{"id":1696464,"date":"2022-10-16T06:30:08","date_gmt":"2022-10-16T10:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1696464"},"modified":"2022-10-16T15:03:49","modified_gmt":"2022-10-16T19:03:49","slug":"planning-for-b-1-b-2-retirements-depends-on-progress-of-b-21","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/planning-for-b-1-b-2-retirements-depends-on-progress-of-b-21\/","title":{"rendered":"Planning for B-1, B-2 Retirements Depends on Progress of B-21"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fplanning-for-b-1-b-2-retirements-depends-on-progress-of-b-21%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1696464&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p> Share Article  <\/p>\n<p>Initial planning has begun for the retirement of the B-1 and B-2 bombers, but the game plan depends largely on progress in fielding the B-21 Raider\u2014and on Congress\u2014the Air Force\u2019s bomber program executive officer said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe approach we\u2019re taking\u201d on the road to a two-bomber force for Air Force Global Strike Command is \u201cmaintaining our current capability and readiness in terms of our near-peer adversary\u201d as the B-21 ramps up, said Col. (Brig. Gen. select) William S. Rogers in a recent interview.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt this point the team\u2019s really focused on maintaining that readiness, availability, survivability, and operational capability\u201d for the B-1 and B-2 \u201cwhile we get ready for the B-21 fielding.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In an Air Force bomber roadmap from 2018, the service planned to retire the B-1 and B-2 in the 2031-2032 timeframe, but USAF has not updated those plans publicly since. Long-term, AFGSC plans to field \u201cat least 100\u201d B-21s and 75 B-52s.<\/p>\n<p>The Rapid Capabilities Office, which manages development of the B-21, is taking an \u201cevents-based approach\u201d to fielding the new aircraft, so hard plans for the B-1 and B-2 departures are not yet possible, Rogers said. \u00a0The \u201cdivestiture planning\u201d is \u201clooking at what makes sense, if there are any \u2026 unplanned delays on the B-21. Or if things just change.\u201d He noted that \u201cCongress gets a say in our divestiture plans, but at this point, we\u2019re looking at multiple \u2026 avenues, to make sure the Air Force has the flexibility needed\u201d and to provide as many options as possible for the Secretary of Defense and the President.<\/p>\n<p>Both the B-1 and B-2 suffer from \u201cvanishing vendor\u201d issues, and the PEO shop, part of the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, is \u201cworking with the primes on parts obsolescence,\u201d Rogers said. During the pandemic, \u201cthere\u2019s been instances where subs [subcontractors] went out of business, so \u2026 We engage with the primes and the Air Force Sustainment Center\u201d looking for form, fit, and function replacements \u201cthat may be out there\u201d as well as identifying new vendors and possible vendors. If the Air Force has the rights to parts, \u201cwe\u2019ll work with the Rapid Sustainment Office to see if there\u2019re any innovative ways to solve some of those problems.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The B-1 and B-2 are doing well in terms of aircraft availability rates\u2014the preferred metric over mission capability rates\u2014and are hitting their goals, Rogers said. For the B-1, aircraft availability is 42 percent; for the B-2, it\u2019s 55 percent.<\/p>\n<p>The B-1 saw a surge in aircraft availability last year, when 17 airplanes retired from the fleet, but USAF left the number of maintainers at the previous level, meaning more maintainers were available for each airplane. Spare parts from 12 of the 17 aircraft also helped improve the B-1\u2019s availability, which had suffered greatly from exhausting use in the Middle East over the last 20 years.<\/p>\n<p>Results of a B-1B carcass physical teardown as well as a fatigue test on another carcass and the creation of a \u201cdigital twin\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Share Article Initial planning has begun for the retirement of the B-1 and B-2 bombers, but the game plan depends largely on progress in fielding the B-21 Raider\u2014and on Congress\u2014the Air Force\u2019s bomber program executive officer said. \u201cThe approach we\u2019re taking\u201d on the road to a two-bomber force for Air Force Global Strike Command is &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1696466,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[547],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1696464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-bongino-report"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1696464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1696464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1696464\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1696466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1696464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1696464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1696464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}