The Ghost B2 bomber is a very important combat model of the US military, and the cost of each fighter is also very high, with the cost of each fighter reaching a sky-high price of 2.4 billion US dollars, and the Western media are also happy to publicize it.
Now that the US military has received bad news, the most expensive fighter jets have been turned into scrap metal, and the cost has been lost, what happened to the ghost bombers?
The United States has built more than 20 B2 ghost bombers, and now only 19 are still in normal use, before the US military had damaged B2 ghost bombers, because of the sudden accident during landing, the fighter was seriously damaged, and has been looking for maintenance methods, as a result, the US military industry department has been after many calculations, and the US military is now ready to give up.
Because the final maintenance plan said that the cost of maintenance was too high, and it may be close to the cost of building, but the abandonment of maintenance directly led to a result, that is, 2.4 billion US dollars would be wasted, and this loss was also unacceptable to the Pentagon, and the high cost became a pile of scrap metal, and the US fighters were seriously damaged.
Although the appearance is still good, the internal structure and important engine fuel tanks have been seriously damaged, and because it looks good from the outside, the US military takes it for granted that it should still be able to be repaired intact, in fact, after careful inspection, the military maintenance department found that the important internal structures have been destroyed, and the appearance is intact, which is just an illusion, and there is only an empty shell.
However, the US military still held an optimistic view, believing that there was still great hope for repair, after all, compared with the first B2 that caught fire in an accident at the Guam base, this one still remains intact in appearance, and the other one burned out after falling to the ground and catching fire.
The Western media has long exaggerated a saying that the cost of the U.S. military's B2 ghost bomber is comparable to gold, and after the U.S. military successfully developed it that year, a total of 21 bombers were built, because of the high cost, the U.S. military also stopped the increment in a timely manner, and has not started the production of new batches.
When the B2 accident occurred, the U.S. military also grounded all bombers, wanting to find out whether there were serious safety hazards involved and structure, all bombers were returned to the factory for inspection, and it was not until half a year later that they began to gradually resume flying.
In the past two years, the US military has thought of many ways, and has made repair plans and budgets many times, but found that the maintenance cost is indeed too high, which will simply cause serious waste, because it is close to rebuilding one, and even has to invest more costs in restoring the overall function of the fighter.
For example, after repairing the bomber, it is necessary to restore the stealth coating, these difficult control processes require high investment, and the difficulty of repairing it is several times more troublesome than building a new one.
After careful consideration, the US military was also forced to say that this was the bad news that the US Air Force had received about the ghost bomber, and that it had no choice but to give up the plan to repair the fighter, so it said that the accident bomber might only become a pile of scrap metal, and its cost of $2.4 billion was also lost.
There is another reason why the U.S. military gave up the maintenance of bombers, the new future bomber B21 designed and upgraded on the basis of B2 has been successfully finalized, and the U.S. military has stepped up its mass production plan in order to be able to quickly deploy and increase the air combat superiority of the U.S. military, and deploy in the western Pacific region, and it is expected that the new B21 bomber of the U.S. Air Force will be delivered as soon as 2025, and it seems that the U.S. Air Force's ambition to dominate the world has never stopped.
Let's go back to the ghost bomber, as the United States, which has deep pockets, is it really reluctant to pay high maintenance costs, of course not, even if the cost of maintenance is comparable to rebuilding a fighter, the US military may consider repairing it if necessary, but considering the repaired fighter.
In terms of some fine components, in terms of stealth comprehensive capability performance, will be different, and even in the subtle damage and repair, will it bring some small changes, and it is difficult to detect and show in time, once in practical application, safety hazards appear again, continue to bring unsafe possibility, the cost of maintenance is still secondary, the US military is worried about new failure problems, it is really worth the loss.
In particular, when repairing damaged fighters, it may be difficult to see all the invisible damage, especially some small damage, which often become a hidden danger to the bomber in the state of high-speed flight.
Therefore, after thinking about it again and again, the U.S. military still gave up repairing the faulty bomber, of course, in the face of the ghost bomber, there is also a problem of design reasons, the internal parts of this bomber are very precise and squeamish, afraid of low temperature environment and humid environment, etc., once parked in the outdoor environment, because of the low temperature failure has occurred, so the U.S. military is also afraid that because some repairs are not in place, or fail to find out the small flaws of the fighter in time, resulting in new safety problems.
From the current point of view, it is estimated that the United States will not start the construction plan for a new batch of B2, because the US military has already created a new type of B21 bomber according to the needs of use. This is another reason why the US military finally decided to abandon the repair of the B2.