Stress Causing B-1B Bombers to Leak Fuel

The first 17 B-1B bombers delivered to the Air Force have developed fuel leaks in their wings and fuselages as a result of the stress placed on the sleek new airplanes as they go through low-altitude maneuvers near the speed of sound, the Air Force said Thursday.

However, Air Force Brig. Gen. James W. Evatt, responding to a report in the Sept. 29 issue of Business Week magazine, said in an interview that the Air Force and the airplane’s prime contractor, Rockwell International, along with two subcontractors, are correcting the problems.

“They’ll put goop on it,” he said of the leaks and the effort to mend them. The general said that the cost of the repairs is being paid by the contractors.

Unlike the B-52 bomber--the workhorse of the Air Force’s strategic fleet--the B-1B, assembled in Palmdale, Calif., contains no individual, rubber-lined fuel tanks. Instead, to save weight and space, the jet fuel is stored in many cavities throughout the wings and fuselage, including space near the weapons bays.

Tests for Leaks Conducted

“When it is put together in the factory, it is nice shining metal and fits together nice and snug,” Evatt said, adding that air-pressure tests and non-fuel fluid tests are conducted to find leaks.

“Even with all that, when you get that plane flying at 200 feet, that metal starts to set,” he said--much as a house settles on its foundation over a period of years or an automobile develops loose body parts. “It doesn’t return to a perfect fit.”

Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger was said to be “furious” about the fuel leaks, but an aide said he had no official comment. Shortly after taking office, Weinberger began monitoring the B-1B program, receiving reports every two weeks on its cost and progress. More recently, he has been receiving those reports once every three months, Evatt said.

A spokesman for Rockwell International said that officials were discussing the question of issuing a statement about the leaks, although no statement had been made public by late Thursday.

Resurrected by Reagan

The B-1B is an upgraded version of the B-1A, which was originally a $27-million airplane when it was designed more than 15 years ago. The airplane project--canceled by President Jimmy Carter on June 30, 1977, because he found it “not necessary”--was resurrected by President Reagan in 1981 as the redesigned B-1B, at a cost that is expected to reach $280 million for each of the 100 airplanes being purchased.

Reagan has made construction and deployment of the B-1B--a needle-nosed, swing-wing bomber--a central element in his effort to modernize the nation’s arsenal of weapons capable of delivering long-range nuclear armaments.

An Air Force spokesman at Dyess Air Force Base in Abilene, Tex., where the first aircraft are being based, said that 13 have been delivered. Two more are expected to be delivered before the airplanes are considered operationally deployed on Oct. 1. Initially, the first aircraft delivered to Dyess in June, 1985, developed leaks in hydraulic lines, one officer there said.

Four other B-1Bs have been delivered to the Air Force and are undergoing tests at Edwards Air Force Base in California and at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, Evatt said.

The general said that the leaks in the new airplanes are similar to leaks discovered in the four B-1As that were manufactured before the program originally was canceled.