As the US Air Force (USAF) turned 77 on September 18, the service released the first-ever footage of its futuristic B-21 Raider bomber in flight. The bomber is poised to succeed the aging B-2 Spirit and represents the US Air Force’s long-range strike capabilities.

The footage was released on September 18 as part of the B-21 Update Panel at the main annual conference of the Air & Space Forces Association. The B-21 Raider stealth bomber could be seen taking off and landing at Edwards Air Force Base, where it is currently undergoing a rigorous flight test program.

“A B-21 Raider conducts flight testing, which includes ground testing, taxiing, and flying operations in California. Flight testing is a critical step in the test campaign managed by the Air Force Test Center and 412th Test Wing’s B-21 Combined Test Force (CTF) to provide survivable, long-range, penetrating strike capabilities to deter aggression and strategic attacks against the United States, allies, and partners,” the service stated.

The footage shows certain features that have already been studied by military watchers: its distinctive exhaust system, a unique cockpit arrangement tailored for signature control, and swing-up auxiliary intake doors designed to provide additional airflow.

The B-21 update panel comprised of General Thomas Bussiere, head of the Air Force Global Strike Command; William Bailey, Department of the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office director; Maj. Gen. Jason Armagost, Eighth Air Force and Joint-Global Strike Operations Center commander; and Thomas Jones, Northrop Grumman Aeronautics Systems sector president.

The panel informed that the aircraft is currently capable of undertaking up to two test flights each week and assured that the USAF is dedicated to enabling daily flights soon.

“I am very pleased with how that’s going,” said Thomas Jones, President of the Northrop Grumman Aeronautics Systems sector. We’ve been able to make significant expansions of the flight envelope.”

The panel noted that drawing on experiences from the notoriously maintenance-intensive B-2 Spirit, the goal of turning the B-21 into a “daily flyer” is being pursued.

Northrop Grumman’s Jones stated that three aircraft “in various configurations” are currently undergoing flight tests.

The panelists also discussed a noteworthy achievement: the B-21 finished its static test on the G-1 asset, one of the two ground-based test pieces that are used to assess the aircraft’s structural integrity. They stressed that the test was required to validate confidence in the digital models and confirm that the aircraft’s structural design was sound.

“We’ve completed structures testing for our first ground test vehicle,” panelist William Bailey, Department of the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office Director, announced. “Now, what really we were doing there was proving out the structure, you know, of the platform, and also, at the same time, too, validating that digital model that we’ve been working on throughout – trying to understand analytically how the aircraft’s going to perform, then testing it and testing it physically, then going back to that model.”

The US Air Force and Northrop Grumman have increased the scope of the B-21’s testing because of these two ground test items. The articles are being used to assess the bomber’s core construction and the amount of time it takes for specific elements to break. The aircraft is also currently undergoing a fatigue test.

According to Bailey, the crew has been able to “understand analytically how the aircraft’s going to perform, then test it physically, then go back to that model (the program’s digital model).”

The Most Advanced Aircraft Ever Built Is Coming Soon

General Bussiere spoke on the strategic challenges that enemies currently pose, the need for the bomber force, and the future capabilities that the B-21 will bring to bear to counter those threats. In addition, he emphasized the new aircraft’s high degree of technology — it has already been called the first of its kind in the sixth generation.

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“Nobody on the planet can do what we’re doing right now. Nobody on the planet can build an exquisite, technologically advanced platform like the B-21, and quite frankly, nobody on the planet can hold at risk what we can hold at risk at a time and place of our choosing,” said Bussiere.

The remarks are significant given that the Chinese answer to the B-21 Raider, the next-generation H-20 bomber, is understood to be in the development phase, and the Russian PAK-DA is still far from development.

This essentially means that by the time the B-21 enters service, it will be the only sixth-generation aircraft in the world.

In November 2023, the first pre-production Raider took its first flight from Plant 42 in Palmdale, California. The aircraft is currently stationed at the state’s Edwards Air Force Base and is believed to be the closest to the ultimate production configuration.

The B-21 update panel also confirmed that 21 bombers have been contracted under low-rate production. The first deliveries are expected by the mid-2020s.

Moreover, the USAF recently announced that B-21 squadrons would be stationed at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, Dyess Air Force Base in Texas, and Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota, which has been chosen as the first operational B-21 aircraft base.

The B-21 is designed to be the cornerstone of the US’s future bomber fleet, gradually replacing the aging Rockwell B-1 Lancer and B-2 Spirit. The B-21 Raider, named after the 80 airmen who participated in the historic World War II “Doolittle Raid” in Tokyo in 1942, was developed using Northrop Grumman’s advanced digital engineering and manufacturing techniques.

Apart from continuously developing and manufacturing the B-21s, the US Air Force is also enhancing infrastructure, educating staff, and refining tactics, techniques, and protocols to help prepare for the eventual deployment of the first operational Raiders.

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