- The U.S. Air Force revealed the new B-21 Raider bomber to the public for the first time on December 2.
- The B-21 Raider has been in growth for about seven years and can exchange the B-1 and B-2 bombers.
- The Raider will carry each typical and nuclear weapons into fight.
The U.S. Air Force unveiled the B-21 Raider bomber on December 2—the first new bomber to hitch the service since 1988. The bat-winged bomber is smaller however extra succesful than its predecessor, the B-2 Spirit, and the first plane will enter service later this decade. The B-21 will exchange older platforms and finally turn out to be the mainstay of the U.S. bomber fleet.
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The first B-21 Raider was unveiled at Plant 42, the U.S. Air Force’s superior plane analysis and growth facility in Palmdale, California. The B-21 is constructed by protection contractor Northrop Grumman, which additionally constructed its predecessor, the B-2 Spirit. The two plane are comparable in look, with massive bat-like wings, a scarcity of a tail part, a clean, featureless exterior, and a small, darkened cockpit in the nostril.
Kathy Warden, CEO and president of Northrop Grumman, calls the B-21 “a bomber like no other.”
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The B-21 Raider.
The Air Force describes the B-21 as a long-range, extremely survivable, penetrating strike stealth bomber. Northrop Grumman calls it a “sixth-generation” plane, the newest in a number of generations of armed jets relationship again to the finish of World War II. The F-22 Raptor, F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, and China’s J-20 fighter are the solely operational fifth-generation fighters in the world, so a sixth-generation plane is sort of a leap. The B-21 is the first sixth-generation plane constructed wherever in the world.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin thanked the Northrop Grumman workers who labored on the B-21, noting that they got here in “every day” throughout the Covid-19 pandemic. (The bomber is just a few months not on time, and never due to pandemic restrictions.) Austin mentioned the plane would have unmatched vary, and its stealth meant “even the most sophisticated air defenses” will wrestle to focus on it. He additionally alluded to the airplane’s “open architecture,” permitting it to be up to date with the newest weapons and electronics as time goes on.
“This is deterrence the American way,” Austin informed an viewers of navy personnel, authorities officers, Northrop Grumman workers, and media. “This is the first bomber of the 21st century.”
The new B-21 Raider at rollout, December 2, 2022.
Illuminated by blue stage lights, the B-21 Raider’s nighttime unveiling was possible prompted by a well-known incident in 1988, when Aviation Week & Space Technology editor Michael Dornheim rented a Cessna 172 airplane on the B-2’s unveiling day and flew overhead, whereas photographer Bill Hartenstein took revealing images of the new bomber. The Air Force had rolled the plane out of a hangar into the daytime daylight however solely gave media and assembled officers a direct frontal view of the plane. Dornheim, from his vantage level above, was capable of get a full view of the B-2, which the Air Force and Northrop Grumman had needed to obscure so long as doable.
Conventional weapons the B-21 will possible carry embody the GBU-53B Stormbreaker all-weather standoff bomb, Joint Air to Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM), and Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM). Hypersonic air to floor weapons are nearly sure, however the Air Force hasn’t explicitly talked about them but. Nuclear weapons the B-21 will possible carry embody the B61-12 nuclear gravity bomb and the Long Range Stand Off (LRSO) nuclear-tipped cruise missile.
The B-1B Lancer, B-2 Spirit, and B-52H Stratofortress flying over the Super Bowl, February 2021. By 2040, the three planes pictured right here will likely be decreased to 2: the B-21 Raider and B-52H.
The Air Force plans to construct a minimum of 100 B-21s, to exchange 20 B-2 Spirit and 45 B-1B Lancer bombers. That quantity is prone to go up, given China’s ongoing nuclear weapons buildup, the want for lengthy vary platforms in an Asia/Pacific typical conflict state of affairs, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The Air Force’s fleet of 76 B-52H Stratofortresses, constructed between 1961 and 1966, will serve alongside the B-21 into the 2040s and certain past.
Northrop Grumman has six B-21s constructed or at the moment underneath building. At least one B-21 is present process floor exams, together with powering up its electronics and testing techniques that don’t require the bomber to be airborne. First flight is tentatively scheduled for someday in 2023.
The B-21 Raider was named after Doolittle’s Raiders, a pressure of sixteen B-25 Mitchell bombers that mounted a shock assault on Japan, in April 1942, simply 5 months after Pearl Harbor. The pressure, led by legendary Gen. James “Jimmy” Doolittle, took off from the plane provider USS Hornet, struck targets throughout central Japan, and flew on to land at emergency airfields in China.
Writer on Defense and Security points, lives in San Francisco.
