The B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber in Service
Photo TSGT Shane A. Cuomo, USAF
A B-2 Spirit stealth bomber refuels from a KC-10 Extender aircraft over Australia during exercise Green Lighting July 25, 2006. The B-2 and KC-10 are from the 36th Expeditionary Wing in Guam.
As mentioned, the Air Force originally planned a total of 132 B-2 bombers as the airborne leg of the nuclear "triad" of bombers, land-based missiles, and submarine-launch missiles that comprise America's nuclear deterrent. However, the end of the Cold War meant that the need for new strategic weapons systems had greatly diminished. In addition, the B-2 was a highly advanced aircraft, leading to program glitches, cost escalations, schedule stretchouts, furious political controversies, and repeated cuts in production numbers.
Although the Air Force had accepted their first B-2 in late 1993, the B-2 remained in service test for several more years, not reaching formal initial operational capability until 1997. The USAF only obtained a total of 20 operational aircraft. The small production buy meant that the high development costs were spread over a handful of aircraft, and since the program costs were about $48 billion USD, that came to about $2.4 billion USD per aircraft. Had more B-2s been built, of course their incremental cost would have been much less, though still clearly in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
The first ten B-2s delivered to the Air Force, from December 1993 to late 1995, were "Block 10" machines, intended for service evaluation and training. They couldn't fly at full flight loads, lacked precision weapons guidance and terrain following capability, and had a limited DMS. Eight "Block 20" machines were delivered in 1996 and 1997, which were up to operational specification, along with some improvements such as a Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite navigation receiver. The GPS receiver system was integrated into a "GPS Aided Targeting System (GATS)" to support the GAM GPS-guided bomb, and later the JDAM and other GPS-guided weapons. The ten Block 10s were brought up to Block 20 specification.
The Block 20s were followed by two final new-build "Block 30" aircraft, with the older machines brought up to the same specification. The Block 30s have avionics improvements, including a satellite communications (SATCOM) link; the lidar contrail-detection system; support for new GPS-guided weapons; and in particular have substantial modifications to improve their stealthiness. Adding the new stealth features require stripping off all the aircraft's paint and RAM and performing some airframe changes.
Stripping off the aircraft's surface layers is tricky, since it has to be done without damaging the composite skin or resulting in massive amounts of toxic solvents that would be a pain to dispose of properly. Northrop Grumman came up with a scheme in which the aircraft is air-blasted with crystallized wheat starch, a substance that resembles granulated sugar. The starch proved able to remove coatings without damaging the composite skin. Not only is disposal of the starch relatively straightforward, it can be reused about ten times; in fact, it becomes more effective after three or four cycles.
B-2 aircrew find the big bomber a very pleasant ride and easy to fly. Its FBW system offloads a good deal of the work, and a flying wing is about as aerodynamically clean an aircraft design as could be conceived. It is an aircraft that wants to get into the air and doesn't want to come back down, and pilots have to use steep carrier-style landings. Apparently this causes some problems when they go back to more conventional aircraft and are inclined to try the same trick.
The aerodynamic cleanliness of the B-2 makes it very responsive to throttle changes. Midair refueling also takes a little practice, since once the B-2 gets into the slipstream of the tanker, the bomber tends to slide forward a bit. The B-2 is very stable but not particularly maneuverable. B-52 aircrew moving up to the B-2 find it more agile than the "Buff", but B-1B aircrew feel the "Bone" is superior in this respect, and with its higher wing loading also gives a smoother low-level ride than the B-2.
The B-2s systems are complicated and require extensive training to master, but aircrew who grew up on computer games find the systems aspect fun and no monster to deal with.
All the operational B-2s have been given "Spirit of" names, such as "Spirit of Texas", "Spirit of Kansas", "Spirit of California", and so on. Only one doesn't use a US state in the name: number 82-1066 is, appropriately, "Spirit of Hastings". All fly out of Whiteman AFB with the USAF 509th Bomb Wing. Although the official name of the B-2 is "Spirit", as is usually the case with official names, the aircrews don't call it that. Apparently there is no particular nickname.
