Is the US tweeting out of the flock, with the sixth generation of a new program B-21 bomber?

US Air Force’s new B-21 bomber

U.S. Air Force’s new B-21 bomber

The U.S. Air Force’s new B-21 bomber is scheduled to form its first public appearance in December 2021. But there’s tons of labor to try to before the plane can debut.

The U.S. Air Force in 2015 awarded Northrop Grumman a $23-billion contract to develop the new bomber as a partial replacement for the service’s existing fleet of around 160 B-1, B-2 and B-52 bombers.

More than four years later, work is well underway on the primary B-21 test plane. Northrop is building the bomber at a secretive facility in Palmdale, California that previously manufactured Global Hawk spy drones.

Many aspects of the B-21’s design remains classified. The Air Force has released a crude artist’s impression of the plane that depicts a flying-wing design that’s almost like the B-2’s design but lacks the older bomber’s serrated “dogtooth” edge.

Northrop added the dogtooth edge to enhance the B-2’s low-level performance. The B-21, however, is meant to work mostly at high altitude, so it doesn’t need the serration.

It’s unclear whether the B-21 has four engines just like the B-2 does or simply two, Tirpak acknowledged. “The consensus among aerospace analysts is that the jet likely uses F135 Pratt & Whitney’s engine, which also equips the F-35 fighter.

Two F135s could generate 56,000 pounds of dry (non-afterburning) thrust but would require a bigger aperture to try to so than the four General Electric F118 engines within the B-2, which combine to supply about 68,000 pounds of thrust.

The B-21 is believed to be somewhat smaller than the B-2, with a payload of around 30,000-pounds, just large enough to hold one GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator precision-guided conventional bomb, the most important within the Air Force inventory.

The Air Force has stated that the B-21, which can be capable of nuclear and traditional roles, would have a pilot-optional mode, effectively transforming it into a remotely-operated drone with the flip of a couple of switches.

The Air Force initially said it wanted between 80 and 100 of the new bombers to exchange the B-1 and B-2 fleets within the 2030s. That number since has grown.

The Air Force in 2018 announced it wanted to expand its bomber force from nine squadrons to 14. “A bomber squadron’s got about eight airplanes in it,” But the Air Force needs a minimum of 174 B-21s. The service expects each bomber to cost around $600 million.

The Air Force is preparing for the B-21’s potentially decade-long test program. The flying branch reactivated the 420th Flight Test Squadron at Edwards Air Force Base in California to handle the bomber’s trials. That’s an equivalent squadron that tests the B-2.

Edwards’s South Base area is that the squadron’s new home. Satellite images of Edwards reveal a variety of latest structures within the South Base area, including one building that's about 220 feet square—about the dimensions needed to shelter a B-2-sized aircraft. The Air Force has also relocated B-1 and B-52 test activities faraway from South Base.

Interestingly, the Air Force plans to share technology between the B-21 program and therefore the parallel Next-Generation Air-Dominance program, which could eventually produce a replacement for the F-22 fighter.

The service chose former B-21 program manager Col. Dale White to go up NGAD.

Maj. Gen. Scott Pleus, Pacific Air Forces Director of Air and Cyber Operations, floated the thought of basing the new “sixth-generation” fighter design partially on the B-21. “A B-21 that also has air-to-air capabilities” and therefore the ability “to work with the family of systems to defend itself, utilizing stealth—maybe that’s where the sixth-generation airplane comes from,” Pleus said.