One of the important and difficult decisions which had to be made in this budget concerned the role of the B-70, a long-range supersonic bomber.

In 1990, Bulgaria had a total of more than 2, 400 tanks, 2, 000 armored vehicles, 2, 500 large caliber artillery systems, 300 fighter and bomber aircraft, 100 trainer aircraft, more than 40 combat and 40 transport helicopters, 4 submarine, 6 fast missile craft, 2 frigates, 5 corvettes, 6 torpedo boats, 9 patrol craft, 30 minesweepers and 21 transport vessels.

Immediately after entering the plea, however, Olson told reporters that she was innocent and that she had decided to take a plea bargain due to the climate after the September 11 attacks, in which she felt an accused bomber could not receive a fair trial from a jury.

By the summer of 1939, the Luftwaffe had nine Jagdgeschwader ( fighter wings ) mostly equipped with Messerschmitt Bf 109, four ' Zerstörergeschwader ( destroyer wings ) equipped with the Messerschmitt Bf 110 heavy fighter, 11 Kampfgeschwader ( bomber wings ) equipped with mainly the Heinkel He 111 and the Dornier Do 17Z, and four Sturzkampfgeschwader ( dive bomber wings ).

The largest failure for the Kampfgeschwader, however, was saddling them with an aircraft meant to be as big and as apparently capable as any Allied four-engined " heavy bomber " – the perpetually-troubled Heinkel He 177 – which had been condemned to being designed to carry out moderate angle dive bombing missions from the day that the RLM accepted it for production in November 1937, making it overweight from the start, and mandating design features that led its " welded-together engines ", a pair of cumbersome Daimler-Benz DB 606 " power systems ", to perpetually catching fire in flight during operational missons over both the Eastern Front and the United Kingdom.

Their Me-262's jets often carried R4M rockets, and other types of " bomber destroyer " aircraft had unguided rockets as well.

The completion of the Space Shuttle program and cancellation of the B-1 bomber had led to a decline in revenues, and Beall sought to diversify the company away from government contracts.

Despite having a limited range, by the end of LeMay ’ s command in 1957, the B-47 had become the backbone of SAC, comprising over half of its total aircraft and eighty percent of its bomber capacity.

The B-70 was intended to eventually replace the B-52 in the long-range role, and while SAC initially thought it could eliminate the medium bomber role of the B-47, it had retrenched from this position and introduced the B-58 to replace the B-47 in the medium range role.

Nuclear weapons theorists had speculated about how to integrate the flexibility and positive control ( over the attack ) of the manned bomber with the invulnerability ( in the attack ) of the ballistic missile.

While the Soviet Union had the technology to create a jet-powered strategic bomber comparable to Boeing's B-52 Stratofortress, they instead produced the Tupolev Tu-95 Bear, powered with four Kuznetsov NK-12 turboprops, mated to eight contra-rotating propellers ( two per nacelle ) with supersonic tip speeds to achieve maximum cruise speeds in excess of 575 mph, faster than many of the first jet aircraft and comparable to jet cruising speeds for most missions.

After considering various specifications for such an advanced jet bomber in late 1946, the Air Ministry issued a request in January 1947 for an advanced jet bomber that would be at least the equal of anything the U. S. or the USSR had.

The RAF's then-current jet bomber the English Electric Canberra, introduced in May 1951 and designed during the war, could only have reached the Soviet border and had a capacity of 6, 000 lb ( 2, 720 kg ).

A white paper produced by the Royal Air Force for the British government in 1961 claimed that the RAF's nuclear force was capable of destroying key Soviet cities such as Moscow and Kiev before bomber aircraft from the United States ' Strategic Air Command had entered Soviet airspace, " taking into account Bomber Command ’ s ability to be on target in the first wave several hours in advance of the main SAC force operating from bases in the United States .".

** Soviet military forces shoot down an unarmed reconnaissance bomber that had strayed into East Germany ; the 3 U. S. flyers parachute to safety.

During the 1950s a Soviet hoax had led to American fears of a bomber gap.

From the perspective of others, however, the proposed airborne units had a key weakness: they required exactly the same resources as the new strategic bomber capability, another high priority, and would also compete with the badly stretched strategic air lift capability, essential to Churchill's strategy in the Far East.

The key development for the bombing of Japan was the B-29 bomber plane, which had an operational range of 3, 250 nautical miles ( 6, 019 km ) and was capable of attacking at high altitude above where enemy defenses were very weak.

