A rendering of the B-21 Raider. (Northrop Grumman)
AFA 2022 — The US Air Force is set to lift the veil of secrecy around the B-21 Raider, its highly-classified, next-generation stealth bomber, with a formal rollout planned for the first week in December.
The timing of the rollout was announced today by Air Force acquisition executive Andrew Hunter during a roundtable with reporters at the Air Force Association’s Air, Space and Cyber conference.
The service has not cemented a final date for the event, which will take place at Northrop Grumman’s facilities in Palmdale, Calif., where the B-21 is in production. “We are still working to nail down all the plans,” Hunter said.
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In a news release, Northrop Grumman stated that the event would be “invitation only” and provide an “exclusive view” of the B-21 — hinting that those so lucky to see the new bomber in person may only be able to view it from a specific angle, allowing the Air Force and company to prevent any secret information about its design to be gleaned by onlookers.
“The B-21 is the most advanced military aircraft ever built and is a product of pioneering innovation and technological excellence,” Doug Young, Northrop’s sector vice president for aeronautics, said in the release. “The Raider showcases the dedication and skills of the thousands of people working every day to deliver this aircraft.”
The B-21 contract was awarded to Northrop Grumman in 2015, which beat out a Boeing-Lockheed Martin team. So far, Northrop has disclosed that it has six B-21s in production, with the first flight scheduled for 2023.
In March, then-Rapid Capabilities Office Director Randall Walden told Air Force Magazine that the first B-21 bomber had moved off the production line and into a calibration facility, where it will undergo testing to ensure the structure of the aircraft meets the Air Force’s requirements.
“It’s got landing gear. … It’s got wheels on it. … It’s got the wings on it. It really looks like a bomber,” Walden told the magazine.
The Air Force requested $5 billion for B-21 in fiscal 2023, including $1.7 billion in procurement funding, although the service will not disclose how many bombers that will buy. Overall, the Air Force plans on buying at least 100 B-21s. Each B-21 is projected to cost approximately $550 million in FY10 dollars.
Earlier this year, Air Force security officials told Breaking Defense that there had been an upswing of strange security incidents at the Air Force’s Plant 42 — the Palmdale-based facility where Northrop is building B-21 and where numerous other defense contractors work on black programs.
