New B-21 photos released, as engine runs begin

AFA 2023 — The Air Force’s B-21 Raider has started engine runs as part of its ground testing campaign at Northrop Grumman’s facilities in Palmdale, Calif., a top service official said Tuesday, a key step toward getting the stealth bomber in the air. 

“We are in the process of doing the engine runs on the B-21 at Northrop Grumman’s facilities at Palmdale California, and they’re going very well,” Gen. Thomas Bussiere, head of the Air Force’s Global Strike Command, said during a Tuesday panel at the Air & Space Forces Association Air, Space & Cyber conference in National Harbor, Md. 

“And we are very well looking forward to first flight this year,” he added.

The service’s development aircraft used for testing, which Bussiere dubbed T-1, will share mission systems identical to those slated for production aircraft, he said. “That is a leap forward for our testers who are going to take this airframe through the flight testing regiments.” 

On Wednesday, Will Bailey, director of the Air Force’s Rapid Capabilities Office, said fewer than five days passed between fueling up and running the bomber’s engines, which he said is a stark break from the past.

“If you’ve been in the business that’s usually measured in weeks, if not more,” Bailey said during a panel at the AFA conference.

Also on Tuesday, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. CQ Brown — who is President Joe Biden’s pick to be the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs — unveiled new photos of the service’s newest stealth bomber during a keynote speech at the conference, a rare glimpse at the highly classified flying wing. 

Northrop too unveiled its own new image in a press release, in which it calls the Raider the “world’s first sixth-generation aircraft.”

Though Bussiere seemed to express confidence in the bomber’s first flight occurring later this year, senior service officials hedged that expectation in a Sept. 11 roundtable with reporters. The bomber’s inaugural flight, which the Air Force originally planned for mid-2022, has slipped by a few months. But officials this week expressed confidence the program will overall remain on track.

“I’m still comfortable with how we’re knocking out the mini-milestones to get to first flight,” said Andrew Hunter, the service’s acquisition chief, on Monday. 

“We’re still hopeful of having first flight this year,” Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said that same day. “If I were to say it will, I would be making a very specific prediction, and I never do that about an acquisition program for something that hasn’t happened yet.”

“There is always risk in development programs. Something can surprise you,” Kendall added. “So absent any unexpected surprises, we’re okay. But surprises do happen in acquisition programs.”