Air Force Begins Retiring B-1 Lancer Aircraft Written 19 February 2021
B-1B in-flight with wings swept fully forward. | USAF; Wikipedia; Public Domain
Air Force Times reports that the US Air Force began the process of retiring its B-1 Lancer Wednesday, “as the ‘Bone’ bomber flew to the Air Force’s boneyard where divested aircraft are kept in storage.” The Air Force plans to retire 17 of its 62 B-1 aircraft. According to the service, divesting its most battered B-1s would free up maintainers to restore the health of the remainder of the B-1 fleet. Air Force Global Strike Command lead Gen. Tim Ray said that the retirement of the aircraft is “something we have been working toward for some time. 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. And that’s just to fix the problems we know about. We’re just accelerating planned retirements.” The last B-1 aircraft is scheduled to leave service in 2036.
Full Story (Air Force Times)