World’s Stealthiest Combat Jet Now Ready For Weapons and Missions Systems Testing: B-21 Bomber Program Advances

A second prototype of the B-21 Raider next generation stealth bomber will be used to test weapons and mission systems for the program, as confirmed by the aircraft’s primary developer Northrop Grumman. The aircraft made its first flight on September 11 at the firm’s Plant 42 facility in Palmdale, California, after the first prototype first flew on November 10, 2023. A spokesman from the firm stated that while the first prototype was built primarily to “validate flight sciences, handling qualities and envelope expansion,” the development of the second prototype allowed the program to “move into a more advanced stage of testing: the weapons and mission systems that make the B-21 Raider a stealth bomber.” The aircraft is expected to carry a wide range of weaponry including up to twelve B61-12 and higher yield B61-13 nuclear bombers, AGM-181 nuclear cruise missiles, and a successor to the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator.

The U.S. Air Force’s bomber fleet is considerably older than those of both China and Russia, as the service has not made large scale procurements of any bomber class since the 1980s. The only procurements made since the end of the Cold War were 20 serial production B-2 bombers that entered service from 1997, with major overruns in the aircraft’s sustainment costs preventing the Air Force from affording the previously planned fleet of 132 aircraft. The possibility has been raised that the B-21 could be procured on a scale unprecedented since the Vietnam War era, with widespread calls made to produce over 200 of the aircraft. As a much smaller aircraft than the B-2 with a shorter range and lower weapons payload, the B-21 was designed to have much lower operational costs which makes the fielding of a much larger fleet more viable. Major cost overruns with and delays to planned modernisation of the B-52 bomber fleet, which was expected to remain operational alongside the B-21, has raised the possibly that early retirement of the older bomber class could result in a further increase in demand for the newer stealth bomber.