North American Rockwell / Boeing B-1 Lancer

These are pictures from a Rockwell Appreciation folder dated 1973. It has some nice shots of a B-1 engineering model being built. Might have been given to the modeler, don't know. The base of that finished model is 12" x 6"ish. It's a big model.
Interesting look at shape details and how they built these cool models. I have a few more if interested. ab1a (2).JPG ab1a (3).JPG ab1a (5).JPG ab1a (7).JPG
 
Flogger15 said:
Are thumbnails better than full size images to attach?
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Thumbnails reduce the time it takes to load entire pages. In my experience, smartphones and tablet load pages in a fraction of the time it takes to load pages with multiple full images.
Desktop and laptop are less affected.
 
Arjen said:
Thumbnails reduce the time it takes to load entire pages. In my experience, smartphones and tablet load pages in a fraction of the time it takes to load pages with multiple full images.
Desktop and laptop are less affected.
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Yes, correct.
 
aim9xray said:
I suspect this to be a portion of the the two dorsal longerons, a critical fatigue hot spot. A single B-1B had 47 feet of this structure replaced by Boeing (Douglas Long Beach site) in the early 2010s IIRC. They were hand-built composite replacements and the airplane was grounded at Long Beach for over a year for the work.

https://boeing.mediaroom.com/2009-05-29-Boeing-Team-Rebuilds-B-1-Backbone-for-US-Air-Force
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Just reading "replacing 47 feet of longerons" makes my A&P self cringe...

Are we sure there's not a Bone in the Boneyard we could bring back to flying status instead?
 
There is a link here or in the B-52 re-engined thread where we can see how they carefully strip all parts out of the airframe cautiously, pulling out rivets after rivets before 3D scanning, testing and reverse engineering the thing.

I can ensure you that with this method, plus a cautious re-integration strategy (that might involve new parts), you can end up very easily with something that got better structural behavior than the original parts or assembly.
We have 40 years of engineering advance where extensive engineering can be applied on all parts when that was often time consuming or unachievable before. Hence a better or equal design at the end.
The good sign is the money and the willingness to cross-share the experience with students, keeping them away from coffee/inflated experience internship that has a very disastrous effect on the industry.

No. This looks good.
 
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Hehe
Aerospace is at the fringe of engineering.
Remember that we did not have 3D at the time, meaning that everything, mostly, was 2D projected.

With often complex body curvature (yes, Aerospace is the sexy branch of engineering!), parts real shapes are sometime not perfectly reflected in the manufuring drawings and instructions. Yes. You read it correctly.

Then, what happens when you loose the experienced mechanics, welder or men in charge of hot shaping, cold bend a complex part, casted or not? You can loose the knowhow. Loose the mold, that were often hand trimmed or rectified with experience from the assembly lines, and it's even worst!

That's where the fun start for very experienced engineers with good mathematics and academics (I insist). Like that Belgian detective, you have to rebuild a manufacturing chain, often from scratch, that it can be rebuilt accurately. That's what the kids here are offered to do (with some instructor). It's a hell lot of fun where you learn at every step of the way like few of your colleagues will ever have the opportunity to experience.

Highly recommended!
 
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My problem lies in the ability to fabricate a consistent component. It should have been perfectly feasible to do things when they were produced, been making airliners of al types consistently so why not this one?
 
Perhaps the longeron(s) have some sacrificial material to deal with tolerance stack-up across three major fuselage modules? Or the fuselage could have been slightly "bent" over several thousand flight hours? I don't know.
 
Foo Fighter said:
My problem lies in the ability to fabricate a consistent component. It should have been perfectly feasible to do things when they were produced, been making airliners of al types consistently so why not this one?
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I'm guessing tolerance stack between modules. Each set of modules is a little different, so to keep that outer mold line correct the longeron has to be custom matched to the modules.
 
Foo Fighter said:
My problem lies in the ability to fabricate a consistent component. It should have been perfectly feasible to do things when they were produced, been making airliners of al types consistently so why not this one?
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Also, airliners are a simple tube, not an area-ruled complex compound curved nightmare.

I'd expect that the 2707 would have had the same issues.
 
Scott Kenny said:
I'm guessing tolerance stack between modules. Each set of modules is a little different, so to keep that outer mold line correct the longeron has to be custom matched to the modules.
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Yes. That's where 3D CAD made most famously a big impact on reliability and cost. WYSIWYG is real (with the appropriate manufacturing tools and methods also in the chain).
 
