Word: bomber
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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From its conception in the late 1960s, the B-1B bomber has been a child of controversy. A breathtakingly beautiful airplane with slim-silhouette wings that meld into a fuselage that breathes speed, the swanlike aircraft is designed to penetrate Soviet air defenses, unleashing nuclear-tipped missiles at targets deep inside the country. But skeptics lampooned the B-1B -- at $283 million a copy the most expensive plane in aviation history -- as an unnecessary and probably unworkable interim successor to the aging B-52s, and in 1977 President Jimmy Carter scuttled the project. Newly elected Ronald Reagan revived...
Pentagon officials insist that is not the case. Says Air Force General Lawrence Skantze: "The B-1B is the best, most capable bomber in the world today." Claims Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger: "The plane will do what it's supposed to do." Nevertheless, Assistant Air Force Secretary Thomas Cooper told Congress, "We have to be aware of the limitations in the B-1B right now and plan accordingly." The Air Force is also withholding almost $300 million from contractors for poor performance. Last week, tucked away in the Defense Department's 1988 budget proposal was the Air Force's most...
...issue is broader than just the fate of the B-1B program, which will have cost nearly $30 billion by the time the last plane is delivered in 1988. Close on its heels is the successor aircraft, Northrop Corp.'s so-called Stealth bomber, supposedly even less visible to enemy defenses and better able to penetrate to targets. Plans call for producing 132 Stealth planes, with a projected price tag said to top $40 billion...
...Rockwell International's weapons systems. But critics are outraged that the photos are classic works by the late Ansel Adams, an ardent environmentalist who opposed the proliferation of nuclear weapons. In one of the ads, which have appeared in leading aerospace trade journals, Rockwell declared that its B-1B bomber was an "American asset" like the Sierra Nevada...
...swift leap into a controversial issue was nothing if not characteristic. Capitol Hill observers learned long ago that the 16-term Congressman and former House majority leader never backs away from a fight. Nor did the new Speaker, a former Golden Gloves boxer and a decorated World War II bomber pilot, retreat under fire on the tax issue. "I have not called for a tax increase," he said. "I have suggested postponing any further tax decreases for the very wealthiest taxpayers." Says Christopher Matthews, a former aide to Wright's predecessor Tip O'Neill: "Wright is going to be feisty...