In 1988 the B-2 officially joined the ranks of the US Air Force's bomber fleet.
The world's first stealth bomber, the B-2 was designed to penetrate deep into enemy
territory and strike at targets no other aircraft could possibly hope to reach and survive.
With three decades worth of stealth technology under its belt, America's Northrop Grumman
aerospace and defense company is now set to deliver the US Air Force's next stealth bomber,
the B-21.
Hello, and welcome to another episode of The Infographics Show- today we're taking a look
at all we know about the ultra secretive B-21.
Secret barely describes the B-21.
The US has traditionally been extremely protective of its stealth planes, and with good reason.
In 2008 after a year long operation, Chinese hackers successfully penetrated a few American
contractor's secure networks and managed to steal some design secrets of the F-35.
Years later, those exact same design features showed up in China's attempt at a 5th generation
fighter, the J-31.
Yet while there's serious and multiple reasons to doubt China could manage to build a fleet
of J-31s that could be on par with American-made F-35s, China's pilfering of F-35 secrets is
not something the US is willing to repeat.
Thus the B-21 Long Range Bomber program has been wrapped in so much secrecy that even
American congressmen have expressed serious frustration with the program.
In 2017 the late US senator John McCain railed against the Department of Defense in a hearing
after even the armed services oversight committee was denied information on additional spending
for the B-21 program.
As one analyst jokingly put it, “Well, we know it can fly.”
And fly it can- really, really high.
In 2016 Northrop Grumman released a single promotional image of the B-21 Raider, revealing
a flying wing design much like the B-2 stealth bomber, but unlike the B-2 the B-21 does not
have the kite-like body of the B-2.
From this single design feature we can ascertain that the B-21 is meant to fly much higher
than the B-2, at minimum in excess of 60,000 feet (18,288 meters).
That's because the B-2 was originally designed to fly at this height and had a body designed
without the kite-shape it has now, and closer to the B-21 Raider- but late into the development
program a nervous US Air Force grew fearful of stealth technology.
Not knowing how effective the technology would be in the long run, or how fast rivals could
develop technology to detect a stealth bomber, the US Air Force grew cold feet at the thought
of investing hundreds of billions of dollars into a next-generation bomber who's only defensive
measure was stealth.
Thus they forced Northrop Grumman to re-design the plane so that it could fly low to the
ground if need be in order to avoid radar the way non-stealth planes do: flying low
and fast.
This design change necessitated an expansion of the aircraft's fuselage to accommodate
more fuel required for low altitude flight and help generate lift, giving us the B-2's
distinctive kite shape.
But as history has shown us, the US Air Force should have had more faith in their plane.
While peer competitors such as Russia and China have developed more advanced radar and
remote sensing technology, the likelihood of not just tracking but getting a weapons-quality
lock on an American B-2 is extremely low.
The best method of tracking and engaging a stealth plane is to use an infrared targeting
sensor, but these require very close proximity to the target aircraft and give an operator
a field of view similar to trying to scan the entire sky while looking through a straw.
Confident in new developments in radar absorbent materials and other classified stealth breakthroughs,
the US Air Force has this time given the go-ahead for the B-21 Raider to remain an extremely
high altitude aircraft, apparent in the plane's design and reduced fuel load (as it takes
less fuel to fly at higher altitudes).
While its maximum ceiling is still classified, it's a safe guess that the B-21 will fly at
minimum the 60,000 feet the B-2 was always meant to reach but never did.
The B-21 Raider however will be much more than just a bomber, although it will be nuclear
capable as current B-2s are.
The Raider is also designed to be an airborne communications node, loitering deep in denied
airspace and relaying data from its own powerful sensors to other aircraft or even satellites.
It will also be able to network between various American military assets, sharing data between
squadrons of planes and giving every US plane in the air a complete picture of the battlespace.
This means that a B-21 will be able to loiter over hostile airspace and detect enemy aircraft
or ground installations, then thanks to advancements in US battlespace networking, it will even
be able to direct long-range missiles fired by other American aircraft safely outside
of harm's way to their targets.
While the F-35 has similar capabilities, it cannot fly as high as the B-21 will, and with
its very high perch a Raider will be able to see far more than an F-35.
Another thing we can confirm about the B-21 Raider thanks to a Freedom of Information
Act request is that each aircraft will be able to be operated manned or remotely, something
no other aircraft in the world can do.
Within two years of reaching initial operational capability, each B-21 in the US fleet will
have the ability to be remotely piloted or even have it fly nearly completely autonomously,
bringing a human into the loop to make final targeting decisions.
This will allow the Raider to fly into the most hostile and denied air spaces in the
world without risking American lives, threatening targets that current peer competitors might
have assumed for a long time to be unassailable due to the risk involved.
The US Air Force has plans to purchase 100 B-21s, and fully confident in its stealthy
features it has shown no signs of getting cold feet at the last minute.
This will be critical to achieving the Air Force's goal of acquiring 100 of these super-advanced
aircraft, as the B-2 is notoriously expensive running up to 1.5 billion dollars a piece.
This staggering cost is why the American B-2 fleet has always remained so small, at just
20 today.
Yet the B-21 Raider is not expected to reach these astronomical costs given that the reason
the B-2 became so expensive is because it never reached economy of scale- the US government
simply did not purchase enough that Northrop Grumman could mass-produce them cheaply.
With 100 B-21s on order, each individual aircraft will become cheaper to buy as more are built
and manufacturing techniques are perfected.
Yet the total price tag for the B-21, or what each initial plane may end up costing are
kept tightly under wraps, with the Department of Defense denying even the American congress
any insight into total costs, citing national security reasons.
America's B-2 stealth bomber is projected to remain in service for another two decades
to come, yet with Edwards Air Force Base officially becoming the test site for the B-21 just this
year, it's likely that within the next few years the B-2 will be sharing the skies of
the world with it's next-of-kin, the B-21 Raider Long Range Bomber.
While its full potential will remain a secret, much like the B-2, its clear that the B-21
is set to become a revolutionary aircraft the likes of which the world has never seen.
What do you think the B-21 may be capable of?
Does the public deserve more details about something their tax dollars are paying for?
Let us know in the comments . Also, be sure to watch our other video called – Why Does
the B2 Stealth Bomber Cost $2 Billion?
Thanks for watching, and as always, don't forget to like, share and subscribe, and as
ever, see you next time.