Beautiful B-2 Spirit and not-so-beautiful DoD testimony

Let's look at pictures first, before getting into the nitty gritty of U.S. Air Force project management.

Putting a B-2 through its paces at 90° North

This is a beautiful photo of a beautiful B-2 Spirit approaching the North Pole.

Testing B-2 performance at a geomagnetic extreme point 

The US Air Force provides some details about this test flight:

A B-2 Spirit flies to the North Pole on October 27, 2011, on a test mission from Edwards Air Force Base, California. The polar flight helped ensure that the B-2 maintains its combat capability in all environments...

The North Pole's coordinates are 90° North latitude and 0° East or 0° West longitude, take your pick. (For the sake of notational accuracy, it is usually expressed as 90° North but disregard that for the moment.) Patience, please, as I am going somewhere with this.

 Comfortable expedition to the North Pole
thanks to Russian icebreaker (2013)

So, 90°N 0°E is merely a "quarter" rotation of the Earth away from coordinates of  0°N 0°E according to the map projection of the World Geodetic System 1984. WGS84 is an oft-used global reference system for modeling the Earth. The U.S. Department of Defense and even more importantly, GPS (Global Positioning System) both use WGS84. By the way, the DoD developed GPS and made it publically and freely available to all in the early 1980s.

Null Island is L0L0

If one is doing geocoding with GPS and WGS84, the Library of Congress describes 0°N 0°E as 

"a curious blend of real and imaginary geography, of mathematical certainty and pure fantasy"

The more ephemeral aspect of the location, referred to by some as Null Island, is uhh mapped in the Library of Congress link above. Please click? It is a great image!

Further details, for the VERY curious, are available elsewhere: 

"Null Island is an ephemeral geography, a foggy ship of state sailing thru autumn mists, surrounded by sirens and map cherubs. Null geocodes, welcome home."

Latitude 0, longitude 0 is also the Land of L0L0! In another, Second Life, 0, 0 was the Land of LOL for me.

F-16 with bomb at Bagram

A GBU-54 is a really heavy precision-guided bomb. It uses both GPS and laser to find its target. Moving targets are challenging, and the GBU-54's "dual" guidance system improves accuracy. 

In the photo below, a GBU-54 is mounted under the wing of an F-16 at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan. I hope Joe Biden didn't leave it behind for the Taliban following our disastrous departure from Kabul in September 2021.

Courtesy U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Christopher Boitz 

I am curious whether those are two GBU-54s or one. If just one, does the smaller, oval-shaped thing next to it help launch it, or provide fuel for travel to its target? 

I think it is just one bomb, not two, because both objects have visible part numbers that start with "BJ21". I would really like to see more of the mechanism to secure the bomb under the wing, and how it releases! 

Thank you for your attention...

A few days ago, I saw a great meme thing on the Twitter X. It was a GBU-54 just like this one, hanging on the wing of an F-16. On the side was written, "Thank you for your attention to this matter". I can't find it now. This is the best I could do.

Peace through strength works.

Thank you for your attention to this matter. https://t.co/OkjMKOvsIS pic.twitter.com/QrCbYvlJQs

— Dustin Grage (@GrageDustin) July 3, 2025

That seems to be Donald Trump's new favorite phrase. I have read it frequently during the past few weeks, as part of his Truth Social and other communiques, especially with Iran and Israel, and the bombing of Iran's nuclear facilities in June 2025.

B-2s can deliver both conventional and nuclear missiles.

A very big flying wing!

The B-2 has a two-man crew, yet the aircraft is so large! It is much bigger than the two F-16s on the right and an F-18 on the left, in the image below.

Landing field at Anderson AFB in Guam

I like this next photo too. It really gives a sense of the size of a B-2, as an adult man walks the wing as part of routine maintenance.

Time to switch to the more serious part of this post.

Fear and loathing at the Department of Defense

In May 2024, Congressman Matt Gaetz and one of his colleagues questioned former Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austen about serious cost and reliability problems with the F-35.

Two of the most salient issues were cost control and conflict of interest. Let's start with a video excerpt.

Budget overruns and moral hazard

Only the grossest sort of corruption or lack of understanding would result in a manufacturer being responsible for performance testing of its own products. This is especially true when the product is an F-35. Each one costs about $100 million. Only 29% of the current fleet of F-35s are "mission capable", i.e. usable. Lockheed-Martin makes the planes. Lockheed-Martin also is responsible for reliability testing them. One would think it was time to find a different, more independent performance tester. 

Given the combination of massive cost ($1 trillion) and massive budget overruns (an additional $700 billion) for the F-35 (and that over 70% of the planes are so unreliable that they cannot be used), is there any way of salvaging this disaster? The sunk cost fallacy always applies, but some sort of lesson should be learned from the debacle. Given Lloyd Austen's demeanor during questioning, I'm not sure that anything was learned! Too bad that representatives from the contractor weren't present. 

Matt Gaetz wasn't my first choice for attorney general, but he was developing into a surprisingly good Congressman; he did hs job very well here. The Department of Defense needs better internal controls, including a better utilized OIG (Inspector General) to act as deterrence for mishaps such as the mismanaged F-35 development project

*Not sure why the still shot for the above video is so awful. Matt's teeth look normal once the video starts playing!

L0L0 addendum: PIRATA, pirates, and Houthis

The Library of Congress informs that 0°N 0°E is also the home of Soul in the PIRATA program. (I'm a bit concerned, as Soul hasn't been heard from for 45 days.)  Despite the intriguing name, PIRATA has nothing to do with piranhas, Pirates of the Caribbean, Somali pirates, "stateless dhows", nor those persistent Houthis. 

Houthis are active on Twitter, where they all register as "Arts & Entertainment" accounts. 

Who is the head of the Houthis? Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, of course. 

Hostile Houthi activity primarily disrupts maritime traffic in the Red Sea, which adversely impacts western Europe and maybe China, not the United States. When President Trump decided to take more serious action in late March 2025, after 18 months of Houthi attacks, the U.S. Navy received minimal support from the most affected nations: one UK destroyer and one ship from France. Denmark sent a brand new frigate; unfortunately, the first time it was fired upon, its missile defense system didn't work, and then it totally lost power due to crew inexperience with the electrical system. The U.S. Navy had to defend it from Houthis and it got sent home. Greece also sent a ship that promptly broke down, but at least it had the excuse of being 20 years old.

Donald Trump set a time limit of 30 days for the Houthi campaign. On day 31, he asked for a status report, and decided that it wasn't worth the cost and potential hazards of further engagement. He negotiated a ceasefire with the Houthis in May 2025, thanks to the ubiquitous Steve Witkoff and, and more significantly, the Sultanate of Oman. 

On May 5, Trump announced that the US would “stop the bombings” after the Houthis told the US that “they don’t want to fight anymore” and agreed "not to blow up more US ships". Vice President Vance said that if the Houthis stop shooting in the Red Sea, they can “go back to doing whatever it was they were doing before attacking civilian vessels.”

Israel was not included as a party to the agreement, so they will still be contending with the Houthi menace until a separate detente is achieved. 

Houthis launch missiles from both land and sea

I was surprised by the more favorable tone toward Trump by the Arab Center of Washington D.C. (a non-partisan NGO headquartered in Doha, Qatar), in their coverage of the US - Houthi ceasefire compared to CNN and The Times of Israel. CNN continues to ridicule Trump, same as ever; Israel is likely concerned that the ceasefire doesn't include Israeli vessels, as well as having lingering uneasiness about the sole Houthi ballistic missile that made it through and landed right near Ben Gurion Airport last year. I really hope there isn't any more of that.