On Dec. 2, the U.S. Air Force and Northrop Grumman will roll out the service’s first new stealth bomber in more than three decades.

Listen in as Aviation Week defense editors discuss what details they are hoping to see and what is likely to come next for the Northrop Grumman B-21 Raider.

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Rush transcript

Jen DiMascio:

Hi, and welcome to the Check 6 Podcast. I'm Jen DiMascio, the Executive Editor for Defense & Space, and I'm here with Defense Editor Steve Trimble, and Pentagon Editor Brian Everstine. And we're here because on December 2nd the U.S. Air Force is planning to roll out Northrop's B-21 Raider, the first stealth bomber since 1988. Brian, you just got a bit of a readout on what to expect during the rollout. Tell us about it.

Brian Everstine:

So it's finally here. I feel like we've been waiting for months and months, if not years, to finally get a glimpse of the B-21. Northrop is planning a ceremony out in Palmdale on December 2nd, inviting out DOD leaders, Capitol Hill, a select few of us press lucky enough to go get a glimpse of the B-21. In order to attend this upcoming event, we have to go through a whole rigamarole of security, have to consent for them to get all the security numbers of my cellphones. My cameras have to stand in a particular area to get a very specific produced glimpse of the bomber.

But yeah, it's pretty exciting. For the first time in decades, we'll be able to see the first new bomber for the Air Force. And Northrop in a conversation I actually had today with their head of aeronautics, said that they planned this time because the first test article, the first B-21 they produced has finished the loads calibration test, pretty much everything that they can do indoors and are going to start rolling it out for taxing tests and everything out in the open. They're going to take this opportunity, do a little bit of a public show, give all their workers a chance to take a breather and get a glimpse of where things stand in the program.

The ceremony's interesting timing, because it's coinciding right before the yearly Reagan Defense Forum in nearby Thousand Oaks, California. And so this gives an opportunity to bring in a lot of big wigs. So it'll be senior DOD officials talking. Northrop is planning it to be a little bit of a celebration of what they're doing themselves. The B-21 will be rolled out next to kind of an array of aircraft that they're involved with: F/A-18, F-35, obviously the B-2, E-2D Hawkeye, Triton, and interestingly the B-25 Mitchell, the bomber that was flown by the Doolittle Raiders, the namesake of the B-21. So it should be a exciting time. I think it will be very interesting to see what they allow us to see of the new bomber.

Jen DiMascio:

Absolutely. Well, Steve, you wrote a great piece for us in this week's Aviation Week on what we might see on the B-21 or what you might hope to see at a rollout and what that would mean. Tell us a little bit about what you hope to see.

Steve Trimble:

Sure. Well, and yeah, it's really hope at this point, but I doubt we're going to get much. As Brian noted, it has been several years since we've been writing about this program. Some of us, like myself, have been writing about next-generation bombers for the Air Force since like 2001 or 2002 when this program really got started, at least at the concept stage. Now the difference is, we actually have seen the B-21. The Air Force has released three renderings since 2016 that have given us a pretty decent idea of what it actually looks like. Some of it's more interesting features, especially the trailing edge and how different that is to the sawtooth design of the B-2, as well as the inlets, these sort of inward canning inlets, although those inlets have been a bit obscured. So it'll be nice to actually get a real good look at it.

I almost worry that there's going to be kind of public backlash to... If it gets overhyped, I don't know how much it will be hyped. It's definitely hyped in my own head, but I don't know how much the public is really paying attention. But I have a feeling, if there's this great expectation built up for it and the Air Force opens the door or we see it for the first time, it's just going to look somewhat familiar. It's going to look a bit like a B-2 with some features that I'm sure a lot of us listening on this podcast will notice, but maybe not the general public at large. In fact, it may look like a smaller B-2. A lot of the analysts I've talked to over the years have been pretty convinced that it's two-thirds the size or around that size of a B-2.

I mean, I still think it's going to be very interesting to see and I'm looking forward to seeing a lot. But the key questions that I have are probably not going to get answered by the Air Force here. And those are mainly how many engines it has. Hopefully the inlets or the exhaust ports will give us some idea, or exhaust nozzles I should say, give us some idea of what that is. And what the engines are. We know they're Pratt & Whitney and we know that they're probably off the shelf, but does that mean F135? Does that mean the PW9000?

PW9000 was a concept that Pratt & Whitney unveiled back in 2010, that actually has a whole legacy going back further than that. But it combines the core of the Geared Turbofan engine, the commercial Geared Turbofan engine with a low pressure section from the F135. So you still get better acceleration. You don't get the reduction gear that the commercial airliners would have, but you'd still have that really highly efficient core. Actually, that's always been my sort of pick for the bomber. I think it's a perfect fit for the bomber. You'd probably need four of them for the size that I think the B-21 is.

