First flight of the Northrop Grumman [NOC] B-21 Raider is still a go for this year, the U.S. Air Force and Northrop Grumman said on Sept. 13.
Six B-21s have been in final assembly at Northrop Grumman’s Plant 42 in Palmdale, Calif. The company said this week that it has begun B-21 engine runs in Palmdale as part of the ground test program.
“We’re still on track for first flight this year,” William “Elvis” Bailey, the director of the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, said on Sept. 13 at the Air & Space Forces Association’s air, space and cyber conference in National Harbor, Md.
“I’m a recovering tester so I’m still suspicious about things,” smiled Bailey, a former flight test engineer and chief of the test division at Arnold Engineering Development Center at Arnold AFB, Tenn. “The challenge for us is to stay focused. We have to be ready on day one to operate this aircraft.”
Thomas Jones, the president of Northrop Grumman Aeronautic Systems, said that the company has often received questions on B-21 progress from company shareholders and that the company’s goal is making the transition to a “highly effective test program” to deliver the B-21 expeditiously, “not cutting corners for acquisition theatrics.”
Retired Air Force Col. Mark Gunzinger, a former B-52 commander and the director of future concepts and capability assessments at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, said that DoD estimates that B-21 production will peak at 10 per year in the mid-2030s–half the rate needed and half that of the original plans for the Northrop Grumman B-2A Spirit.
The Mitchell Institute has argued that the Air Force needs to more than double its bomber fleet of 141 to 300, including 225 B-21s, to counter China, achieve nuclear deterrence, and prepare for two simultaneous conflicts.
Another key element for the B-21 program will be the development of new munitions to maximize the number of targets per sortie, Gunzinger said on Sept. 13.
In 2015, Northrop Grumman was awarded the Long Range Strike Bomber contract to develop the B-21, beating out a Lockheed Martin [LMT]-Boeing [BA] team. The Air Force has said that it plans to buy at least 100 B-21s.
The B-21 is to incorporate advances in low-observable maintenance to ensure the next generation bomber is ready to fly consistently when it reaches the field, the Air Force has said (Defense Daily, March 21).
Northrop Grumman said that not only does the company have a B-21 design to improve survivability over previous stealth aircraft, “we also now have a coating system that is as revolutionary in its maintainability as the original B-2 systems were in their stealth.”
Last December, Northrop Grumman and DoD rolled out the B-21 (Defense Daily, Dec. 3, 2022).