B2 Stealth Bomber Video Download
Janis Shaeffer
The Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit, also known as the Stealth Bomber, is an American heavy strategic bomber, featuring low-observable stealth technology designed to penetrate dense anti-aircraft defenses. A subsonic flying wing with a crew of two, the plane was designed by Northrop (later Northrop Grumman) and produced from 1987 to 2000.[1][3] The bomber can drop conventional and thermonuclear weapons,[4] such as up to eighty 500-pound class (230 kg) Mk 82 JDAM GPS-guided bombs, or sixteen 2,400-pound (1,100 kg) B83 nuclear bombs. The B-2 is the only acknowledged in-service aircraft that can carry large air-to-surface standoff weapons in a stealth configuration.
Development began under the Advanced Technology Bomber (ATB) project during the Carter administration, which cancelled the Mach 2-capable B-1A bomber in part because the ATB showed such promise. But development difficulties delayed progress and drove up costs. Ultimately, the program produced 21 B-2s at an average cost of $2.13 billion (($3.88 billion in 2022), including development, engineering, testing, production, and procurement.[5] Building each aircraft cost an average of US$737 million,[5] while total procurement costs (including production, spare parts, equipment, retrofitting, and software support) averaged $929 million ($1.07 billion in 2022) per plane.[5]
The project's considerable capital and operating costs made it controversial in the U.S. Congress even before the winding-down of the Cold War dramatically reduced the desire for a stealth aircraft designed to strike deep in Soviet territory. Consequently, in the late 1980s and 1990s lawmakers shrank the planned purchase of 132 bombers to 21.
The B-2 can perform attack missions at altitudes of up to 50,000 feet (15,000 m); it has an unrefueled range of more than 6,000 nautical miles (6,900 mi; 11,000 km) and can fly more than 10,000 nautical miles (12,000 mi; 19,000 km) with one midair refueling. It entered service in 1997 as the second aircraft designed with advanced stealth technology, after the Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk attack aircraft. Primarily designed as a nuclear bomber, the B-2 was first used in combat to drop conventional, non-nuclear ordnance in the Kosovo War in 1999. It was later used in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya.[8]
By the mid-1970s, military aircraft designers had learned of a new method to avoid missiles and interceptors, known today as "stealth". The concept was to build an aircraft with an airframe that deflected or absorbed radar signals so that little was reflected back to the radar unit. An aircraft having radar stealth characteristics would be able to fly nearly undetected and could be attacked only by weapons and systems not relying on radar. Although other detection measures existed, such as human observation, infrared scanners, as well as acoustic locators, their relatively short detection range or poorly-developed technology allowed most aircraft to fly undetected, or at least untracked, especially at night.[9]
In 1974, DARPA requested information from U.S. aviation firms about the largest radar cross-section of an aircraft that would remain effectively invisible to radars.[10] Initially, Northrop and McDonnell Douglas were selected for further development. Lockheed had experience in this field with the development of the Lockheed A-12 and SR-71, which included several stealthy features, notably its canted vertical stabilizers, the use of composite materials in key locations, and the overall surface finish in radar-absorbing paint. A key improvement was the introduction of computer models used to predict the radar reflections from flat surfaces where collected data drove the design of a "faceted" aircraft. Development of the first such designs started in 1975 with the Have Blue, a model Lockheed built to test the concept.[11]
Plans were well advanced by the summer of 1975, when DARPA started the Experimental Survivability Testbed project. Northrop and Lockheed were awarded contracts in the first round of testing. Lockheed received the sole award for the second test round in April 1976 leading to the Have Blue program and eventually the F-117 stealth attack aircraft.[12] Northrop also had a classified technology demonstration aircraft, the Tacit Blue in development in 1979 at Area 51. It developed stealth technology, LO (low observables), fly-by-wire, curved surfaces, composite materials, electronic intelligence, and Battlefield Surveillance Aircraft Experimental. The stealth technology developed from the program was later incorporated into other operational aircraft designs, including the B-2 stealth bomber.[13]