Abraham Gubler said:
Not quite a “secret project” but rather a “secret paintjob”. I’ve being trying to track this down after reading about it online a few years ago. The proposed B-1B Two Tone or ‘Killer Whale’ camouflage pattern. Combines dark and pale grey for camouflage effect while retaining protection against flash and heat from a nuclear explosion. The pale grey segments covered heat sensitive areas of the aircraft and would work like an all-white ‘anti-flash’ coating common in nuclear bombers of the 50s and 60s.
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Actually, I have wondered why modern bombers have such a dark gray color and had wondered if the matter of flash-effects would be an issue.
 
I've seen double AGM-86 pylons for B-1B
I've seen double AGM-129 pylons for B-1B
I've seen double Tomahawk pylons for B-1B
I've seen double combined SRAM/external fuel tanks pylons for B-1B
But where this triple AGM-86 weirdness came from? This is DeAgostini World Aviation series in Russian born under Stan Morse Airtime Publishing guidance and I guess illustration was used/reused in number of their publications.
 

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flateric said:
I've seen double AGM-86 pylons for B-1B
I've seen double AGM-129 pylons for B-1B
I've seen double Tomahawk pylons for B-1B
I've seen double combined SRAM/external fuel tanks pylons for B-1B
But where this triple AGM-86 weirdness came from? This is DeAgostini World Aviation series in Russian born under Stan Morse Airtime Publishing guidance and I guess illustration was used/reused in number of their publications.
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Probably just a bad extrapolation from the tandem triple racks on the B-52 wing stations.
 
Apollo Leader said:
I remember reading in Aerofax's book on the B-1 that there was a Navy version that Rockwell had proposed that was supposed to be capable of carrying a bunch of AIM-54's.
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frank said:
Sometime in the early '80s I saw in AW & ST there was a B-1C proposed for ADC, a long range interceptor, that would use the F-14's radar & have Phoenixes in the weapons bay(s).
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If that is true, can anyone provide citations, pictures, and documents about the B-1 Lancer carrying the AIM-54 Phoenix?

I assume that the AIM-54 Phoenix carried by the B-1 Lancer would have featured folding fins for internal carriage similar to the AIM-47B Falcon proposed for the Lockheed F-12B?
AIM-47AB-1S.jpg

SOURCE: O'Connor, S. (2011, June). Arming America's Interceptors: The Hughes Falcon Missile Family. Air Power Australia. Retrieved from https://www.ausairpower.net/Falcon-Evolution.html
 
Doesn't he mean the B-52 replacement? Considering that the B-21 will be around for a few years yet after it enters service. More click bait I think.
 
FighterJock said:
Doesn't he mean the B-52 replacement? Considering that the B-21 will be around for a few years yet after it enters service. More click bait I think.
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The USAF actually has time for the B52 replacement, those airframes shouldn't time out till about 2070. Yes, potentially 110 years in service for the airframes!!!
 
That is unbelivable Scott Kenny, 110 years for a bomber and the RAF retired the Vulcan for being old, that record will never be broken.
 
FighterJock said:
That is unbelivable Scott Kenny, 110 years for a bomber and the RAF retired the Vulcan for being old, that record will never be broken.
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Originally designed for 80,000 hours. No, that's not a typo. EIGHTY thousand hours. Then flying down in the weeds for a few years in the 1960s and 70s really took a lot out of them, average fatigue life is down to 37k hours, with average airframe life at 21k a few years ago.
 
I can remember looking at the B-52 the first time I went to the RAF Luechars airshow back in 1991 and thinking the same thing 4decaa. I suppose the wrinkles are a product of the thin metal that Boeing used for the B-52 back when they first built it.
 
If the B-21 can carry existing bunker busting bombs then I can be sure that it can also carry the new bunker busting bombs sferrin.
 
FighterJock said:
If the B-21 can carry existing bunker busting bombs then I can be sure that it can also carry the new bunker busting bombs sferrin.
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Yeah, that's the question. Can it? The article is referring to the 30,000lb GBU-57.
 
Going by the size of the B-2s weapons bays then the bay on the B-21 should be the same size, Northrop would not design the B-21 with a smaller bay than the B-2 even when it is only one considering the size of the GBU-57. The USAF would not have given Northrop the contract otherwise.
 

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