Jokes about water pistol air defenses and melting sugar coating draw a tired sigh at Whiteman Air Force Base, home of the $2.1 billion B-2 stealth bombers.
Ever since a congressional report last month suggested the world's most expensive plane was vulnerable to rain, the Air Force has quietly steamed.The Air Force put out a statement Friday saying it "took exception to inaccurate reports" suggesting rain washed away the B-2's stealth capacity. It flew a planeload of reporters from Washington to make the point on the ground, allowing them a close look and even a seat in the cockpit of the once top-secret plane.
"The B-2 is not hindered in its operation by rain," said Brig. Gen. Thomas Goslin, commander of the 509th Bomb Wing at this base in the Missouri heartland. He and his officers patiently repeated the message in different words over and over again.
The sleek black planes, shaped like an angular boomerang, are designed to evade detection by radar and carry out nuclear and conventional heavy bombing missions across the world from their Missouri base.
Fifteen B-2s have been delivered to the Air Force by Northrop-Grumman Corp. and the service is scheduled to have a fleet of 21 at a total cost of just over $43 billion. President Clinton, meanwhile, has threatened to veto a new congressional proposal to build nine additional planes at a cost of nearly $20 billion.
Last month's General Accounting Office report, however, said testing indicated the planes were sensitive to extreme climates and rain could "damage some of the low-observable enhancing surfaces." Some interpreted this as suggesting the planes would be grounded if it rained.
The Air Force dismissed this alarmist picture.
"Flight in heavy precipitation can marginally increase the amount of maintenance needed following flight," it said in its statement.
But it added: "there is no evidence to indicate this adversely impacts the aircraft's radar cross section or serviceability" - meaning a wet B-2 is still a stealthy B-2.
Most of the plane's effective radar eluding capability is provided by its shape.
Goslin, while playing down the alarmist nature of the report, conceded the Air Force had put off some plans to deploy the planes outside the United States because of inadequate shelters to protect them from extreme elements and to provide the conditions for necessary maintenance.
But, standing ostentatiously in front of a B-2 undergoing a regular four-monthly hosedown and scrub like a zoo elephant, Goslin insisted: "this aircraft suffers no observable degradation flying through bad weather."
Earlier problems, including with a rubberized coating on the leading wing edges and with tape peeling off the wings, disrupting the smooth anti-radar detection surface, had been or were being addressed, Goslin and other officers at the base said.
Countering concerns about the planes' ability to fly overseas missions, Goslin said that B-2s would take part in an overseas training mission before the end of this year in which they would drop live bombs, although he declined to say where.
"This plane is good to go into combat right now if necessary," he said.
Captain Greg Smith, who flies one of the nine B-2s at the base, glowed with pride over the plane.
"When I go out there I feel I'm flying a national asset," he said, standing by the nose of one of the planes which bear the slogan "invisible defenders."
The 35-year-old pilot, from Henning, Minn., added: "We fly the rain all the time. We joke: `They must believe this thing is coated with sugar.' "