This week, Northrop Grumman said on October 20 that it will officially release the new generation of stealth bomber B-21 "Raider" on December 2 this year. In addition, Norg also called B-21 the world's first "sixth-generation fighter". This is also 34 years after the B-2 "Ghost" stealth bomber officially debuted on November 22, 1988. The US Air Force will have a new bomber publicly unveiled. Therefore, the attitude of the B-21 will be shown in front of the public. Norg previously stated that the B-21 will achieve its first flight in the first half of 2023.
Although the B-21 stealth bomber project has long been well known, because the B-21 has a very high level of confidentiality within the US military, today, the B-21's real aircraft photos are still mysterious, except for a few carefully crafted renderings to ensure that key secrets are not leaked. Although Norg announced that the B-21 prototype had its first slide test in March this year, and U.S. Air Force executives also inspected the B-21 in March, indicating that all work before the B-21 was unveiled is coming to an end, Norg and the U.S. Air Force have not released a related photo so far.
Due to the highly confidential sector, the outside world is full of expectations for the way the B-21 is unveiled. When the B-2 stealth bomber , which was also highly confidential, debuted at the Northrop factory in Pamdale, in order not to let the public see the B-2 engine nozzle design, which is a core confidentiality, Norg Company restricted all audience seats to sit in the front half of the plane. Of course, Michael Dornheim, a reporter of Aviation Weekly, flew over B-2 at the de-off ceremony, unveiling the mystery of the B-2 nozzle. The photos he took created the biggest scoop in the history of Aviation Weekly, but this incident still revealed that Norg's confidentiality work was not in place, so the relevant lessons will inevitably be absorbed by the B-21's debut ceremony.
According to relevant inferences, it can be determined that the size of B-21 has been reduced based on B-2, and its maximum take-off weight is said to have been reduced from 170 tons of B-2 to 140 tons. Although the specific parameters of B-21 have not been announced due to high confidentiality, according to public information, the pneumatic layout of B-21 has been further optimized based on B-2, with the main feature being to turn the W-type tail of B-2 into a V-type configuration. In terms of power, the B-21 has been changed from a four-engine B-2 to a dual release, and will be equipped with two F-135 engines without an afterburner combustion chamber. The engine has reached 18 tons and will be increased to 22 tons in the future, which gives the B-21 a maximum ammunition load of 13 tons and a range almost as far as the B-2 (the specific figure is unknown, the maximum range of B-2 without refueling can reach 11,100 kilometers). In terms of stealth performance, the most important thing about the B-21 is to upgrade the reliability and easy maintenance of the stealth coating. Previously, the B-2's stealth coating maintenance work gave ground crews a headache and caused the crash of the "Kansas Ghost" B-2.
In terms of avionics, the B-21 has extremely strong networked collaborative combat capabilities and can marshal combat with other equipment such as drones, aerial electronic attack equipment, etc. In March this year, the US Air Force released a new proposal to study the idea of how to pair bombers with drones with autonomous combat capabilities for joint operations, and to study the vision of bombers and drones in collaborative combat, increasing bombers' survivability and multi-mission capabilities. U.S. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall pointed out at an air combat seminar on March 3 this year: "In the future, the B-21 will be used with drones. A bomber can form a formation with five drones to jointly build a 'small formation system'." If the relevant functions are true, it means that the intelligence level of the B-21 has reached the sixth-generation aircraft standard, which is also the reason why Norg claims that the B-21 is the world's first sixth-generation fighter.In terms of combat capabilities, in addition to performing strategic nuclear deterrence missions, the B-21 can also perform long-range precision strikes outside the defense zone and mount long-range anti-ship missiles to perform sea strike missions (currently, three active bombers in the United States have long-range sea strike capabilities, among which B-2 bomber was tested to launch JASSM-ER long-range anti-ship missiles at the end of last year). At the same time, as a bomber, the B-21 also integrates intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance capabilities. In the future, with the further development of ultra-high-speed weapons, the B-21 can also carry miniaturized ultra-high-speed weapons that can be loaded into the ammunition compartment.
Currently, Norg Company disclosed that a total of 6 B-21 prototypes are in different assembly and testing stages at the US Air Force Factory 42 in Palmdale, California. The company plans to deliver the first batch of B-21s to the US Air Force in 2025 (the US Air Force plans to purchase 100 aircraft). At the end of August this year, Norg also released the future production plant of B-21 in , South Dakota, (Figure 1, 2 below). After 2030, with the retired B-21 of B-2 and B-1B, the B-21 will be put into service with the B-52J, which has been equipped with the F-130 turbofan engine, forming the pillar of the US Air Force's strategic bomber (Figure 3 below is the B-52J renderings released by Boeing this week).
