Forgiveness - Lt. Gen. Richard Reynolds on crashing a $379 million B-1 prototype

By the time Lieutenant General Richard Reynolds retired from the USAF in 2005, he’d had a distinguished 34-year career as a B-52 pilot, an Air Force test pilot with experience flying 72 different aircraft types, a B-2 system program office director, a commander of the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards AFB, and more.

- JAN TEGLER

If you walk into his home office you'll find a letter opener made from a piece of molten aluminum. Etched on its handle is the word "Forgiveness." The long-ago-cooled metal is a fragment of what was once the second B-1 bomber prototype. Known as "Ship-2," it was one of the four original A-model B-1s from Rockwell International that preceded the 100 B-1B Lancers built between 1983 and 1988, just 45 of which remain in service.

The letter opener is a tangible reminder of the August, 29, 1984 accident that instantly made national news on TV and in newspapers. It's also emblematic of compassion Reynolds didn't expect in the wake of the tragic incident.

"I thought it was game over"

"I thought we had ejected too low," Reynolds remembers. "I was at peace with it. The ground was coming up fast!" It was a beautiful Wednesday morning.

Then Maj. Dick Reynolds was pilot-in-command in Ship-2's left seat with Rockwell International's senior engineering test pilot Doug Benefield in the copilot's seat and flight engineer Captain Otto Waniczek seated at one of the two aircrew stations amid flight test instruments behind them.

Just to the north of Edwards AFB along an east-west corridor that follows the contour of Cords Road, the aircrew was setting up to execute the fifth test point sequence of the day's test flight, performing air minimum control speed, or Vmca, tests.

The B-1's ability to sweep its wings from 67.5 degrees aft to 15 degrees forward can significantly alter its center of gravity depending on sweep. Consequently, the bomber has a wide range of CG points at which it is in balanced flight-and even more where it is out of balance-depending on aerodynamic configuration, weight, airspeed, and other factors.