This may just be my favorite Aviation Week article of all time. It explores, in depth, just how influential the B-2 bomber has been; a quarter-century later, plane-makers are still leveraging lessons they learned from building the thing.
Best of all — and most unusually, for AvWeek — the article is actually written (for the most part) in English, not in Pentagonese or aeronautical engineer patois. So we can all appreciate how freakin’ cool the B-2 really is.
By almost any measure, the bomber’s development was one of the largest, most technically complex, expensive and demanding programs in aerospace history. But the final product dramatically changed air combat forever. The B-2’s “stealth” or low observability (LO) enables unprecedented penetration of enemy territory, essentially neutralizing very costly air defense systems. Precision weapon delivery in all weather conditions, day or night, changed an air warfare tenet from “sorties per target” to “numbers of targets per sortie.” In the B-2’s case, a single bomber carrying 16 conventional weapons can destroy 16 targets. The same mission once would have required dozens of aircraft dropping hundreds of bombs…
[The B-2 relied on] all-composite skins and structures–the first aircraft to use composites so extensively. This challenge was considered so risky that, for a while, a second team was set up to design an aluminum wing in parallel. A metal structure would have been much heavier, greatly reducing the B-2’s range-payload capability. Thus, a considerable effort was devoted to developing a composite version, and it paid off; the aluminum-wing option was dropped before the first Preliminary Design Review took place. “Today, [developing a composite wing] seems straightforward, because the world’s used to composite vehicles. But it was a big deal then,” Myers notes.
The bomber would have to be designed as an integral system, then manufactured to extremely tight tolerances, to meet LO requirements. Consequently, the B-2 became the first aircraft designed completely via computers, ensuring design and fabrication phases were tightly coordinated, Myers says. However, the analytical models and computer-aided-design/manufacturing (CAD/CAM) tools to accomplish this weren’t available in the early 1980s.
In particular, the active flight control system dictated that the entire aircraft be modeled precisely. “I could easily count on one hand the number of people in the [U.S.] who had tried to go through the analytical process for an [active] flight control system,” says Myers, who headed that critical risk-closure area at the time…
During the Cold War, weapon system performance was given top priority, trumping cost considerations. Whatever resources were deemed necessary to meet national security goals, they were made available, despite the cost.
“We kept a top-10 list of [B-2 concerns] on the briefing-room wall,” Myers recalls. “We were seven years into the program before ‘cost’ made that list.” But those days are gone. “I’m not sure we’ll ever see another program like that again,” he adds.
Best. Bomber. Ever.
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a 60 year old design…
the design was devloped during WW2…
Best technology AND security the USAF could buy and make sure the Navy (e.g. A-12 program) never, never got its hands on.
60 year old design? Maybe… but to say the B-2 is a 60 year old design is a little bit of a generalization, don’t you think? The flying wing idea maybe, but not the rest of the design. Nothing other than Jack Northrop’s wing concept is remotely the same. That’s like saying the F-22 is the same design as the Sopwith Camel, because they both have wings and a tail (or an 18th century glider for that matter…) Come on – give the B-2 a break!
The camel was a great fighter in world war 2. the flying wing however failed.i look at the f22 as a mordan working version of a me 163 fast small but deadly with high speed.
“…freakin’ cool..” ? Well, yes, maybe, sort of. Except of course for the price tag. The US, arguably one of the financially richest countries in the world, could afford how many ? Spending the entire 4-year defence budget of my native Denmark, we could afford maybe the outer half of a wing. Maybe. So the question becomes: What would be most effective: 1 (one) B2 or a couple of squadrons of B52′s (or Tu-95′s) ?
How in any way can the B-2 begin to compare with the success of the B-52?
It’s the ultimate overpriced, sensitive one-trick pony.
I smell some desperate justification of spening heaps of your tax $$$
Thomas, the answer is: one B2, at least for the mission for which it was designed.
The B52 is great, when you’ve got air dominance and don’t have to worry about the thing getting shot down. It’s radar cross section makes it look like a mountain is flying through the sky above your country–it’s very easy to see. Ergo, it’s very easy to target with anti-aircraft radar.
The B2? Not so easy. It gives the US the capability to drop precision weapons on multiple targets through contested airspace, even if the enemy has operational anti-aircraft defenses. Send a hundred B52s over Moscow and you’ll have a hundred B52s getting shot down.
The B2 allows success where previously the only option was failure.
As to the… gentleman who suggested the B2 was a 60 year old design, I’ve got to give your trainers credit. I suppose it IS possible to teach a monkey to type. Too bad you still can’t read.
Couldn’t agree more, Brian. I don’t think anyone would quibble over the fact that the B-52 fleet has done yeoman work in the GWOT; if we’d stuck with the Buffs and never bought the B-1 or B-2, we’d probably have a little more money to allocate to feeding the poor. Or whatever.
But that would leave us in a bind whever we had to face an adversary with a competent air defense scheme. And make no mistake, we have- Iraq, Serbia, and the ever-present threats of North Korea, Iran and China.
You can extend this argument indefinitely, of course. We might have saved a lot of money by never buying the Aegis- after all, how many Soviet bomber wings did our carrier battle groups mix it up with? We could stick with the M60A3 for some of our heavy divisions, and the MUTT jeep because hey, it wouldn’t stand any better chance against IEDs than the Hummer.
No, no, no. Tunnel vision is very handy for making know-it-all judgements but it won’t do any good when you need to maintain a set of credible capabilities to keep potential foes at bay.
