Some B-1 bomber planes are returning to service after a safety stand-down.
The nation’s B-1 fleet is housed at Ellsworth Air Force Base near Rapid City and Dyess Air Force Base in Texas.
The entire fleet was grounded last month because of a fuel-system problem. They started flying again last week.
U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds, R-South Dakota, is on the Senate Armed Service Committee. He says the planes are showing their age.
“The B-1B has been used in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it’s been the workhorse of the United States Air Force," Rounds says. "We put a lot of hours on them and, you know, the type of flying they do means that they’ve got to have a lot of repairs done to them.”
B-1 bombers were developed in the 1980s. They will be phased out sometime this decade as the Air Force develops a new bomber called the B-21 Raider.