This is a worthless article. Yes, the B-52 is old - but it works. Yes, replacements with different missions for different times have failed, or come and gone. We're about to build the LSB which will try to replace the old plane more directly than those previous programs. Defense procurement is messed up. none of this is news.
the article is wrong in so many of the pithy little notes that the whole thing comes off as snarky propaganda at best.
* the nuclear-powered bomber was never seen as a practical program - just a way-out-there experiment
* the B-58 was retired because ICBMs did it's job much better as soviet defenses improved
* The (x)b-70 did not have highly toxic exhaust - it used regular jet fuel. author was confused about 'zip fuel' which could have been used in many planes - but didn't go into use.
* weighed down by infamy?
* like taking a biplane to iraq? huh?
geeze - having gone over this in more depth I think that the author actually has no message at all. it's just a bit of filler, with some 1960's antiwar jabs, and an arch tone.
... but in a prelude of future problems, the first B-1 unveiled in 1985,
in front of a crowd of 30,000, failed to start.
That is not what happened, not even close. The plane was damaged during delivery two days prior to the unveiling. It didn't "fail to start", they didn't try to start it after it was damaged. All of this didn't occur "in front of a crowd of 30,000"; again, it occurred two days before.
Much like the points you made, this line is another ham-fisted attempt to paint what happened in the most embarrassing way possible, by drawing an image in the reader's mind of a bumbling pilot turning the key and the starter cranking over without starting. The author knows this (I got it from his link[1]).
the article is wrong in so many of the pithy little notes that the whole thing comes off as snarky propaganda at best.
* the nuclear-powered bomber was never seen as a practical program - just a way-out-there experiment
* the B-58 was retired because ICBMs did it's job much better as soviet defenses improved
* The (x)b-70 did not have highly toxic exhaust - it used regular jet fuel. author was confused about 'zip fuel' which could have been used in many planes - but didn't go into use.
* weighed down by infamy?
* like taking a biplane to iraq? huh?
geeze - having gone over this in more depth I think that the author actually has no message at all. it's just a bit of filler, with some 1960's antiwar jabs, and an arch tone.