AIR FORCE GOES ON THE OFFENSIVE TO DEFEND BOMBER; MEDIA GET RARE ACCESS TO B-2.

Byline: Robert Burns Associated Press 

Smarting from a volley of criticism of its B-2 stealth bomber, the Air Force fired back Friday in a public relations offensive. Target: skeptics who doubt the $2 billion warplane is worth its wings.

Reporters and TV crews were given extraordinary access to the B-2 - including a chance to sit in the two-seat cockpit, although the electric power was turned off to hide classified aspects. It was the first time reporters have been allowed in the cockpit, officials said.

``We have a capability today that nobody else has,'' Brig. Gen. Thomas Goslin said en route to Whiteman from Washington with a group of reporters, photographers and cameramen for an up-close look at the B-2, which was developed in the 1970s and '80s as a super-secret Cold War project.

But Goslin and the Air Force also have a public relations problem nobody else has.

Designed to dodge enemy radar, the B-2 is attracting domestic flak. At stake is not only the plane's public image but a crucial decision in Congress whether to produce more.

``The public is being led to believe it's not ready to go,'' Capt. Jeff Long, a B-2 pilot, said as he stood beneath one of the odd-shaped planes whose 178-foot wingspan makes it as wide as a conventional bomber though it is as short as a fighter.

``Our whole mission is to go somewhere and not be seen,'' Long said. ``We're ready to go.''

The latest criticism came from the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, which reported in August that the warplanes, which can drop either nuclear or conventional bombs, must be ``sheltered or exposed only to the most benign environments - low humidity, no precipitation, moderate temperatures.''

Thus was born what the B-2's manufacturer, Northrop Grumman Corp., calls a myth about the world's most expensive airplane: that it's a fair-weather weapon that can't get rained on.

``It's not true,'' said Goslin, who is commander of the 509th Bomb Wing at Whiteman, the only Air Force unit that is flying the B-2. ``We know the plane is combat-ready right now. I don't worry about flying through weather to go to combat.''

If it suffers at all, it is from too-high public expectations, Goslin said. ``It's like saying, `How come my fifth-grade kid can't do calculus?' '' he said.

He and others acknowledged, however, that the Air Force has discovered that maintaining the B-2's stealthy qualities has proved harder than expected.

In a show-and-tell tour Friday, TV news cameras were positioned to film a dark-gray B-2 doing ``touch-and-goes'' on Whiteman's 12,000-foot runway, and reporters were allowed to sit in the cockpit of a B-2 in its high-tech hangar, a climate-controlled building protected by armed security guards. Members of the public normally are not allowed within 20 feet of a B-2.

Goslin and other Air Force officials accused the news media of exaggerating the B-2's stealth maintenance problems, but at Whiteman on Friday the Air Force engaged in a little of its own hyperbole. Col. Bill Hood, in charge of logistics, showed reporters a B-2 being washed inside an open-air hangar to dispel what he said was a misconception that the plane ``melts when underwater.''

Goslin said that before the end of this year a group of B-2s will be deployed abroad for the first time on a training mission.

Eight are operational; eventually there will be 21.

Lt. Col. Greg Biscone, commander of the 393rd Bomb Squadron at Whiteman, said he was disappointed that some people think the B-2 is a lemon.

``It's not perfect, but it's awesome,'' he said.

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Photo: (color) no caption (B-2 Bomber)