US Air Force releases two stunning new images of its $750m B-21 Raider bomber

The United States Air Force has released stunning new images of its B-21 Raider bomber, a nuclear-capable craft and the first of its kind to be unveiled since the end of the Cold War.

The next-generation stealth bomber was publicly unveiled at a ceremony in California last December.

Two new photos of the B-21 Raider were shown Tuesday at the 2023 Air and Space Warfare Symposium in Aurora, Colorado.

Air Force Global Strike Commander Thomas A. Bussier called the craft the “future backbone of the bomber fleet” at the event.

The United States will have a minimum of 100 of the nuclear-capable B-21 Raiders at its disposal when they make their debut, which Bussier said would be sometime in the mid-2020s.

The actual cost of the B-21s is unknown. In 2010, it was projected to cost $550 million, $750 million in 2023 dollars when adjusted for inflation, according to foxnews.

The B-21 won’t take off until 2024. In the long term, the US Air Force hopes to have at least 220 of them to replace the aging B-1 and B-2 bombers.

The service has estimated that the program will likely cost at least $203 billion over 30 years to develop, purchase and maintain the B-21 fleet.

The B-21 is part of the Pentagon’s efforts to modernize all three legs of its nuclear triad, which also includes silo-launched nuclear ballistic missiles and submarine-launched warheads, as it moves from the counterterrorism campaigns of the past decades to confronting China’s rapid military demand. modernization.

China is on track to have 1,500 nuclear weapons by 2035, and its achievements in hypersonics, cyber warfare and space capabilities present “the most significant and systemic challenge to US national security and the free and open international system,” he said the Pentagon this week in its annual China report.

Pentagon officials and representatives from contractor Northrop Grumman unveiled the B-21 Raider in a dramatic ceremony in Palmdale, California, in early December.

As a crew of aviators removed the tarp covering the sophisticated bomber, the crowd of guests cheered, excited to see the plane for the first time after years of anticipation.

The ceremony began with a flyby of the three US bombers still in service: the B-52 Stratofortress, the B-1 Lancer and the B-2 Spirit. The hangar doors were then slowly opened and the B-21 was partially towed out of the building.

“This is not just another plane,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said. “He is the embodiment of America’s determination to defend the republic we all love.”

Similar to the B-2, a ‘flying wing’ design already in the Air Force inventory, the B-21 can deliver conventional and nuclear weapons around the world due to its in-air refueling capabilities. air and long range. .

Each B-21, billed as a “sixth-generation bomber,” was projected to cost approximately $550 million each in 2010 dollars, or about $750 million in today’s inflation-adjusted dollars.

Northrop calls the aircraft a sixth-generation aircraft given its ability to connect to other aircraft and easily integrate future weapons into its systems architecture.

Other changes include advanced materials used in skins to make the bomber harder to spot, Austin said.

“Fifty years of advances in low-observable technology have gone into this aircraft,” Austin said. “Even the most sophisticated air defense systems will have a hard time spotting a B-21 in the sky.”

Other advances likely include new ways to control electronic emissions so the bomber could spoof adversary radars and disguise itself as another object, and the use of new propulsion technologies, several defense analysts said.

It also features low-observable surface material that enables more durable stealth that will require less maintenance and keep operating costs and downtime to a minimum, Doug Young, industry vice president and general manager of Northrop Grumman Aeronautics Systems, told Reuters in an interview.

While the Raider may resemble the B-2, once you get inside, the similarities disappear, said Kathy Warden, chief executive of Northrop, which is building the bomber.

“The way it operates internally is extremely advanced compared to the B-2, because the technology has evolved so much in terms of computing power that we can now incorporate it into the B-21 software,” Warden said.

Northrop beat out a team made up of Boeing and Lockheed Martin when it won the 2015 contract to build the bomber, along with suppliers including engine maker Pratt & Whitney, Collins Aerospace, GKN Aerospace, BAE Systems and Spirit Aerosystems.

The deployment at Northrop Plant 42 in Palmdale provided the first photographs of the new bomber. Until now, only artist renderings have been published.

Six of the planes, due to make their maiden flight in mid-2023, are in various stages of assembly. More than 8,000 people from Northrop Grumman, industry partners and the Air Force are working today on the program that consists of more than 400 suppliers in 40 states.