High Cost of Stealth Bombers

Robert Scheer’s hope (“Let’s Hope It Rains on the B-2’s Parade,” Column Left, Aug. 26) that the Congress doesn’t stick us with nine more B-2 Stealth bombers is certainly justified. Whether you accept his figure of $27 billion for the nine planes or the Defense Department’s figure of $14 billion to $20 billion, the cost per unit is mind-boggling. That the bombers degrade in many temperature conditions, that they’ve never proved they’re completely stealthy, that they have no mission, that the Pentagon doesn’t want them, only makes clear the fact that they’re purest pork and nothing but.

What’s actually stealthy is their removal of public funds from programs that would truly benefit the taxpayer. For the cost of one plane, we could do a year’s cleanup of our egregiously polluted Superfund sites. We could stop the destruction of our national forests, we could buy books and other necessities for all our decaying public schools, we could match a year’s federal spending on drug prevention programs.

ANN ALPER

Pacific Palisades

* If Scheer had been writing his column in 1907 when the U.S. Army paid the then outrageous sum of $25,000 for a Wright Flyer, he would have had a field day. Not unlike the B-2, the Flyer, due to its fabric-covered wings, couldn’t be flown in the rain and required a special building to protect it from the elements. Due to its relatively fragile nature, it also required careful handling and numerous repairs. Critics questioned the mission of such a “flying machine.”

It oversimplifies to say that the B-2 is an unnecessary boondoggle. While some airplanes are more successful than others, they are all “expensive” and require special care. Just as new designs bring new problems, they also bring unexpected solutions or may even, like the Wright Flyer and DC-3, revolutionize society. Airliners using B-2 technology are on the drawing board now that will bring substantial increases in both efficiency and safety to air commerce.

While it may seem that a nuclear-capable, long-range bomber like the B-2 is not currently justified, world situations change quickly, and there is much more to the B-2 than just its ability to drop a bomb. The one thing more costly than progress is the failure to have a vision for the future.

PAUL LIGHTHILL

Palm Springs