hree Killed in Copter Crash
       Investigators hope today to reach the site of a helicopter
 crash that killed three people and injured four others in Washing-
 ton state's Olympic mountains.  The rescue copter went down late
 yesterday while taking part in a search operation for a missing
 hiker. The helicopter crashed after taking off from a makeshift
 landing site near Mount Baldy. Heavy cloud cover hampered rescue
 operations at first, but all the victims were airlifted from the
 site. One of those hurt is in serious condition. The other three
 suffered less serious injuries.
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        B-2 takes public bath to dispel talk of vulnerability
     WHITEMAN AIR FORCE BASE, Mo. -- Smarting from a volley of criti-
 cism of its B-2 stealth bomber, the Air Force fired back Friday in a
 public relations offensive. Target: skeptics who doubt the $2
 billion war plane is worth its wings.
     Reporters and TV crews were given extraordinary access to the
 B-2 -- including a chance to sit in the two-seat cockpit, although
 the electric power was turned off to hide classified aspects.
     "We have a capability today that nobody else has," Brig, Gen.
 Thomas Goslin said en route to Whiteman from Washington with a group
 of reporters, photographers and cameramen for an up-close look at
 the B-2 Spirit, which was developed in the 1970s and '80s as a
 super-secret Cold War project.
     Designed to dodge enemy radar, the B-2 is attracting domestic
 flak. At stake is not only the plane's public image but a crucial
 decision in Congress whether to produce more.
     "The public is being led to believe it's not ready to go," Capt.
 Jeff Long, a B-2 pilot, said as he stood beneath one of the odd-
 shaped planes whose 178-foot wings make it as wide as a conventional
 bomber though it is as short as a fighter. "Our whole mission is to
 go somewhere and not be seen. We're ready to go."
     The latest criticism came from the General Accounting Office,
 the investigative arm of Congress which reported in August that the
 warplanes, which can drop either nuclear or conventional bombs, must
 be "sheltered or exposed only to the most benign environments -- low
 humidity, no precipitation, moderate temperatures."
     Thus was born what the B-2's manufacturer, Northrop Grumman
 Corp., calls a myth about the world's most expensive airplane: that
 it's a fair weather weapon that can't get rained on.
     "It's not true," said Goslin, who is commander of the 509th Bomb
 Wing at Whiteman, the only Air Force unit that is flying the B-2,
 "We know the plane is combat-ready right now. I don't worry about
 flying through weather to go to combat."
     He and others acknowledged, however, that the Air Force has
 discovered that maintaining the B-2's stealthy qualities has proven
 harder than expected. Training maintenance people has taken longer
 than planned.
     Goslin and other Air Force officials accused the news media of
 exaggerating the B-2's stealth maintenance problems, but at Whiteman
 on Friday the Air Force engaged in a little of its own hyperbole.
 Col. Bill Hood, in charge of logistics, showed reporters a B-2 being
 washed inside an open-air hangar to dispel what he said was a mis-
 conception that the plane "melts when under water."
     Goslin acknowledged that as recently as several months ago the
 B-2 had significant maintenance problems with some of the radar-
 absorbing materials on its surfaces that give it the ability to
 evade detection and tracking by enemy forces.
     Goslin said a special tape that seals joints and seams on the
 B-2's surfaces had a tendency to loosen during flight, requiring
 time-consuming repairs afterward. Now that happens less frequently,
 he said, and this improvement was too recent to have been reflected
 in the GAO report.
 Knoxville News Sentinel 13 Sept 97
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