Word: 1b
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After a B-1B bomber crashed in September on a simulated bombing run over Colorado, killing three of its six crewmen, there were fears that the plane, at a total program cost of $27 billion, could not perform its core mission of low-level attack. Designed to foil enemy radar by sweeping across terrain from as low as 200 feet above ground, the B-1B had crashed, said investigators, after colliding with a flock of large birds...
...biggest item was defense, reflecting the President's view that the military had suffered a decade of neglect in the 1970s. Reagan's buildup cost $1.2 trillion over the fiscal years 1981-'86, which boosted military spending 41% after adjustment for inflation. Among the new hardware: the B-1B bomber (cost: $280 billion) and the MX missile system ($20.7 billion for the first 50). The Strategic Defense Initiative, or Star Wars, research and development was allotted $9.3 billion for the first five years...
...1B bomber is designed to deliver its deadly cargo at low altitude, following the contours of the ground to avoid being detected by radar. But last week the controversialplane proved vulnerable to a natural enemy when a B-1B crashed after running into a flock of birds...
Though the B-1B's engines are designed to withstand most "bird strikes," investigators suspect that large Canada geese may have caused the fatal fire...
Still smarting over glitches in its newly activated B-1B bomber, the Air Force is now catching flak over its aircraft of the future, the radar-elusive Stealth bomber. Congressional critics say that technical and managerial problems are exponentially raising the project's cost. A reported $8 billion will be spent on the plane before it enters production early next year, and each of the 132 aircraft could cost more than $300 million, $23 million above the original price...