THE'BONE'HEADS TO THE BONEYARD

摘要

The Air Force has begun the process of retiring the B-1 Lancer. The first "Bone" flew to the "boneyard" at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona, where divested aircraft are kept in storage. The Air Force plans to retire 17 of its 62 B-1s, as authorized by Congress. The service said divesting its most battered and difficult-to-maintain B-1s would free up maintain-ers to restore the health of the remaining Lancer fleet. Gen. Tim Ray, who leads Air Force Global Strike Command, described the retirement of the B-1 as "something we have been working toward for some time" to transition to the B-21 Raider in the mid-2020s. "Due to the wear and tear placed on the B-1 fleet over the past two decades, maintaining these bombers would cost 10s of millions of dollars per aircraft to get back to status quo," he said. "And that's just to fix the problems we know about. We're just accelerating planned retirements."