A second prototype of the B-21 Raider subsequent era stealth bomber shall be used to check weapons and mission methods for this system, as confirmed by the plane’s main developer Northrop Grumman. The plane made its first flight on September 11 on the agency’s Plant 42 facility in Palmdale, California, after the primary prototype first flew on November 10, 2023. A spokesman from the agency said that whereas the primary prototype was constructed primarily to “validate flight sciences, dealing with qualities and envelope enlargement,” the event of the second prototype allowed this system to “transfer right into a extra superior stage of testing: the weapons and mission methods that make the B-21 Raider a stealth bomber.” The plane is predicted to hold a variety of weaponry together with as much as twelve B61-12 and better yield B61-13 nuclear bombers, AGM-181 nuclear cruise missiles, and a successor to the GBU-57 Large Ordnance Penetrator.
The U.S. Air Pressure’s bomber fleet is significantly older than these of each China and Russia, because the service has not made massive scale procurements of any bomber class for the reason that Eighties. The one procurements made for the reason that finish of the Chilly Warfare have been 20 serial manufacturing B-2 bombers that entered service from 1997, with main overruns within the plane’s sustainment prices stopping the Air Pressure from affording the beforehand deliberate fleet of 132 plane. The chance has been raised that the B-21 may very well be procured on a scale unprecedented for the reason that Vietnam Warfare period, with widespread calls made to supply over 200 of the plane. As a a lot smaller plane than the B-2 with a shorter vary and decrease weapons payload, the B-21 was designed to have a lot decrease operational prices which makes the fielding of a a lot bigger fleet extra viable. Major cost overruns with and delays to deliberate modernisation of the B-52 bomber fleet, which was anticipated to stay operational alongside the B-21, has raised the possibly that early retirement of the older bomber class might end in an additional enhance in demand for the newer stealth bomber.
