Why the new B-21 Raider stealth bomber looks the way it does

Return of the High-Level Bomber

       

Credit: Northrop Grumman

Stephen Liddle looks into the surprisingly long story that led to the first flight of the most advanced heavy bomber the world has ever seen.

The first flight of a completely new combat aircraft – especially the manned variety – doesn’t happen often these days. If we’re considering US heavy bombers, then the most recent before this month would have been the Northrop B-2A Spirit, in 1989. Before that, the B-1 in 1974 was preceded by the B-58 and B-52, both in the 1950s. It doesn’t happen often, which makes the stunningly lit baby steps of the new Northrop Grumman B-21A quite exciting.

The product of the Advanced Technology Bomber project and code-named Senior Ice, the B-2 was revealed not long after the F-117 and the whole concept of stealth was officially acknowledged. Attention was focussed inevitably on the seeming magic of the ‘invisibility’ to radar, but Low Observability is a suit of techniques and technologies that improve survivability. By limiting the opponent’s ability to detect and engage, the freedom to operate is vastly increased. In the 1980s, with the Cold War proper still in full swing, it had been two decades since the favoured method of penetrating the other side’s formidable air defence systems had become the Hi-Lo-Hi mission. The route into the target was only considered viable if low-level, terrain-following tactics were adopted. Aside from enemy action, these were dangerous for the crews of the existing heavy bombers adapted to the new the regime. As a USAF B-52G crew member once told me, “In the Gulf, we crossed the border at 250 feet. The minimum ejection height was 300 feet.” At least he had an ejector seat; as is well known, the three rear crew members on the RAF’s V-Bombers had to resort to unlikely manual escape.