B1 bomber program titanium surplus repurposing

Air Force cancellation of the B-1 left thousands of tons of titanium 6-4 in pre-ordered shapes. Navy convinced the Air Force to transfer the stockpile to David Taylor, which used four-inch plate to fabricate welding tables in lieu of buying new ones.

The second day, it was myself — I'd been working on one-inch thick submerged arc welding — and the Navy had been working on one, two, and four inch thick titanium. They actually had welding tables down at Carderock that were made of four-inch thick titanium. Why did they have this? The Air Force had tried to build a B-1 bomber, and then it got cancelled, and they had tremendous amounts of titanium they had ordered ahead of time. This was all 6-4. It was all supposedly in some unused runway at some Air Force base — thousands of tons of titanium in all kinds of shapes and forms of titanium 6-4 for the B-1 bomber program. The Navy convinced the Air Force, when the B-1 was canceled, to give them that titanium. Down at David Taylor, they wanted to buy a new welding table and didn't have the budget for it, so they just went out and got some four-inch thick titanium plate and made their own. Seeing that table was probably worth a quarter million dollars if you had to go out and buy it, maybe more.