Stealth bombers not so stealthy after bad weather
     WASHINGTON (August 21, 1997 3:28 p.m. EDT) - Admitting that B-2
 stealth bombers need special protection from bad weather to save
 their radar immunity, the Air Force said Thursday it was delaying
 the planes' deployment abroad.
     Congressional investigators said in a report this week that
 special protective and maintenance shelters needed for the planes
 were not now available overseas.
     The Air Force stressed that although any overseas basing of B-2s
 was being delayed for perhaps two years or more while it addressed
 the problem, the planes could still fly non-stop to overseas targets
 from the United States.
     But experts said that the surprising report by the General
 Accounting Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, raised
 new questions about the world's most expensive aircraft.
     Northrop-Grumman Corp., which builds the B-2, has already de-
 livered 15 of the planned fleet of 21 planes to the Air Force and
 is working on the problem along with experts from the service.
     "The decision removing the requirement for a limited number of
 deployable B-2As ... was based on the current need for temperature
 and humidity-controlled hangars at deployed locations to support
 low-observable system maintenance," the Air Combat Command said in
 response to queries Thursday.
     "Keep in mind that at IOC (initial operating capability achieved
 earlier this year), there was no formal tasking which could not be
 supported with operations from the main operating base," it added in
 a statement from its headquarters at Langley Air Force Base,
 Virginia.
     The B-2 fleet is based at Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri, and
 the sleek black aircraft, which are almost all wing and little body,
 are maintained in special hangars which protect them from weather.
     The GAO said in its report that testing indicated that B-2 were
 sensitive to extreme climates, water and humidity and that "exposure
 to water or moisture can damage some of the low-observable enhancing
 surfaces on the aircraft."
     "Air Force officials said it is unlikely that the aircraft's
 sensitivity to moisture and climates or the need for controlled
 environments to fix low-observability problems will ever be re-
 solved, even with improved materials and repair processes," the
 report said.
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            Skydivers lose chance to set mass jump record
     PEPPERELL, Mass. (August 21, 1997 5:46 p.m. EDT) --- A soaking
 rain fell Thursday and washed away the hopes of some 80 parachutists
 who gathered at a small Massachusetts airstrip to try to set a New
 England skydiving record.
     "I'm paying the weather bill now," Fran Strimenos, the 45-year-
 old owner of the Pepperell Skydiving Center, told the crowd of frus-
 trated parachutists in a hangar as rain pummeled the airfield.
 "Meanwhile, you all pray for blue (skies)."
     The world record for the largest number of skydivers jumping
 simultaneously and holding a formation is 297, according to the
 Guiness Book of Records.
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     (I can't get enthused over this.  Jumping for sport is a bit
 like playing Russian Roulette. What about D-Day jumps 1944? or from
 a burning airplane? I have had my caterpillar for 53 years.  Jim)
--- DB 1.39/004487
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