Comment by jccooper

It's a mid-50s bomber. The skin will be easy to replace. Drill out the rivets, rivet on new sheet metal. I don't think it even dragged the wingtips.

Might be some complications with the nose gear and the payload bay (the main gear is on the wings, and untouched) but nothing terribly complicated. I wouldn't be at all surprised if it was designed with some assumption of belly landings; it's a warplane after all.

Repairs surely isn't automatic, and who knows how tight that's program's budget is, but planes are repaired from such landings all the time, and if they attach any value to the vehicle it can be repaired, and not at great cost.