The Bristol F.2 was initially a disastrous solution to a disastrous problem. Despite disaster on its initial mission, the Brisfit remained in service until 1932. In Palestine during World War I, a pilot and his observer stand next to their Bristol F.2. The Air Force, which plans to fly the B-1 until 2036, is contemplating new missions for the bomber, including arming it with hypersonic weapons. “They had more ordnance and longer loiter times, and they delivered ordnance to the desired location without trying to second-guess us with their own optics.” “Our favorite asset at the company level was the B-1,” Lou Frketic, an Army company commander in Afghanistan, told the Washington Post. That maneuverability, coupled with exceptional payload capacity, has endowed the B-1 with a tactical role never envisioned by its designers: keeping close to the combat zone while coordinating aerial strikes with ground troops. “A firm yank on the stick triggered a roll rate that left me dizzy.” “During a ride in the left seat of the B-1 flight simulator, I got a feel for the Bone’s agility,” wrote David Noland for Air & Space in 2008.
Pilots who fly the B-1, or “Bone” as they call it, say it flies more like a fighter than a bomber, thanks to a 40-degrees-per-second roll rate, afterburners for instant power, and 3-G combat maneuvering. It has been flying continually ever since, in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and most recently against ISIS. Redemption finally came in 1998, during Operation Desert Fox, when two B-1s destroyed the barracks of Iraq’s elite Republican Guards. They weren’t equipped to carry conventional bombs, leaving the task to an aging fleet of B-52s. Worse, its brand-new radar-jamming system tended to wreak havoc on its own radar, prompting the Armed Forces Journal to award the bomber the humiliating title of “World’s First Self-Jamming Bomber.”Įven more demeaning for B-1 pilots, they were benched in 1991 during Operation Desert Storm. The Nixon administration revived it, the Carter administration canceled it, and the Reagan administration brought it back-only to see the B-1 remain on the ground because of fuel leaks and engine failures. In the 1960s, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara shelved the idea of a bomber to deliver nuclear weapons to Soviet targets, favoring ICBMs instead. To be sure, the B-1 experienced many near-death experiences during its long road to deployment, but survive it did. There’s an old joke in Washington, D.C.: “What’s the difference between Dracula and the B-1 bomber?” Answer: “You can actually kill Dracula.” We found seven notable aircraft that struggled through their early years to eventually prove their worth. The history of aviation is filled with stories about aircraft that seemed to have limited value but that over time exceeded expectations.
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