Palmdale, California: America’s latest nuclear stealth bomber made its debut Friday after years of secretive development as part of the Pentagon’s response to growing concerns over a future conflict with China.
The B-21 Raider is the first new American bomber aircraft in more than 30 years. Almost every aspect of the program is classified.
As dusk fell at Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, the public got their first glimpse of the Raiders in a tightly controlled ceremony. It began with a flyover of three bombers still in service: the B-52 Stratofortress, B-1 Lancer and B-2 Spirit. The hangar doors then slowly opened and the B-21 was partially pulled out of the building, its wheels close to the outer pavement.
“This is not just another airplane,” Austin said. “It is a symbol of America’s determination to defend the republic we all love.”
The B-21 is part of the Pentagon’s efforts to modernize all three stages of its nuclear triad, which includes silo-launched nuclear ballistic missiles and submarine-launched warheads, as it seeks to meet China’s rapid military modernization in recent years. Decades of anti-terrorist operations have derailed. ,
China is on track to have 1,500 nuclear warheads by 2035, and its advantages in hypersonics, cyber warfare and space capabilities pose “the most consequential and systemic challenge to US national security and the free and open international system”, the Pentagon said this week. said. Its Annual China Report.
Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James said, “We needed a new bomber for the 21st century that would allow us to deal with more complex threats, such as the ones we fear we will one day face from China, Russia ” The raider contract was announced in 2015.
While the Raider may be similar to the B-2, once you get inside, the similarities stop, said Cathy Warden, chief executive officer of Northrop Grumman Corp., which is building the bomber.
Warden said, “The way it operates internally is vastly advanced compared to the B-2, because the technology has advanced so much in terms of computing capability that we can now embed that into the B-21’s software.” “
Austin said other changes included advanced materials used in the coatings to make the bomber harder to detect.
“Fifty years of progress in low-observable technology has gone into this aircraft,” Austin said. “Even the most sophisticated air defense system would struggle to detect the B-21 in the sky.”
Several defense analysts said other advances included new ways to control electronic emissions so the bomber could deceive anti-radar and disguise itself as another object, and using new propulsion techniques. Could
“This is an incredibly short overview,” Warden said. “You’ll hear it, but you can’t really see it.”
Six Raiders are in production. The Air Force plans to build 100 that can deploy either nuclear warheads or conventional warheads and can be used with or without a human crew. Both the Air Force and Northrop also point to the Raider’s relatively quick development: The bomber went from contract award to first in seven years. Other new fighter and ship programs have taken decades.
The price of the bombers is unknown. The Air Force had previously priced each at an average cost of $550 million in 2010 dollars — about $753 million today — but it’s unclear how much is actually being spent. This total will depend on how many bombers the Pentagon buys.
“We will quickly fly this aircraft, test it and then move it into production. And we will build up a bomber force in numbers adapted to the strategic environment ahead,” Austin said.
The undisclosed cost worries government watchdogs.
“It can be a huge challenge for us to do a general analysis of such a major program,” said Dan Grazier, a senior defense policy fellow at the Project on Government Oversight. “It’s easy to say that the B-21 is still on schedule before it actually flies. Because it’s only when one of these programs goes into the actual test phase that real problems are discovered. He said, When schedules start to slip and costs escalate.
The B-2 was also envisioned to build a fleet of over 100 aircraft, but the Air Force built only 21 due to cost overruns and the changed security environment following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Ready to fly any day now due to significant maintenance needs of aging bomber, said
Warden said the B-21 Raider, which takes its name from the 1942 Doolittle Raid over Tokyo, will be slightly smaller than the B-2 to increase its range. It will not make its first flight until 2023. However, Warden said that Northrop Grumman has used advanced computing to test the bomber’s performance using a digital twin, which is about to be unveiled.
The bomber will have its first training program and squadron at Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota, although the bombers are also expected to be deployed to bases in Texas and Missouri.
U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds, a Republican from South Dakota, led the state’s bid to host the bomber program. In a statement, he called it “the most advanced weapon system ever developed by our country to defend ourselves and our allies.”
Warden said that Northrop Grumman has also incorporated maintenance lessons learned from the B-2.
In October 2001, B-2 pilots set a record by flying 44 straight hours to drop the first bombs on Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks. The B-2 often performs long-haul missions because there are few hangars globally that can accommodate its wingspan, which limits where they can land for maintenance. The hangar must also be air-conditioned as the Spirit’s windows do not open and hot weather can cook the cockpit electronics.
Warden said the new raider would also get new hangars to accommodate the bomber’s size and complexity.
Though with Raider’s expanded range, “it won’t need to be based in a theater,” Austin said. “It would not require logistical support to put any targets at risk.”
There was one final noticeable difference in the first take itself. While both went public in Palmdale, the B-2 was moved out in 1988 amid much public fanfare. Given the advances in surveillance satellites and cameras, the raider was only partially exposed, keeping its sensitive propulsion systems and sensors under the hangar and protected from prying eyes.
“The magic of the stage,” said Warden, “is what you don’t see.”