2 billion here, and 2 billion there...

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

A B-2 stealth bomber crashed early Saturday morning local time in Guam, according to the Air Force.

Well, what the hell, at least we have 20 more.

There are so few of them that we have names for them all. I wonder which one this one is. I’ve read elsewhere that this one was 82-1066, Spirit of America. If so, given our propensity for destroying military items named after America, I would respectfully suggest to the DOD that they cease giving that particular title to weapons platforms. That kind of gives us a bit of a bad name, symbolically speaking.

2

Whoa one of those crashed? I heard they are almost never even used because they are to expensive to risk…I thought we only had 11 or 12 of them not 20?

3

Nope. We had a grand total of 21.

AV-1 82-1066 Spirit of America
AV-2 82-1067 Spirit of Arizona
AV-3 82-1068 Spirit of New York
AV-4 82-1069 Spirit of Indiana
AV-5 82-1070 Spirit of Ohio
AV-6 82-1071 Spirit of Mississippi
AV-7 88-0328 Spirit of Texas
AV-8 88-0329 Spirit of Missouri
AV-9 88-0330 Spirit of California
AV-10 88-0331 Spirit of South Carolina
AV-11 88-0332 Spirit of Washington
AV-12 89-0127 Spirit of Kansas
AV-13 89-0128 Spirit of Nebraska
AV-14 89-0129 Spirit of Georgia
AV-15 90-0040 Spirit of Alaska
AV-16 90-0041 Spirit of Hawaii
AV-17 92-0700 Spirit of Florida
AV-18 93-1085 Spirit of Oklahoma
AV-19 93-1086 Spirit of Kitty Hawk
AV-20 93-1087 Spirit of Pennsylvania
AV-21 93-1088 Spirit of Louisiana

That said, they do have to fly them regularly to maintain the proficiency of the pilots. Whether they be in combat or not, every plane is at risk once it lifts off, because you can be certain that it will return to Earth, one way or another.

My surprise is really that it took this long.

4

So does anyone know the name of the one that crashed in the Balkans in 1999?
CNN story

5

Vega 31 (F-117A, not a B-2)

6

Thank you; that was quick!
I was sort of expecting a ‘Spirit of xxx’ name but I guess they’re only for B2s.
I hadn’t realised it wasn’t the same type that crashed.

7

The Balkan shoot down was an F-117 “stealth fighter” (Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk - Wikipedia), not a B-2 'stealth bomber" (Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit - Wikipedia).

Generally speaking, fighter-sized arcraft are not individually named in the US military.
ETA: “Vega 31” was the callsign of the mission, not of the aircraft. Each USAF unit is issued a few simple words for use as callsigns. Each aircraft launching during a single day is given a unique number.

In peacetime the same words are used for a given unit for months if not years. In combat they rotate more frequently to reduce the ablity of enemy listeners to say “Hmmm, I hear a Vega 42 talking on the radio. Last week Vega was was an F-177, so I bet it is today too.”

8

Well, I guess that’s another212 Captains, 3,540 Lieutenants, 6,573 Tech Sergeants, and 12,336 Staff Sergeants we can hack off the Air Force. . . :rolleyes:

Actually, I have a friend from Minot who flies 'em now (509th). I’ll see if I hear anything. . .

Tripler
'I’ve got friends in lowwwww places. . .’

9

Yeah, but do you want them to join the ARMY? < veg >