This article first appeared in Aviation Week & Space Technology.
A fresh wave of structures, systems and weapons upgrades is being rolled into the Northrop Grumman B-2 as part of efforts to keep the stealth bomber in the front line to 2050 and beyond.
The drive to sustain the 20-strong fleet enjoys “good support across the board” says Brig. Gen. Robert Wheeler, commander of the 509th Bomb Wing at the B-2’s home at Whiteman AFB, Mo. The case for injecting new life into the B-2 was unquestionably bolstered by U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates’s April decision to ax the next-generation bomber project, ambitiously aimed at fielding a new aircraft in 2018. But Wheeler adds the stealth bomber was always part of the equation.
“Even if the next-generation bomber came along, we were always going to be part of the fight.” The upgrade plan evolved for the B-2 is “designed to look to the threats of the future and that’s the plan we have right now. We are exactly on that plan,” he adds. The effort builds on key avionics and systems enhancements, plus new weapons capabilities and initiatives to sustain the low-observable structure and skin.
“We are building a new aircraft from the inside out,” says Col. Kevin Harms, commander of the 702nd Aeronautical Systems Group at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio. “We didn’t have the means to remake the aircraft itself but we’ve put together a very strategic plan. The original aircraft design is quite flexible and, although it was originally designed as a nuclear bomber, it has migrated and become a multirole aircraft and we see that continuing as we go forward.“
A key upgrade recovering from a slow start is the delayed B-2 radar modernization program (RMP). Under the RMP, the mechanically scanned antenna of the Raytheon APQ-181 Ku-band multimode navigation and attack radar is being replaced with an active electronically scanned array (AESA). The effort is now well underway, with five aircraft expected to be flying by year-end. Northrop Grumman, which manages the RMP, was awarded a $382-million system development and demonstration (SDD) contract by the Air Force in 2004.
Integration and other issues stalled the RMP and forced Northrop Grumman and El Segundo, Calif.,-based Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems to set up a “tiger team” to get the effort back on track, says Northrop Grumman vice president and B-2 program manager Dave Mazur. “A lot of decisions were being made and technical risks being pushed down the road to meet a need date,’ so we basically said let’s stop and re-group,’” he adds.
The upgrade, which also included a new power supply and modified receiver/exciter as well as the AESA antennae (two per shipset), was instigated because of an upcoming frequency spectrum conflict with emerging digital TV satellite signals. However, the hold-ups have had a knock-on effect because the RMP was designed in conjunction with other systems upgrades as part of efforts to provide the bomber with an “open architecture” for later modifications. “It’s basically two years late, and all the upgrades are backed up,” says Wheeler. “Now my biggest drawback is getting enough aircraft because they’re going through the upgrades.”
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– Christian
{ 24 comments… read them below or add one }
20, I thought we only had 19 left? Didn’t one crash?
You know,it’s a shame that we have so few of these,that we know them each by name,like the space shuttles.
P.S. Stealth or not,I bet they don’t fly any faster than the Russians’ propeller driven relics,the Tu-95(or whatever number they are) Bears.
If faster is what is desired, then reactivate the B58 Hustler. Maybe the B2 isn’t faster than the Russian bomber, but it can’t be tracked over the Atlantic by SOSUS – a network designed to track ships and submarines.
They’re faster than the Bears, but not by much. I just hope radar technology doesn’t advance too much before their retirement date – it seems likely that without the ability to alter the airframe, radar tech will outpace the modifications they are capable of making.
1. Somebody tell Col Harms that the B-2 was designed to have both a nuclear and conventional capability from the start. It’s OK he didn’t know this, he was probably still in middle school when the original specs came down and is no criticism of him.
2. There were 20 operational and one test only aircraft (AV-1) that was never supposed to get past the Block 10 configuration. When Clinton was in office, he side-stepped THAT Congress’ intent by waylaying dollars thay had legislated to restart B-2 production to upgrade AV-1 to a Block 30 configuration. With the crash of one in Guam, the AF decided to still keep 16 of the remaining 20 combat-coded, leaving only 4 airplanes that can be in the pipeline for depot maintenance, flight test support or whatever at any one time.
Incidentally, the B-2s radar ‘modernization’ was driven (according to AV Week) by the Dept of Commerce reallocating the frequency band the B-2 was using to other users – a change that was also a gift of the Clinton Administration.
I agree with SM Sgt Mac that Col. Harms was probably too young to remember. Col. Harms was probably just misinformed.
More than likely they do not fly any faster than the Russian’s propeller driven relics.
Good Evening Folks,
The old legacy weapons platform know as the B-2 Stealth Bomber, would best be scrapped but at a cost of $2 billion per copy that’s to unlikely.