Yeah, so those are some of them. I'm also going to be looking at things that I know they won't tell us about, which are the mission systems and some of the more interesting technologies. I suspect there's a Northrop Grumman AESA radar in it. I suspect there's a BAE Systems electronic warfare (EW) suite. BAE Systems was named as one of the seven suppliers that have been officially confirmed Tier 1 suppliers by the Air Force, which is kind of a giveaway for the EW.

But then there's some other things I'm really curious about. There's been a lot of advances and things like conformal load-bearing antenna structures. These are basically antennas that are built into the load-bearing section of an aircraft. Don't know if they were mature enough to integrate on an aircraft like the B-21 at this point, if that technology was mature enough. But it'll be interesting to see if we can see anything that looks like those kinds of apertures. I mean, that's a big part of it.

Another sort of distinctive feature that I think we'll probably see as a different approach to the windshield design that came out in one of the renderings, this sort of rectangular side window that's sort of upward sloping from the cockpit, that I wondered at first, I thought it was kind of a weird quirk of the artist at first. But actually Northrop, the one design feature they've actually clarified is they said that that was intentional and based on their experience from the B-2, what the cockpit visibility needs are for the bomber pilots and that sort of upward sloping side window, which is very different than the B-2. It allows them better visibility with refueling operations. And also the design is supposed to be a lot easier to maintain and less vulnerable to things like bird strike and things like that.

The other big question I have is if there'll be any evidence that the mission systems are onboard the aircraft and that's a big deal. So I'm talking about the radar in the EW. In the past when the Air Force has rolled out new aircraft like F-35 and F-22, the first flight test aircraft has always been flight sciences aircraft, which they are just there to confirm the kinetic capabilities to aerodynamics, the turn rates, roll rates, and speed and altitude envelope, things like that.

But Will Roper, when he was still assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition technology and logistics, he told us for sure that this aircraft, the first aircraft will have mission systems on it and will fly with mission systems. And that just the idea there is saying that it's so much more mature than the aircraft that have come before it. And if that's the case, the hope is that they could compress the timeline that it's taken in years past to get from first flight to [initial operating capability]. Because the F-35 first flight was 2005, 2006, I think it was. No, it was 2006 with AA-1, which was a non-production representative, not a weight-optimized aircraft. And they didn't get to IOC until 2015 with the Marines. So this time they want to make that as short as possible, even just two or three years or even three or four years maybe. So we'll see what happens there. But, those are the big questions I have going on, but I have to temper my expectations.

Jen DiMascio:

Well, Steve, is that something you're going to be able to see visually or something you're hoping that the Air Force will answer on site?

Steve Trimble:

Who knows? There may be some clues about the aperture, if the apertures are installed. I doubt Brian's going to get a view of the aft section of the aircraft. Essentially the Air Force is going to have to confirm that and they're not going to. I mean, they might. Who knows? It would be really important to know, but I doubt we'll find out.

Brian Everstine:

They're being very particular about it'll be rolled out and how we're going to look at it, even the time of day. It's going to be rolled out after dusk on the West Coast.

Steve Trimble:

I've checked the time for sunsets, 4:42 PM in Palmdale on December 2nd. So the sun goes down at 4:42 PM. I think you're supposed to arrive around three o'clock for the ceremony.

Brian Everstine:

Yeah. And they're doing a little bit of a mini expo and everything for that. So I think they're going to wait for the perfect lighting for... Yeah.

Steve Trimble:

It's going to be darkness. Yes.

Brian Everstine:

And how much of that is to protect it from being seen from overhead?

Steve Trimble:

Yeah. I mean, it's an interesting point, but I will say, I mean, this is a public airport. So the rollout ceremony is one thing, but then they've got to start, there's a whole bunch of series of tests coming up and people are going to see it unless they disassemble it, put it on an airplane, fly it over to Edwards and operate it from South Base or North Base, which is much harder to actually get a really good view of. It's going to be out there. I mean, they really can't hide it that much longer. Maybe just a few weeks.

Brian Everstine:

It's a fun time to be a plane spotter out there.

Steve Trimble:

Always a fun time to be a plane spotter in Palmdale.

Jen DiMascio:

What happens after the rollout? What is the next stage of the test program?

Brian Everstine:

Today, when I was talking with Northrop's head of aeronautics, basically kind of kept using the word standard, going into standard integration, standard test work, powering the systems up, testing some of the functionality, starting taxiing tests, slow, fast. Basically getting up to the point to where they can do everything except for pull back the yoke at the end of the taxi.

Steve Trimble:

Yeah, so that's the sort of standard series. It could take weeks or months. I think it took the B-2 eight months, maybe seven months. I think it was eight because it was June of 1989 when they did the first flight and it was November 22nd when they had the rollout. So, that's the timeframe it can take, although I think they had some issues that came up after the rollout that they had to address. So it shouldn't take that long. It should really be in the next few months, although I don't think Northrop or the Air Force are in the mood to sort of clarify which year anymore first flight's going to be.

Brian Everstine:

I tried. I tried and they didn't.

