhere are decrying the plane as something of a turkey, a "flying Edsel."

Pentagon officials insist that is not the case. Says Air Force General Lawrence Skantze: "The B-1B is the best, most capable bomber in the world today." Claims Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger: "The plane will do what it's supposed to do." Nevertheless, Assistant Air Force Secretary Thomas Cooper told Congress, "We have to be aware of the limitations in the B-1B right now and plan accordingly." The Air Force is also withholding almost $300 million from contractors for poor performance. Last week, tucked away in the Defense Department's 1988 budget proposal was the Air Force's most public admission yet of troubles: a request for $600 million to repair problems with the aircraft.

In its rush to deploy the B-1B, the Air Force went into production while the aircraft was still undergoing major design modifications. Even before the first bombers became operational last fall at Dyess Air Force Base in Texas, there were portents of trouble. The plane's fuel tanks, built directly into the wings without rubber bladders, leak jet fuel. Early flight tests revealed problems caused by loading cruise missile launchers and antiradiation pods onto the original airframe design. In gaining an extra 41 tons -- nearly a 25% increase -- without additional wing surface, the B-1B had acquired an extraordinary "wing loading" of 245 lbs. per sq. ft., twice the weight carried by the commercial Boeing 747. The added weight means the plane is prone to stall when the pilot attempts complex escape maneuvers. New stall- inhibitor and stabilization mechanisms will ease the problem but will make it more difficult for the B-1B to execute maneuvers vital to survival. Pilots complain that the heavy load makes the aircraft "fly like an elephant."

There are other problems. Pilots bringing the B-1B to treetop level found that the ground-tracking radar, designed to keep the plane from slamming into hills, was inadequate. The system jerked the B-1B up and down, causing considerable internal stress. Fuel consumption turned out to be enormous, particularly when the pilot kicked in the afterburner to accelerate through enemy defenses, raising doubts whether the plane can even reach its targets. So many difficulties emerged in flying the aircraft that some 40% of the training missions have had to be scrubbed.