Gary allowed them to be convicted on the theory that their speeches had encouraged the unknown bomber to commit the act.

The 412th had reported in the summer of 1945 that the P-80 would be well suited for bomber escort, counterair, and ground support.

The wing continued to support SAC operations in the Far East and Southeast Asia through 1975, and from April 1972 to October 1973 the wing again had all its bomber resources loaned to other organizations for combat and contingency operations.

Jessica, a communist supporter, had moved to the US, but her husband Esmond Romilly volunteered for the RCAF and died when his bomber developed mechanical problems over the North Sea.

The episode was based on the discovery of the B-24 Liberator four engine bomber Lady Be Good and her crew's remains, which had crash-landed at night, deep in the Libyan desert after running out of fuel, while returning from a WWII bombing mission over fascist Italy.

For example, autopilot systems that are prolific today were started to help bomber planes fly steadily enough to hit precision targets from high altitudes.

Today automated flight control is common to reduce pilot error and workload at key times like landing or takeoff. Autopilot was first invented by Lawrence Sperry during World War II to fly bomber planes steady enough to hit precision targets from 25, 000 feet.

point of view, are the beautiful, full-figured women like Daisy Mae, Wolf Gal, Stupefyin ' Jones and Moonbeam McSwine ( a caricature of his wife Catherine, aside from the dirt )— all of whom found their way onto the painted noses of bomber planes during World War II and the Korean War.

The B-17 Flying Fortress is a heavy bomber from World War II.

The USAF adopted the AGM-86 for its bomber fleet while AGM-109 was adapted to launch from trucks and ships and adopted by the USAF and Navy.

A B-1 bomber was lost on 12 December 2001 to mechanical failures just after take off from the island, but the crew survived and was rescued by the USS Russell ( DDG-59 ).

This evolution in capability has pushed the manned bomber from the front-line deterrent force in all forces but the United States and Russia, and land-based ICBMs have similarly given way largely to SLBMs.

During World War I, the Imperial Army Air Service utilised a wide variety of aircraft, ranging from fighters ( such as those manufactured by Albatros-Flugzeugwerke and Fokker ) to reconnaissance aircraft ( Aviatik and DFW ) and heavy bombers ( Gothaer Waggonfabrik, better known simply as Gotha, and the Zeppelin-Staaken R. VI " giant " heavy bomber ).

It was not until the concluding months of 1943 that the only realized attempt to build a " true four engined " version of the A-series He 177, the He 177B emerged with only three airworthy prototypes produced by early 1944, some three years after the first flights of the Avro Lancaster prototypes, the most commonly encountered RAF bomber pounding Germany on strategic night raids from 1942 to the end of the war in Europe.

The spring 1942 Amerika Bomber program also sought to produce useful strategic bomber designs for the Luftwaffe, with their prime design priority being an advanced trans-oceanic range capability as the main aim of the project to directly attack the United States from Europe or the Azores.

* In February 1943, a Lancaster bomber hit the cable of a barrage balloon and crashed without survivors on the return from a raid on the U-boat pens at Lorient.

It has the second largest fleet of ballistic missile submarines and is the only country apart from the U. S. with a modern strategic bomber force.

* 1964 – The North American XB-70 Valkyrie, the world's first Mach 3 bomber, makes its maiden flight from Palmdale, California.

SAC was the operational establishment in charge of America's land-based strategic bomber aircraft and land-based intercontinental ballistic missile ( ICBM ) strategic nuclear arsenal from 1946 to 1992.

Another change in late 2009 and early 2010 resulted in the transfer of the ICBM force from AFSPC and the B-52 and B-2 strategic bomber force from ACC to the newly-established Air Force Global Strike Command ( AFGSC ), which is a direct descendant of SAC.

But SAC did more than just provide a nuclear option during the Korean War, It also deployed four B-29 bomber wings that were used in tactical operations against enemy forces and logistics All of this led LeMay to express concern that “ too many splinters were being whittled off the stick ”, preventing him from being able to carry out his primary mission of strategic deterrence.

SAC bomber, tanker and reconnaissance aircraft flew numerous conventional bombing, aerial refueling and reconnaissance missions over and near Iraq from RAF Fairford and other bases in Great Britain, Turkey, Akrotiri, Cyprus, Diego Garcia, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

In early 2010, the B-2 Spirit and B-52 Stratofortress bomber force was also reassigned to AFGSC, while the B-1 Lancer bomber force remained in ACC due to the B-1's removal from the nuclear strike mission and reassignment to conventional roles only.