EISPIRATEN

B2 Bomber Flies Low over Pasadena Sunday Afternoon in Honor of Verne Orr

At Approximately 2:15 Sunday the roar of a B2’s engines could be heard above the Church bells. The unexpected visitor flew over Pasadena numerous times in the course of 20 minutes at points flying at extremely low altitudes.

Some speculated that it was due to Pearl Harbor day.
It was actually a tribute to Verne Orr, former Air Force Secretary.

A B-2 stealth bomber from the 509th Bomber Wing performed a ceremonial flyover Sunday during services for Verne Orr, a former secretary of the U.S. Air Force who died last week at age 92.

Lt. Col. Todd Copeland said the B-2 Spirit bomber from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri flew over the First United Methodist Church on East Colorado Boulevard.

Orr was Air Force secretary from 1981 to 85 under Reagan. He restarted the B-1 bomber program and oversaw the inception of the B-2 program.
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Northrop Grumman is the prime contractor for the US Air Force B-2 Spirit stealth bomber.

The B-2 is a low-observable, strategic, long-range, heavy bomber capable of penetrating sophisticated and dense air-defense shields. It is capable of all-altitude attack missions up to 50,000 ft, with a range of more than 6,000 nm unrefuelled and over 10,000 nm with one refuelling, giving it the ability to fly to any point in the world within hours.

“The B-2 is a low-observable, strategic, long-range, heavy bomber capable of penetrating sophisticated and dense air-defense shields.”

Its distinctive profile comes from the unique ‘flying wing’ construction. The leading edges of the wings are angled at 33° and the trailing edge has a double-W shape. It is manufactured at the Northrop Grumman facilities in Pico Rivera and Palmdale in California.

21 B-2s have been delivered to Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, the first in December 1993. In the first three years of service, the operational B-2s achieved a sortie reliability rate of 90%. An assessment published by the USAF showed that two B-2s armed with precision weaponry can do the job of 75 conventional aircraft.

A new transportable hangar system has been developed which allows the B-2 to be deployed to forward locations overseas.

The hangars are 126 ft long, 250 ft wide and 55ft high. The first of these hangars has been erected on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.

Photos by Terry Miller

Thanks to the many readers who filled us in on the facts!

6/6/2008 - LANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE, Va. (AFPN) -- Distorted data introduced by a B-2 Spirit's air data system skewed information entering the bomber's flight control computers ultimately causing the crash of the aircraft on takeoff at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, Feb. 23, according to an Air Combat Command accident investigation report released June 5.

Moisture in the aircraft's Port Transducer Units during air data calibration distorted the information in the bomber's air data system, causing the flight control computers to calculate an inaccurate airspeed and a negative angle of attack upon takeoff. According to the report, this caused an, "uncommanded 30 degree nose-high pitch-up on takeoff, causing the aircraft to stall and its subsequent crash."

Moisture in the PTUs, inaccurate airspeed, a negative AOA calculation and low altitude/low airspeed are substantially contributing factors in this mishap. Another substantially contributing factor was the ineffective communication of critical information regarding a suggested technique of turning on pitot heat in order to remove moisture from the PTUs prior to performing an air data calibration.

The pilot received minor injuries, and the co-pilot received a spinal compression fracture during ejection. He was treated at Tripler Army Medical Center, Hawaii, and released. The aircraft was assigned to the 509th Bomb Wing at Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo.

The cost of the lost aircraft is about $1.4 billion.

TacoDelRio wrote:EDIT: Stupid photobucket fails at life, hard.

TacoDelRio wrote:HAH! Yeah, well they've got that damn flippy-downy thingy where the URL/TAG's are, and it doesn't work so hot. Plus, it says "Copied" when it "copies" the URL, but it often does not, so you end up with a post that has the same damn picture repeated a bunch of times. Dumb.

OutdoorAbstract wrote:12/26/08 looking east towards Thunder in the am (cellphone camera)

OutdoorAbstract wrote:

Zach wrote:Cougarmagic: What is this lion thinking...?