B-1 LANCER

B-1 Lancer

The B-1 Lancer is a strategic bomber used by the United States Air Force. Its origins began in the 1960s as a supersonic bomber with sufficient range and payload to replace the B-52 Stratofortress, but developed primarily into a low-level, subsonic penetrator with long range. The design was canceled and re-instated multiple times over its lengthy development history, as the theory of strategic balance changed from flexible response to mutually assured destruction and back again. It finally entered service over twenty years after first being studied.

The B-1B production version has been in service with the United States Air Force (USAF) since 1986. The Lancer serves as the supersonic-capable component of the USAF's long-range bomber force, along with the subsonic B-52 and B-2 Spirit. As with official popular names of other aircraft, the Lancer is commonly called the "Bone" (originally from "B-One") within the USAF. With the retirement of the EF-111 Raven in 1998 and the F-14 Tomcat in 2006, the B-1B is the last variable-sweep wing aircraft remaining in U.S. military inventory.

The B-1 was conceived as the Advanced Manned Strategic Aircraft (AMSA) program circa 1965. AMSA was the last in a series of programs through the 1960s that looked at replacing the B-52 with a multi-role supersonic aircraft capable of long-range bombing and missile launching with nuclear weapons. A series of cancellations led to its service introduction being greatly delayed until the later half of the 1980s, over twenty years after the program first started.