"SteveM8597" wrote in message
...
AV-1 is Northrop's airframe, I do not know of any upgrade for that bird.
AV-2 thru AV-6 were ungraded to production version, about that time.

Not true. The final B-2 production run was to be 20 planes after the
program
was cut from 132 then to 75 and finally 20. AV--2 thru -6 were to be
flight
test assets

AV-2 thru AV-6 were flight test assets and were always intended to be
brought up to production configuration; I have the complte set of crew
shirts. Including my wife's, "ship from hell", crew shirt.

but when the cut to 20 came, they were included as part of the 20
iin SAC's Bomber Roadmap with plans to upgrade them to final production
configuration. AV-1 was so different than the others that it was
warranted to
not be worth the cost of upgrade.

No ****.

At that time Northrop-Grumman was quoting
$350 MIllion. Then the $550M long lead initiative came along. the AF
took
the position that It couldn't afford to support another 20 and the $550M
got
diverted to upgrading AV-1 to operational configuration. Interestingly,
the
cost for the upgrade rose from $350M to $550M at the same time. It was
the
final B-2 out of 21 delivered. It is flying at Whiteman today.

Geeze, they had to rip the entire flight deck and ebay to make that work.

2001(IIRC), the non flying structural test article was recently delivered
to the AF Museum.
Pilot shortages were not the issue with a 40 plane fleet.

Pilot jobs are, pay attention and try not to take the most rediculess
interpretation of your own misreadings.

At 150+
maintenanace manhours per flight hour, there weren't enough greensuiters
at the
time to maintain a larger fleet. I trust that number has gone down some.

Body and fender work is not so skilled.