A B-2 bomber crashed out at Guam yesterday. Both pilots ejected safely. David Axe puts things into perspective:
[T]here were 21 B-2s. Now there are 20--a roughly 5-percent reduction in an instant. In terms of airframes, that's the equivalent of 30 F-15s crashing at the same time, or 60 F-16s, or 6 F-22s. In terms of money, that's equivalent to 20 F-15s, 24 F-16s or 10 F-22s.
Axe then suggests, rather cynically, that the Air Force will milk this for all its worth, using the crash to drum up support in Congress for the service's recapitalization plans. We should hope so. The Air Force currently has 85 B-52s, the last of which was built during the Kennedy administration, 65 B-1s, and now just 20 B-2s. That combined fleet provides plenty of firepower for low-intensity conflicts like those in Iraq and Afghanistan, but only the stealth B-2 can penetrate and destroy the kind of integrated defense systems we might face in a war with China--or Iran. The Air Force had initially planned to purchase 132 airframes, but at $1.2 billion a pop, that was never really an option. Now the Air Force is looking to build a new stealthy bomber 2018, but consensus opinion is deeply skeptical the service will be able to meet that deadline. So in the short-term, this does seem like another reason to invest more money in the only stealthy airplane currently in production, the F-22. For more on the B-2, check out Robert Kaplan's piece, " The Plane that would Bomb Iran."