The United States Air Force intends to make the first flight of its new stealth bomber to radar, the B-21 Raider, in 2023. The aircraft had its production accelerated within the context of the rivalry with China, and the Ukrainian War introduced a new element in the equation.
The B-21 is expected to leave the hangar for the first time by the end of this year. So far, there are six units under construction, one of which is already carrying out war load calibration tests. Usually, at this early stage of testing there are two prototypes ready, one for ground use, the other for flight.
There is no set date for the premiere. “The B-21’s first flight is guided by data, not date,” the Force said in a statement, making a play on the similarity of the English words (date/date).
The acceleration seems to make up for the delays so far: initially, the first flight of the device was scheduled for 2021, being later postponed to this year. The B-21 has been in development since the Air Force asked for designs to replace its fleet of 20 B-2 Spirit bombers in 2014.
The new device also joins the popularly called “invisible plane” class. Obviously, it is not, but it has elements to make it as stealthy as possible to radars, such as the design, the reduction of the heat signature of the turbines and the application of special coatings.
It’s a technology introduced most widely with the F-117 attack plane and made famous with the B-2, the most expensive plane ever produced, at a cost of $2 billion a copy. The forecast is that the B-21, also produced by Northrop Grumman, sell for US$ 600 million a unit.
In the record budget request for 2023, the largest in history and under the shadow of Vladimir Putin’s war against his neighbor, the US set aside US$ 3.3 billion for research with the model, plus US$ 1.8 billion for the acquisition of the first copies — something that jumps to US$ 19.5 billion in five years.
The B-21 is a frontline strategic weapon, like the B-2. In addition to replacing the predecessor, a subsonic flying wing like it, should take the place of the B-1B Lancer, a supersonic penetration in enemy defenses that still has 45 units flying.
The B-52 Stratofortress, in the air since the 1950s, must be kept, as it is a long-range attack aircraft with a large payload capacity. All three current and future models can employ conventional or atomic weapons, thus making up the air leg of the so-called nuclear triad, with missiles in silos and on submarines.
The bombers remain firm in American military doctrine and that of rivals such as Russia and China, as they provide a first or second strike alternative in the event of a nuclear conflagration in which silos are destroyed, for example.
Beijing has its own flying wing, the H-20, in secret development, and Moscow is developing another such plane, the PAK-DA, about which there is almost no reliable information. Perhaps for reasons of cost, for now Putin invests more in the latest version of the supersonic Tu-160.
For the Pentagon, despite the crisis caused by the invasion of Ukraine, China remains the great long-term strategic adversary of the US. The planned 100 B-21s were designed for this confrontation, and are more advanced than the American hypersonic missile program.
The Air Force itself, which successfully tested a model of the type for the first time on Saturday (14), casts doubt on the validity of hypersonic missiles against common missiles. Russians and Chinese, well ahead, defend the great capacity of evasion of defenses of these new weapons as a differential that justifies them.