To be fair. The design is 60 years old. The YB-49 was concieved in the late 40s but was too unstable to fly effectively. So yes the design is that old. The technology inside is all new. Today there are computers, composites etc…which allow the flying wing design to work.
There really is no discussion here, the B-2 can, for now, do what no other bomber in the world can do. In time that advantage will fade just like any other. Just like Japan’s and Germany’s advantage faded during WWII.
I am a huge fan of the BUFF but, It’s days as a front line bomber are done. It’ll continue to serve for some time but, I think it has more to do with the cost of replacing it more than anything else. BUFF can carry a crap ton of ordinance and in a controled area that can scare the shit out of any ground pounder!
Air power is and of itself, a technology. To purely apply this philosophy dictates that we use the most technologically advanced instruments designable. Based on this thesis, cost effectivity becomes highly myopic and fundamentally inhibits the precision required to fulfill our national security strategy. I’m pleased that there are still some in the aerospace community that entertain this vision. Sir Francis Bacon once offered the world his assumption, “Knowlege is power”. The B-2 effectively molds this assumption into what the proponents of air warfare always knew, “Knowlege is airpower”. B-2 Spirit…fly, fight, win,..every time.
“Cost is no object” simply ignores the reality that cost is always present in strategy, weapons design, and everything else. Resources are fundamentally limited. Strategy involves asset allocation as much as anything else. Probably more than anything else. The whole of the bomber fleet was a strategic redundancy in a strategic situation dominated by ICBMs. The Soviet Union never had a realistic strategic bomber force, yet they had plenty of deterrence, didn’t they?
The arguments for the B-2 smack of the same logic that would lead us to genetically engineer a better horse for our cavalry regiments. Certainly it would be the finest and most expensive horse in history. But that would not make it of any genuine use.
let me weigh in again… Ho-229…
the design is 60 year old…. it was imagineered by the Germans in ww2…
The frame was wooden, pressure treated compressed wood… The majority of the Ho-229′s skin was a carbon-impregnated plywood, which would absorb radar waves… i would like to so some MIT kids build a comparable craft based on the old plans… but the thing beat is the flight control computer… that is the thing i like the most… but i heard something about mice/rat brains could be made to do the same thing… hmmm…
hello Chuck
nice to read about B-2. Kudos for a job well done.
my take?….I followed with eyeball as two B-2s’ passed over Utah heading towards Iraq. One evidently had problems and dropped out. I think they are: to expensive, to highmaintenance, and limited to their own special use, however well they perform it.
Next step, as you know, is airships. Forego speeds in excess of 400mph, keep stealth, add in the ability to carry many times more payload, and add in the ability to VTOL from any spot on Earth, including mid ocean if they are made amphibious….these are the answer to next generation deep penetrating craft with ability to linger (land!)over theater.
Let’s see. I would like to agree that the aircraft is a little expensive but on the other hand if it wasn’t for these high-end projects we wouldn’t be enjoying the technologies we live with everyday, especially when it comes to computer technology. In the end I think it will pay itself off. Let me know the next time we lose a war because we can’t afford it.
I would have to agree, that was one of the best articles i have read from Aviation Week. The B-2 is definitly the best bomber ever period. It has reshapped the way America conducts its offenseive operations and it represents the future of Strategic Strike.
To the detractors: we don’t need more than 24 of them. Maintainance isn’t an issue. The B2s are a first-strike weapon. B2s don’t have to deliver every bomb that falls on an enemy. B2s are the invisible first strike.
With 24 B2s, we can destroy virtually any opponent’s eyes and ears before they even know they’ve been attacked. After they’re deaf and dumb, send in the B52s. We won’t need stealth at that point, anyway. And then the B2s can spend hundreds of hours getting maintainance done. Who cares? They’ve done their job.
B2s are fragile. They’re expensive. They’re high-maintainance. So is Jennifer Aniston. Both are worth every bit of trouble.
The bomber fleet has proven far more useful than a mere redundancy. Of course, redundancy is good. I have a smoke alarm in my house, in case my first, second, and third detection systems (eyes, ears, and nose) don’t pick up on a fire. You guys sound like Homer Simpson here. “We bought all those smoke alarms and we haven’t had one single fire.”
The design ain’t 60 years old. The concept of the flying wing is 60 years old. Just because they look kinda sorta the same doesn’t mean it’s the same design. My DVD player looks a whole lot like an 8 track tape deck. It doesn’t mean they’re the same thing.
well, nice posts guys but russian stealth technology based on cold fusion is way better/cheaper/more kick ass than b2/f-117 stealth, so dream on about unbeatable b2s and enjoy in it’s really nice design.
nice greetz from da crew that took stealth planes back in 1999. down.
http://www.aeronautics.ru/f117down.htm
The F-22 would replace them all. It can travel at mach 1.7 at 50,000 feet, open its bomb bay doors and compromise stealth for less than a second, and fire a JDAM at a moving target 24 miles away, and supercruise home in time for dinner.
hey ummm… no there is a new bomber and is the b1 look it up
The b2 use jet engines the flying wing did not. There are alot of simaries but way more things that are different about the B2.The stealth plates like the f22 require really little mantence.I also think that the B2 can easliy level a base as it has a 50 thousand pound payload. If use correctly it can easliy destroy ememy leaders and bunkers doing so will almost improve moral and in this world any loses is bad.
You can't carpet bomb away "enemy leaders". We learned that in 2003 when we tried B-1B precision strikes in opening night.
More efficient than leveling a base is crippling it's ability to function. Durandals into runways to prevent takeoff/landing, or area denial munitions. Bunker busters into aircraft hangars. Uses less bombs than blasting a base to kingdom come.