3rd page. B-1A ship 2 in flight. next

How am I so sure it's ship 2? Look at the underbelly, just forward of the wing pivot point and just aft of the #1 weapons bay. See those two shiny patches? Want to know why they aren't painted????

Nah, no secret electronics or weapons, no national security at all. Just that Ship two leaked fuel like a sieve from those two areas. The stress of the shaker testing had weakened the skin there quite a bit, and we were constantly repairing skin cracks and fuel leaks. We finally stripped the paint off those two areas to make it easier to isolate and repair leaks right up until flight time. Our chief sheet-metal tech, TSgt Tony Colman, would just stand there starting at 2 AM on a flight day, waiting for a crack to develop. And they would....