I had a great trip Friday, to visit a friend at Whiteman Air Force Base. Ken is a Squadron Commander of one of the B-2 squadrons and an excellent tour guide. Obviously, most of the base had restrictions on photography, so some of these are stock pictures from Whiteman's site, but this is what we saw. We had 45 knots of head wind all the way over to Warrensburg, but it was way worth it. After we got the security okay, and temporary id badges, Ken enlightened us with some of the history of Whiteman, beginning as a glider base in 1942. It's first mission was to train para-troopers and glider tactics for the Army Air Force. After the war and a brief demobilization, the base was reborn in 1951 as part of the Strategic Air Command. The sixties brought about the cold war, and Whiteman became a Minuteman missile base. In the late eighties, it looked as though Whiteman may yet again stand 
down this time due to the Strategic Arms Reduction treaties, but then in 1987, it was announced Whiteman would be the home of the first deployed B-2 bombers.Whiteman is the home of not only the
B-2 bombers, but A-10s, T-38s, and AH-64 Apache helicopters. We got to see where the crews train, pilots and technicians alike. Talking to the crews really makes you appreciate our men and women in uniform, and the sacrifices they make.Ken walked us around the B-2 trying to explain the different systems, and pointing out the control surfaces. The B-2 is fly-by wire, that being the computers tell it what the pilot wants to do. I don't know how accurate it is, but it amused me when Ken said it "was just a toaster until the computer tells it to fly." Yes, we even got a chance to fly the B-2 simulator. With Ken in the right seat, I had the opportunity to take-off and fly to our tanker. Somehow, I managed to connect and the refueling process began, but I'm afraid we would have run out of gas long before I was able to keep us coupled long enough to take on a
full load. Ken let me shoot an ILS approach and fly a couple of
VFR patterns. This was indeed a great experience.By the way, tours are available to the general public check here for the link.