The roll of the high altitude heavy bomber, long, dangerous and dull missions, is the first attack weapons platform/system that is a candidate for becoming a UAV.
As for the roll of radar in high altitude combat flaying it is quickly being replaced by passive sensors and the use of third party targeting. The B-2 is a weapon looking for a mission.
ALLONS,
Byron Skinner
It was the F22 of it’s day. Great idea. Too expensive and too late.
I think a lot of roles are going to be assumed by UAVs. Long range strike is def a candidate.
It seems that most of you think that UAV’s are the end all be all. I have a question for you though, what do you do if your network is compromised? Conceivably your own UAV’s could be turned against you, not to mention that tools to prevent communication are pretty mature. We need a balanced force, and thinking like that would have loose a major battle because some seem to think we will only battle insurgents. We already have the b-2′s lets keep them and up to date please.
LOL the B58 Hustler!
LOL the B58 Hustler!
B-58 is ancient…
When it comes to bombers, we need to stop and think:
-Do we need a new ‘bomb truck’? Can we design and build one derived from parts from commercial jetliners (modification of commercial jetliner may or may not be possible)
-Do we need a high-speed bomber? Considering high-speed didn’t work against the Soviets (go advanced radars), why would it work now in the future?
-Do we need stealth? Stealth evolved in response to the evolution of Soviet air defense systems…first it was high altitude, and then Gary Powers got shot down. And then it went to low altitude (B-1A, B-1B). And even then survivability was low. Stealth may be the way of the future for the time being.
-UAV? Considering the current fail-rate on UAVs…? Global Hawk can do reconaissance on pre-programmed directives, and maybe this is the way to go.
no mention the signal conflict not only with digital television but that the govt sold some of the b-2 bandwith to a foriegn owned internet and communications company with ties to russia and the middle east.all it takes is a duffle bag full of dollars and a crooked senator and all of your tech is compromised.
Good Morning Greg,
Of course Greg your worst case scenario(s) with UAV’s could all happen and must not be eliminated form the cases of all possible events, but in reality they would have to be considered among the most unlikely of things that could happen to a UAV.
Besides the cost, the over all utility should be considered on any weapons system, although this is most often not the case. The heavy bomber mission in the 21st, Century is rather limited to the nuclear strike mission, which the U.S. is the only country to have, or to carpet bombing of large target such as supply depots, if any future is stupid enough to give to the United States. or massed communication facilities or as a last ditch effort on population centers. All of these missions can be done cheaper and more efficiently then with the limits of manned on board air crews.
One of the more interesting things about the recent tragic crash of an F-22, which a test pilot was killed, is that it appears the F-22 went beyond the capacity in G’s that a human can endure. In short until a better human can be invented the F-22 appears to be the end of evolution of the manned fighter. The B-2 also appears to have this designation for the manned heavy bomber.
Because of politics and it’s cost the B-2 will be around till at least mid century or to many are lost in accidents. As it ages though it seems that B2′s primary mission will to be seen at World Series games and Super Bowels and on AF recruiting posters.
ALLONS,
Byron Skinner
@Greg
I think what we need is an in-theater flying UAV control station, a 747 with 30 or 40 UAV control stations and a crew of 100, highly directional microwave beam communications.
-Jeff
AESA can already function as a communications capability and transmit large amounts of data securely. Back up LOS systems could be added as well. A controller aircraft, be it some kind of mother ship 747, or F22s acting as shepherds of packs of attack drones could direct them to engage targets. Pre programmed attack patterns could be executed without further input from the shepherd aircraft.
As pointed out a manned aircraft has a limit of maneuverability because of g forces and human physiology. A drone couldn’t dog fight like a manned aircraft, but a manned aircraft can’t maneuver like a drone. In addition in most dogfights the pilots typically want to survive. Not that we should waste drones in suicide attacks, however, I’m not sure how hard an enemy pilot is going to want to push to shoot down a machine.
The same scenario could apply to bombing missions. Forward deployed shepherd aircraft could simply meet the drone bombers deploying from the US once they arrive in theater and direct their attack if needed or simply act as a back up to a pre-programmed attack plan. The manned aircraft need not endure long transoceanic flights.
I thought the Iraqi’s had perfected a “cellular signal disruption” technique for locating stealth aircraft? Is it still technically viable?
The cell array detection idea was crackpot. The AF put out a nice statement to that effect when it first came out.
As opposed to the manned bombers that fly over our heads with nuclear weapons they didn’t know they had on board? or wayward A10 pilots who commit suicide flying their planes into mountains?
STemplar: The failrate on the Predator has probably gone down, especially as I see less reports of Predator parts being picked up in Pakistan. I know of no Global Hawks that crashed, which suggests utility as a bomb truck.
