40 years ago, the first BONE arrived at Dyess Air Force Base, Texas.

June 2025 marks a major milestone for one of the U.S. Air Force’s most iconic bombers. As detailed in a public release posted by the service on June 6, 2025, the B-1B Lancer celebrates 40 years of operations from Dyess Air Force Base, Texas. The base has been closely associated with the aircraft since the first B-1, “The Star of Abilene,” arrived on June 29, 1985.

Officially named “Lancer”, but affectionately called the BONE (from “B-one”) within the fighter pilot community, the bomber was first developed as the B-1A, a highly supersonic (capable of over Mach 2) nuclear-delivery bomber, but it eventually entered service in a modified slower (but still supersonic) version, the B-1B, in the final years of the Cold War.

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