By 1976, these programs had progressed to a position in which a long-range strategic stealth bomber appeared viable. President Jimmy Carter became aware of these developments during 1977, and it appears to have been one of the major reasons the B-1 was canceled.[14] Further studies were ordered in early 1978, by which point the Have Blue platform had flown and proven the concepts. During the 1980 presidential election campaign in 1979, Ronald Reagan repeatedly stated that Carter was weak on defense and used the B-1 as a prime example. In response, on 22 August 1980 the Carter administration publicly disclosed that the United States Department of Defense was working to develop stealth aircraft, including a bomber.[15]
The Advanced Technology Bomber (ATB) program began in 1979.[16] Full development of the black project followed, funded under the code name "Aurora".[17] After the evaluations of the companies' proposals, the ATB competition was narrowed to the Northrop/Boeing and Lockheed/Rockwell teams with each receiving a study contract for further work.[16] Both teams used flying wing designs.[17] The Northrop proposal was code named "Senior Ice", and the Lockheed proposal code named "Senior Peg".[18] Northrop had prior experience developing the YB-35 and YB-49 flying wing aircraft.[19] The Northrop design was larger while the Lockheed design included a small tail.[17] In 1979, designer Hal Markarian produced a sketch of the aircraft that bore considerable similarities to the final design.[20] The USAF originally planned to procure 165 ATB bombers.[1]
The Northrop team's ATB design was selected over the Lockheed/Rockwell design on 20 October 1981.[16][21] The Northrop design received the designation B-2 and the name "Spirit". The bomber's design was changed in the mid-1980s when the mission profile was changed from high-altitude to low-altitude, terrain-following. The redesign delayed the B-2's first flight by two years and added about US$1 billion to the program's cost.[15] An estimated US$23 billion was secretly spent for research and development on the B-2 by 1989.[22] MIT engineers and scientists helped assess the mission effectiveness of the aircraft under a five-year classified contract during the 1980s.[23] Northrop was the B-2's prime contractor; major subcontractors included Boeing, Hughes Aircraft (now Raytheon), GE, and Vought Aircraft.[8]
A procurement of 132 aircraft was planned in the mid-1980s but was later reduced to 75.[33] By the early 1990s the Soviet Union dissolved, effectively eliminating the Spirit's primary Cold War mission. Under budgetary pressures and Congressional opposition, in his 1992 State of the Union address, President George H. W. Bush announced B-2 production would be limited to 20 aircraft.[34] In 1996, however, the Clinton administration, though originally committed to ending production of the bombers at 20 aircraft, authorized the conversion of a 21st bomber, a prototype test model, to Block 30 fully operational status at a cost of nearly $500 million ($866 million in 2022).[35] In 1995, Northrop made a proposal to the USAF to build 20 additional aircraft with a flyaway cost of $566 million each.[36]
The program was the subject of public controversy for its cost to American taxpayers. In 1996, the GAO disclosed that the USAF's B-2 bombers "will be, by far, the most costly bombers to operate on a per aircraft basis", costing over three times as much as the B-1B (US$9.6 million annually) and over four times as much as the B-52H (US$6.8 million annually). In September 1997, each hour of B-2 flight necessitated 119 hours of maintenance. Comparable maintenance needs for the B-52 and the B-1B are 53 and 60 hours, respectively, for each hour of flight. A key reason for this cost is the provision of air-conditioned hangars large enough for the bomber's 172 ft (52 m) wingspan, which are needed to maintain the aircraft's stealth properties, particularly its "low-observable" stealth skins.[37][38] Maintenance costs are about $3.4 million per month for each aircraft.[39] An August 1995 GAO report disclosed that the B-2 had trouble operating in heavy rain, as rain could damage the aircraft's stealth coating, causing procurement delays until an adequate protective coating could be found. In addition, the B-2's terrain-following/terrain-avoidance radar had difficulty distinguishing rain from other obstacles, rendering the subsystem inoperable during rain.[40] However a subsequent report in October 1996 noted that the USAF had made some progress in resolving the issues with the radar via software fixes and hoped to have these fixes undergoing tests by the spring of 1997.[41]
Some B-2 advocates argued that procuring twenty additional aircraft would save money because B-2s would be able to deeply penetrate anti-aircraft defenses and use low-cost, short-range attack weapons rather than expensive standoff weapons. However, in 1995, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and its Director of National Security Analysis found that additional B-2s would reduce the cost of expended munitions by less than US$2 billion in 1995 dollars during the first two weeks of a conflict, in which the USAF predicted bombers would make their greatest contribution; this was a small fraction of the US$26.8 billion (in 1995 dollars) life cycle cost that the CBO projected for an additional 20 B-2s.[52]
df19127ead