B-2 Spirit first combat
Photo USAF
B-2 Spirit dropping JDAM seperation test vehicles over Edwards AFB
The B-2 went into combat for the first time on the night of 24 March 1999, at the very start of OPERATION ALLIED FORCE, the NATO air campaign against Serbia. The B-2 dropped JDAM GPS-guided bombs in the opening phases of the campaign to cripple Serbian air defenses so that conventional strike aircraft could operate with greater safety. The B-2 continued to fly strikes against well-defended targets during the rest of the campaign, unfortunately acquiring a bit of notoriety on 7 May 1999 when a B-2 dropped JDAMs on the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. The Chinese government protested loudly and angrily. The blunder was due to bad intelligence and mission planning, not a technical failure or crew error.
Six B-2s were committed to OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM, the American intervention in Afghanistan in 2001:2002, performing strikes in the early phases of the conflict. One mission lasted 44 hours, the longest combat sortie in the history of air warfare, with B-2s flying out of Whiteman to Afghanistan, dropping their loads, and then landing on Diego Garcia island in the Indian ocean to refuel, rearm, and take on new crews while the engines remained on idle. This done, the B-2s went back to Afghanistan to drop their loads, and finally returned to Whiteman. Four B-2s were also committed to OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM, the American invasion of Iraq in the spring of 2003.
An improved coating scheme, which provides an overall coating of RAM, was developed after the introduction of the Block 30. The new coating scheme not only reduces RCS, but reduces maintenance time per flight hour from 20.8 hours to 9.2 hours. The old scheme used caulk and tape to seal off the radar-reflective edges of access panels. This was not only labor intensive, but the tape tended to strip off in flight. The new scheme does not seal off the edges; the RAM coating absorbs RF energy that penetrates into cracks. Work is continuing on further improved coatings.
The updated surface coating scheme has opened new options for the B-2. The aircraft has a bay outboard of each of the main landing gear that was originally supposed to store contrail-suppression chemicals but was never used. The two bays are about 2.75 meters (9 feet) long and as deep as the wing. USAF officials think that the bays could be used to store a pair of mini cruise missiles each. These missiles could be used for strikes, particularly to suppress air-defense radars, or operate as decoys or jamming platforms.
Along with the improved coatings, the B-2 is also receiving new bomb racks that allow it to carry up to 80 GPS-guided weapons. In a particularly significant upgrade, in the summer of 2004, the Air Force awarded a contract for the development of a modernized radar system for the B-2, based on "active electronically scanned array (AESA)" technology. An AESA features an antenna made up of a grid of smart transmit-receive elements that can cooperate to perform functions or perform multiple functions in parallel. The new B-2 radar will resolve conflicts that currently exist between the bomber's radar and commercial systems, and will allow the bomber to communicate and exchange target data with other platforms. The B-2's defensive management system and radar transponder will also be updated as part of the effort. Upgrading the entire fleet is expected to take several years.
Other improvements being implemented or planned include:
- A new "beyond line of sight (BLOS)" communications system to replace current radios and the satcom system.
- A Link 16 Multifunction Information Datalink System (MIDS), to go into service in 2006.
- Fix of an aft-deck cracking problem that afflicts a number of B-2s.
- Computer upgrades, both to eliminate old systems for which parts are no longer available, and to provide more processing power. The improved processing power will permit new software that can increase the capability of the bomber's offensive and defensive avionics systems, as well as permit mixed loads of stores, which the B-2 handles poorly at present.
- A fiber-optic databus system to provide greater throughput and resistance electromagnetic interference.
- New color active-matrix LCD flat panels to replace the CRT-based MFDs.
Currently, the Air Force envisions the B-2 remaining in service until 2040 at least. Talk of new "B-2C" production has remained just that, talk. There does not seem to be any outstanding need for new B-2s, and currently the Air Force is focusing on "uninhabited combat air vehicles (UCAVs)" as next-generation strike technology, though there also has been some talk of a next-generation long-range bomber, possibly derived from the Lockheed Martin F/A-22 Raptor.
In 1994, the Planes of Fame air museum in Chino, California, restored to flight status the N-9M, one of Jack Northrop's single-seat experimental flying wing prototypes. In February 1995, it flew to Edwards AFB to commemorate the 50th anniversary of its first flight in 1945 by being photographed next to a B-2. B-2 test pilot Bruce Hinds used the opportunity to take the N-9M out for a spin.
