The B-21 Raider is theAir Force's new high tech stealth bomber. It's designed fromlessons learned from the B-2 spirit, a flyingwing design that costs around $2.2 billion peraircraft. Stealth comes with hugetactical and strategic advantages, but notwithout a pretty big cost of entry. Design during the ColdWar and delivered after.
The fall of the SovietUnion. The change in defense priorities meantthat only a handful of these bombers wereordered 21 in total. This time around, theAir Force plans on buying in bulk with roughly 100b-21s planned and the possibility for more onthe table. The B 21 looks verysimilar to the B-2 because the fundamentalsof stealth and long range penetrating air arebuilt around the concept.
Of a flying wing. Andthat even goes back to the Yb-49 jet when JackNorthrop actually created some of the first flyingwings. The B-21 is also thefirst modernized element of the so-called nucleartriad, land based nuclear arm, intercontinentalballistic missiles or ICBMs, submarines withnuclear tipped missiles and bombers that cancarry nuclear weapons make up the triad.
If one leg of the triadis eliminated by surprise, the others canstill retaliate in the event of a nuclear war. This is the Northrop madebomber touting a space age stealth coating. It has the ability atsome point to fly without a pilot. It's designedto deliver conventional and nuclear weapons. The US bomber fleet isgetting old.
If the Air Force isgoing to keep ahead of the competition and theb-21 must rise to the occasion. Stealth is whatseparates the B-2 from every other bomber. The shape of theaircraft, combined with radar absorbentmaterials, keep the radar cross-section or what isdetected by radar much smaller than nonstealthy aircraft.
The B-2 effectivelyshrinks the ability of the enemy to see it,creating paths to targets that otherwise would bemuch tougher to navigate. The B2 can fly far up to6000 miles without refueling, stayundetected and hit targets with precision. And when I think aboutthe mission statement, United States Air ForceFly fight, win, air power, anytime,anywhere, that's what the.
B 21 is about. The B2 is dependent oncomputer systems to calculate its fly bywire system and to keep the flying wing designstable. In 2008, one of the expensive aircraftcrashed in Guam during takeoff after a sensorwas compromised by moisture, which led to acascade of errors by the computers needed to flythe plane. We have a handful ofB-2s. The B-2 program.
Started in 1976. So the stealthtechnology, the the avionics, the logistics,the cost to support that program, simplyput, are outdated. In December 2022, a B-2spirit was damaged during an emergency landing. Not much is known aboutwhat this means for the aircraft in question,but it could end up being costly for the AirForce. This is one more.
Reason the Air Force isaiming for triple digit production numbers forthe B-21. It would decrease theimpact on the Air Force if an aircraft was lostdue to accidents or combat. The Air Force has beencontemplating how to replace the B 2, B 1 andB-52 bombers for decades. The B-1B Lancer is asupersonic bomber that is treaty prohibited fromcarrying nuclear weapons.
It's also maintenanceintensive and getting older. And the B-52 hasbeen in service since the dawn of the nuclear age. It's likely they will bein service for over 80 years before the lastone is retired. They will most likelyserve alongside the B-21 as a non stealthycounterpart. Believe it or not, theB-52, which has been around for a very longtime and will likely keep.
Flying past its centuryMark is going to continue flying right alongsidethe B 21 Raider in large part because it's justreally economical and easy to update. So thefuture of Americ a's bomber force willactually be its oldest bomber and the mostadvanced and modern stealth bomber the worldhas ever seen. The B-2 is not aninexpensive aircraft to operate. Each flighthour costs around.
$150,000, with modernlogistics and lessons learned from operatingthe spirit. The Air Force is hopingto drop that number for the B-21. We've taken a lot ofadvantage of the digital environment that's nowavailable, coming off of a lot of commercialadvancements, but then applying them in aweapon system environment to design the aircraftmore efficiently, to.
Design it with a lotmore precision and design a lot more functionalityand adaptability into its into its architecture. In 2021, China tested afractional orbital bombardment system. Not much is known aboutit, but it could give China the capability ofhitting targets worldwide in a rapid way that alsoevades defenses. Which begs the questionis investing in stealth.
Bombers prudent in theage of hypersonics? So you spend $550 Millionon one B 21 rider that can fly for the next 50years and continue to deliver munitions. Or you can spend thatsame amount on five hypersonic missiles,which you can only use five times. One other concern is thatthe United States could cut off the purchaseorder, which would.
Increase the unit cost. Other weapons programs,such as the F-22 Raptor and the B-2 Spirit, havehad planned production numbers, which wouldhave spread out the cost of the program, but thenthey were reduced to a handful of purchases. The B-21 may end upcosting $753 million per copy, but the pricecould fluctuate depending on how many are ordered.
But even that figure willonly hold true if we do end up buying 100 ormore like we intend. So the B 21 could bemuch more affordable if we ultimately order 100or 120. Our adversaries defenseshave increased tremendously since theadvent of the B two. Again, starting in 1976. Chinese and Russian airdefense systems, the S400, the S500 arehighly capable.
They're extremelydangerous. As the threat evolves,we're going to be able to evolve with not only theairplane itself, but the mission systems that goin it to write us advance capability because wewant to stay ahead of the threat. And that'sthat's the goal. It also represents a bigsavings over using non stealth platforms forthese same missions because they're not assurvivable if you lose 30.
B 52 is to conduct amission, even though the B 52 is a cheaperaircraft, you still lost a ton of money and time. The B 21, which isprobably going to be the healthiest aircraft everto fly when it enters Service cannot justdeliver ordnance, but it can also collectintelligence to let us know what things arehappening on the battlefield, what sortsof defenses the enemy.
Might be fielding, andwhere exactly they are. It's the first part ofthe nuclear triad to be modernized. I've beeninside missile silos and I've been on B 52. These are essentiallyliving museums. It's important that ournuclear triad that's provided security fordecades now be modernized. The B 21 is built to beadaptable.
It uses an openarchitecture so that it can quickly adopt newsystems such as weapons built years from now. We have that open, openarchitecture and we have developed software insuch a way that allows us to evolve that softwaremuch more rapidly on the order of days and weeksrather than months and years, as was the casein the B-2, where we were able to add capability,the B2.
It just takes a littlemore time. And certainly we'veevolved on that program to the almost to thepresent state of the art. But now the B 21 has gotthat built into its architecture. So it willbe much more robust in the long term. And it isbuilt around the the dimension ofaffordability as a fundamental. The B 21 theoreticallymay eventually even get a.
Bomber wingman that'sgot similar capabilities, but was designedspecifically to operate without a crew on board. The Air Force firstannounced that and then backpedaled on itbecause the cost was looking to be too high. But as time progresses,we may find that that's cheaper to field thanmore crude bombers. So we may see aresurgence in that.
Concept to.
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Have confidence 10 of this stuff flying over your country.
Wow that’s some bomber that is