Contributor - UK

David Donald

The first example of the Northrop Grumman B-21 Raider sixth-generation bomber has made the type’s first flight. The stealthy flying-wing aircraft took off from Air Force Plant 42 at Palmdale, California, in the early morning of November 10 and landed at nearby Edwards AFB around 90 minutes later. The flight comes after a number of daytime sightings of taxi trials underway at Palmdale.
During the flight, the B-21 was accompanied by an F-16 chase plane, and the Raider’s landing gear remained down throughout. The aircraft was equipped with a temporary test instrumentation boom projecting forward from beneath the port leading edge. The bomber towed further air data test equipment on a cable.
Northrop Grumman describes the first aircraft as a production-representative test vehicle, not a true prototype. It marked the aircraft with the serial “0001” and the nickname “Cerberus” on the nosewheel door while carrying the ”ED” tailcode on the main undercarriage doors. The tailcode is assigned to the 412th Test Wing at Edwards, where the B-21 will undergo testing by a combined industry/military test force.
Set to serve as the backbone of U.S. airpower in the coming decades, the B-21 is being procured initially to replace the Boeing B-1B Lancer and Northrop Grumman B-2A Spirit. The B-21 will assume the primary denied airspace penetration role from the B-2 with both nuclear and conventional weapons capability. The Air Force expects to operate around 100 B-21s. Meanwhile, the elderly Boeing B-52H fleet is being re-engined for continued service as a missile carrier alongside the Raider.
Although superficially similar to the B-2, the B-21 is smaller, more capable, and cheaper to operate with lower maintenance costs. It is an all-new, more efficient design and almost certainly has an even smaller radar cross-section. It appears to have two main weapons bays and possibly two smaller bays alongside. The aircraft’s sixth-generation systems will allow it to operate as a crucial node in a future cloud-based battlespace.

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