Envisioned in the 1960s as a platform that would combine the Mach 2 speed of Convair’s sexy but temperamental B-58 Hustler with the range and payload of Boeing’s rock-steady B-52 Stratofortress, Rockwell’s B-1 Lancer was meant to ultimately replace both aircraft.
Following a long series of studies, Rockwell International (now part of Boeing) prevailed—besting Boeing, General Dynamics, and North American—in the U.S. Air Force’s Advanced Manned Strategic Aircraft (AMSA) design contest, submitting a concept that would, years later, emerge into the Cold War world as the B-1A.
The inchoate aircraft’s design featured a blended wing body, variable-sweep wing, four turbofan engines, triangular forward ride-control fins, and cruciform tail. By dint of their ability to articulate from 15-degrees to 67.5-degrees (full forward to full sweep), the B1A’s wings contemporaneously afforded the bomber improved lift during takeoff and landing and diminished drag during supersonic flight.
Castrated by Congressional edict as a cost-saving measure, today’s B1B—unlike it’s ferocious B1A forebear—cannot reach Mach 2+ speeds; rather, the B model’s maximum speed is a comparatively poky Mach 1.25 (833-knots). However, the aircraft’s Mach 0.92 (613-knot) low-altitude speed bests the A model by a significant margin. The speed of the current version of the aircraft is limited by the structure of its air intakes.
The B1A was powered by a quartet of afterburning General Electric F101-100 turbofans. Afterburners lit, the powerplants produce a robust 30,780-pound-feet of thrust—apiece. The engines were installed in pairs inside large nacelles beneath the aircraft’s wing roots. By keeping the engines’ mass close to the bomber’s center of gravity, the aircraft’s high-speed stability was greatly improved. To achieve its Mach 2 high-altitude performance the intake inlets and exhaust nozzles of the A model’s engines were fully variable.
The B1B, conversely, is powered by four General Electric F101-GE-102 afterburning turbofan engines which—though rated to the same 30,780-pound-foot thrust-rating as their 100-series forerunners, lack the ancillary hardware by which the B1A achieved its superb upper-envelope speed.
Similar to General Dynamics F-111 Aardvark—the shortcomings of which compelled the USAF to pursue a long-range supersonic bomber platform—the B1A and B1B featured a crew escape capsule that ejects as a single unit to improve crew survivability.
At its maximum takeoff weight of 477,000-pounds, the B1B’s combat range is 2,993-nautical-miles. Carrying a reduced bomb load of 37,000-pounds, the Lancer’s range increases to 5,100-nautical-miles. Carrying no ordnance, the B1B’s range increases to 6,500-nautical-miles—an impressive feat for a machine powered by four, thirsty, combat-optimized engines.
The B1B’s service-ceiling is advertised as 60,000-feet, but is conceivably higher still.
The Lancer—or BONE (B-ONE) as it’s called by those who fly and maintain it—boasts formidable offensive capabilities. The aircraft three internal bomb-bays carry a combined total of 75,000-pounds of ordnance—significantly more than the B-2 Spirit’s estimated limit of 50,000-pounds and a modicum better than the B-52 Stratofortress’s advertised 70,000-pound limit.
The recent unveiling of the USAF’s new B-21 Raider is thought to occasion the sounding of the B1B’s death knell. In 2023, 45 Lancers remained in the service’s inventory. Pentagon officials have intimated, however, that the venerable, forty-year-old aircraft will remain active only until the B-21 has been nursed through its inevitable teething agonies.
For years, the Air Force has slowly been divesting itself of B1Bs. In October 2021, the branch retired 17 Lancers from its fleet, stripping the jets of valuable components and flying what remained to the boneyard at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. Not all retired B1Bs end up withering in the desert sun, however. One divested aircraft went to Oklahoma’s Tinker Air Force Base to serve as a prototype for structural repair actions. Another went to Edwards Air Force Base as a ground tester. One lucky retired Lancer went to Wichita, Kansas’s National Institute for Aviation Research to be digitally mapped for posterity, and an even luckier specimen went to Louisiana’s Barksdale Air Force Base, where it now stands in resplendent static display at the Barksdale Global Power Museum.
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