I went to high school in the Dayton, OH area and did nerd stuff like Science Olympiad. A favorite source on the team for inexpensive supplies for the building e

I went to high school in the Dayton, OH area and did nerd stuff like Science Olympiad. A favorite source on the team for inexpensive supplies for the building events was Michelson's, a surplus store that stocked capacitors in several aisles and sold wire by the pound. Besides components, they sold some items in varying degrees of completeness. I cannot verify any part of this story, but I was talking to the cashier one day, and he told me a story of the store ending up with some items from the cancelled B-1A program. When the program was revived as the B-1B, some serious-looking men came to the store to retake possession of said items out of concern for them falling into the wrong hands. Wright Patterson AFB is a short drive away, but I don't know what role it may have played in the B-1 program. If it was involved, I guess it might've plausibly been a source for some surplus to Mendelson's. Note that the B-1 program long predates me. The employees, on the other hand, were old enough that they could've witnessed the alleged events first-hand. The elevator operator, in particular, looked like he was older than time itself. The store is sadly now gone, in case anyone was thinking of paying a visit to see what else may have turned up there.