Never got to fly in one of these, the only bomber that can do barrel rolls. But I got to sit in one on the ramp at Dyess outside Abilene in the 1980s and interview the crews who even then were calling it the Bone, for B-One. This was when the MSM was chewing on the Air Force over the B-1B’s various avionics problems. Nobody’s carping about them today. They are the premier bombing platform for Afghanistan and Iraq, sending the B-52s and B-2s home to sit and wait for something to do, as David Noland details in the current issue of Air&Space Magazine.
UPDATE: An onboard fire in a B-1B landing at a base in Quatar on April 4 was the fifth aircraft fire in one of the bombers since 1990. This time, the crew escaped unharmed.
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 