From 2023 (YouTube Edition): A Bone to Chew Envisioned in the 1960s as a platform that would combine the Mach 2 speed of Convair’s sexy but temperamental B-58 Hustler with the range and payload of Boeing’s rock-steady B-52 Stratofortress, Rockwell’s B-1 Lancer was meant to ultimately replace both aircraft. Following a long series of studies, Rockwell International (now part of Boeing) prevailed—besting Boeing, General Dynamics, and North American—in the U.S. Air Force’s Advanced Manned Strategic Aircraft (AMSA) design contest, submitting a concept that would, years later, emerge into the Cold War world as the B-1A.
