B-2 crashes on Guam
by graeme
If you’re a US Air Force accountant, congratulations- your head just exploded.
A B-2 Spirit bomber has reportedly crashed at a US airbase in Guam. The good news is that the pilots are both OK. The bad news is that a B-2 bomber is, at least from a taxpayer perspective, the last thing you want to crash. Ever.
Why? Mostly due to the $1.2 billion pricetag. That’s a whole lot of universal healthcare burning out there on the tarmac. Danger Room does a good job of putting this in perspective:
…there were 21 B-2s. Now there are 20 — a roughly 5-percent reduction in an instant. In terms of airframes, that’s the equivalent of 30 F-15s crashing at the same time, or 60 F-16s, or 6 F-22s. In terms of money, that’s equivalent to 20 F-15s, 24 F-16s or 10 F-22s.
Zoinks!
Crashing a billion dollar aircraft will certainly put any company into debt. Perhaps the military is asking for a cash advance from the government to fund another one of these money eaters. Certainly a payday loan wouldn’t cover the cost! Payday loans may help the average consumer, but it wouldn’t cover hefty military debt.
photo credit: Irish Typepad
That is just ridiculous. No vehicle, no matter how big or how many gadgets it has should EVER cost 1.2 BILLION dollars. The Airbus A380 only costs 275 million (which is also a ridiculous amount of money). That makes me sick. But I can’t wait to play the B-2 in a videogame!
Sorry, apparently I was way off with my earlier comment.
“The cost of the B-2 program in 1994 dollars was reported at $737 million per plane; however, the total cost of the program with development, spares, and facilities averaged over $2.1 billion per plane as of 1997 according to the B-2 program office.”
ARE YOU SHITTING ME???? 2.1 BILLION!?!?!?!? THAT IS SERIOUSLY F’ED IN THE A!!!!
damn right forbes, and the question that always comes to mind is ‘to defeat who exactly?’ All those pesky Afghani tribes with their advanced radar technology? Or is the US really going to bomb the Russians? What’s that you say, we’re actually NOT in a Tom Clancy plot and that money could be used to ummmm feed starving people?? nah, you’re crazy…
This program, while wildly expensive, has been a great success. They have flown for over 20 years with no flying mishaps. Yes, they are expensive, but politics played more in the pricetag than the airframe did. Originally, the B-2 was to replace the B-52 for a pricetag of 400 million a piece (for about 120 aircraft). Billy C. and his gang cut the program to 21, and still had to pay the contracted amounts for parts, research, etc. This airframe has gone into hostile territory, and wiped out air defense networks before the non-stealthy platforms have gone in and destroyed our adversary’s armies on the ground. Not bad for an old relic that was designed to nuke Russia back in the cold war era.
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