STEALTH PAIR BOUND FOR GUAM; TRAINING WILL BE 1ST FOR B-2S OUTSIDE U.S.

Byline: Susanne M. Schafer Associated Press 

For the first time, the Air Force is sending its $2 billion B-2 stealth bombers to a base overseas on a training exercise, the service announced Monday.

Two of the bat-wing warplanes and about 200 crewmen will fly from their home base at Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo., to Andersen Air Force Base in Guam next week, the Air Force said in a statement.

``This deployment . . . represents the first time B-2s will deploy to and conduct sustained training operations from a forward location,'' the Air Force said.

Calling the deployment a ``global power exercise,'' the Air Force said it was intended to ``demonstrate . . . the aircraft's ability to deploy and operate from locations throughout the world.''

The exercise will last from Monday to April 3 and will consist of dropping weapons at a bombing range, flying low-level missions, and having ground crews ``sharpen their skills at maintaining and arming their aircraft in an unfamiliar environment.''

The key objective for the Guam deployment will be to determine whether flying mock combat missions away from its home base will degrade the B-2's radar-evading capabilities.

No B-2 has been used in combat. Eight are operational; eventually there will be 21.

The huge warplane can drop either nuclear or conventional bombs. It is normally housed in specially configured hangars at Whiteman, and has special maintenance crews that care for its high-tech armament and stealth characteristics.

The stealth bomber aroused controversy in recent months over whether it would be deployed during the crisis with Iraq. However, the military commander in charge of the operation, Marine Corps Gen. Anthony Zinni, said he had not requested the bomber as part of his preparations for a potential attack.

Last fall, the Air Force had to fend off charges that the bomber couldn't be deployed in harsh environments.

In August the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, reported that the warplanes must be ``sheltered or exposed only to the most benign environments - low humidity, no precipitation, moderate temperatures.''

That started 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.

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

The aircraft was developed in the 1970s and 1980s as a super-secret Cold War project and was designed to dodge enemy radar.