In trying to decide the next bomber for the US, it is clear that ab initio programs like NGB are an invitation to spendspendspend in an uncontrolled fashion akin to healthcare. I suppose if that is the price of hegemony we will have to pay it.
RE: As opposed to the manned bombers that fly over our heads with nuclear weapons they didn’t know they had on board? or wayward A10 pilots who commit suicide flying their planes into mountains?
No. Not even close.
It is not the ‘flying over our heads’ that is the important discriminator. It is having somebody on board with a VESTED interest in keeping the airplane flying overhead. The difference is akin to a ham and egg breakfast, the manned crew being the pig and the unmanned crew being the chicken. The unmanned crew is ‘involved’ but the manned crew is ‘committed’.
It is not merely the idea that somebody could go nuts either. The probability that more than one pilot on board a crew-served aircraft would go over the edge is far lower than something going wrong on an unmanned system that could be mitigated or overcome via intervention by an on- board crew. This is why the Navy is more suited for routine armed UAV operations than the AF IMHO. The Navy can not only project the force necessary when required without overflying friendly populations, but can train year in and year out with little or no need to overfly the home territories as well.
It will be all UAVs are the cats pajamas until one goes into a schoolyard at recess. Then it will be how MUCH doubt will exist after the fact that EVERYTHING was done that could have prevented the loss in the first place or hitting the schoolyard in the second.
I don’t think a UAV operator would be any less committed to insuring an aircraft doesn’t impact a populated area. Given the limits of human physiology a UAV could potentially make very drastic maneuvers to change directions that a human pilot couldn’t endure, or an airframe designed to carry people wasn’t made to handle.
I think parts falling off is probably got more to do with QC than whether a platform is manned or unmanned.
Sorry, but these arguments if they are being made by people you work around, sound like arguments being made by people trying to keep their jobs. The concept of the UAV opens up a tremendous number of potentials and capabilities. It changes a lot of assumptions, and frankly when we are talking about how other countries are just now trying to field systems to challenge us, the thought that we completely change the rules makes the arguments for UAVs even more compelling.
Rather than dismissing the notion off hand I would hope engineers would be intrigued by the opportunity for design innovation.
I never favored the development of the B-2 bomber and consider it a failure for the primary mission for which it was developed; to deliver nuclear weapons in the presence of a significant Soviet look-down shoot-down threat. Even if it proved a viable penetrator, it was a failure because we needed more, many more, nuclear weapons against the target structure at the time. The B-2 with the SRAM weapon did not provide it in the numbers we could afford, falling short by at least an order of magnitude. Not only that, but it failed to provide a complementary capability to the land and sea based ballistic missiles. We needed to not only survive the look down threat but also do real time, wide area damage assessment strike with a manned penetrator. If this could be accomplished we could retarget ballistic missiles against non time sensitive targets and essentially double our entire nuclear deterrent capability in terms of targets destroyed per weapon, doing so by killing higher value targets and knowing that they are destroyed.
The bomber needs a fire control system comprised of a wide area damage assessment strike capability and an “over boosted” air breathing, all aspect missile replacing SRAM 2 for 1. Such a system could deliver a small nuclear warhead (0.01kt to 1 kt) with pinpoint precision (10-15 ft SEP) while the bomber crew watched targets crumble (target destruction verification). The bomber weapons would also be a moral use of nuclear weapons assuming the war itself was moral and could provide the yield and precise targeting that could be used in other scenarios.
With such a system the bomber would not have to rely upon stealth to survive, but could employ missiles to destroy the enemy aircraft if needed. For example, a B-1 bomber so equipped encountering a total of 6 Soviet look down shoot down fighters could survive with a probability of approximately 0.89 using about 7 of its missiles. The B-1 bomber would need an ECM system (i.e. terrain bounce) that drove the fighters in close enough that an anti-fighter shoot-look-shoot firing doctrine could be used. 41 missiles would be left that could be used against objective targets.
I really didn’t favor the B-2 development. Furthermore, I doubt that any more imaginative thinking is going on now than 30 years ago. Maybe some day they’ll stumble upon what the role and the weapons make up of the manned penetrating bomber should be.
Respectfully,
Leon J. Neisius
leonneisius@yahoo.com
an old “SAC trained killer”
RE: I come down on the side of innovation, and it isn’t driven by people standing around talking about what can’t be done. You say that telemetry can’t be delivered like that, I say it’s because it has never had to be, and I bet it can be dealt with.
It isn’t a question of what is ‘doable’ it is a question of what knowable beforehand to execute the ‘doable’ in the first place. No one can anticipate everything that can happen or what needs to be known.