Admit it — you like seeing the low-level flyovers by Air Force or Navy planes. Especially when they are sleek and just exude the notion that they are flown by pilots who appreciate fast jets and faster… well, you get the idea. But while fighters often have that distinction, the B-1B Lancer has shown it, too can exude that — while still carrying a lot of firepower.
During President Trump’s trip to East Asia, the sailors on three Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carriers got to see a pair of B-1B Lancers do just such a flyby. The carriers USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71), USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) and USS Nimitz (CVN 68) operated with a Japanese “helicopter destroyer” during that time.
Each of these carriers usually operates with four squadrons of strike fighters, either F/A-18C Hornets or F/A-18E/F Super Hornets. That’s a powerful force, but the F/A-18Cs are limited to two missiles like the AGM-84 Harpoon/SLAM or AGM-158C LRASM, while the F/A-18E/Fs can carry four.
By comparison, a B-1B Lancer can carry twenty-four. So, the two Lancers in the video below can deliver the same number of missiles as an entire squadron of F/A-18Cs. In a naval battle with China, eight B-1s with LRASMs could conceivably take out two Chinese carrier groups. What those bombers could do with the AGM-158 JASSM and JASSM-ER to land targets would be equally devastating.
You can see a video of the Lancers doing a flyby of the three carriers and the Japanese “helicopter destroyer” below. The video was taken from a Navy helicopter orbiting the three-carrier formation.