Steve Trimble:

Well, the timing of first flight has always been kind of a funny moving target. Back in July of 2019, Gen. Stephen Wilson, when he was still vice chief of the staff of the Air Force, he was at a Mitchell Institute event and said publicly there, he said the number of days, and I don't remember exactly how many days. He says, "We're so many days away from first flight of the B-21." And if you counted those days, that led you to December 4th, 2021, which was, of course, a year ago. And that was first flight, not just the rollout. So that made all of us report that first flight is scheduled for December 4th, 2021, just quoting the general's remarks. But that has been rolled back ever since by the program and by the Air Force as a target, as sort of the front end of a window that could possibly be the start of first flight. But they say that there's not been a delay, that it's still ahead of schedule, even though we're clearly beyond Gen. Wilson's target date for first flight.

But, of course, I mean, the big issue is when they get it into service. If you go way back to 2008, 2009, or as it was starting to be formed in 2010, the LRSB, there was one point they put out a date of 2024 for the IOC and then they switched that to mid 2020s and a whole bunch of budgetary evolutions have happened since then. So it's hard to know exactly where that stands. And mid 2020s really is a period that could start in 2023 and end in, well, depending on how you want to count it, 2027, 2028. My guess is they want to get it out there by 2026. They've already got the construction started at the first main operating base at Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota. They're going to have that base ready to support the B-21 by I believe 2025.

That doesn't mean that IOC will definitely happen in 2025, but certainly some of the first operational aircraft for production aircraft will be ready to be delivered. And we've also seen that the first lot of production has been requested by the Air Force. We still don't have an approved budget yet for fiscal 2023, but we're in fiscal 2023. Those first two, well, I'm guessing it's two aircraft would be funded in that fiscal year 2023 budget and delivered by normal standards by 2025. And you'd probably need a few more aircraft than that to declare IOC. So, that will be the next step.

Jen DiMascio:

Are they going to look for six to get to IOC or do have a number?

Steve Trimble:

They've never defined the number. There's six development aircraft funded through the EMD phase. Those are the only aircraft that have been funded so far were from the original EMD contract. The first production aircraft would be funded in fiscal 2023 if Congress approves the budget at some point. Of those first six, I believe they've said that the last five will be converted into operational aircraft after they complete development. The first one, just like with the B-1 program, it will be retained as a test asset, as a test bench for new technologies. So the five EMD aircraft will eventually be converted. And yeah, we don't know exactly what they will set for a squadron size. I mean, I would expect at least not until 2026 or 2027, they would have the numbers to declare a full squadron IOC, if that's their definition for IOC.

It is important, the B-21 is still the most advanced airborne air domain capability that will have appeared since the F-35 or the F-22 and certainly the B-2. It was the first bomber designed since integrated air defense systems actually became a thing since the latest generation of multi-static counter stealth radars and AESA VHF, 3D early warning radars that can also potentially do tracking. Obviously the B-21 is designed and shaped in a way that makes it very, very difficult to detect and very, very difficult to track. But there's a lot of technologies out there these days that are trying to erode that advantage. And just like we saw with the B-2, the Air Force is retiring it because they don't think it can do the mission that it needs the B-21 to be able to do. There is a shelf life on these new technologies, because there's a counter that's coming. And so the key is, well, from the Air Force's perspective to get as many B-21s out and operational before that happens.

Jen DiMascio:

Brian, did you have any additional thoughts you wanted to share before we wrap up?

Brian Everstine:

Well, just in the realm of first, the B-21, I think, is also the first bomber to be teased in a Super Bowl commercial. I totally double-checked my research on that. Steve, we were talking about this before, but in an investor's conference earlier this month, Northrop's CEO Kathy Warden had talked about some of the waivers that this aircraft will get, which was kind of a surprising statement because Northrop has obviously talked about how ready, how production representative this test aircraft will be. What do you think of some of the context that she was talking about for this?

Steve Trimble:

Yeah, I think her exact statement was that they received waivers for the structural requirements on the first test aircraft. And as I think you discussed with Tom Jones at Northrop, there is a normal sort of set of waivers that are approved for a flight test aircraft. So this may be completely normal. It was just weird how she said structural requirements. They've gone through the vibration testing, the loads calibration testing. That's when you sort find out if there's anything wrong with the structure or things that need to be strengthened either immediately or down the line. It's important to find those things in the test aircraft. I mean, that's the whole point of it. But yeah, we'll be looking to see if there's any knock-on effect there. This aircraft is probably going to use an aeroelastically-challenging approach to the outboard section of the wings with very, very thin outboard sections, high aspect ratio wings to get the most fuel efficiency at the highest altitude that you can possibly get. That can be challenging from a load-bearing structural standpoint.

Jen DiMascio:

Thanks, Steve, and thanks, Brian. Unfortunately that's all we have time for today, but hopefully we'll be back again after the rollout to tell you more about the B-21, what it means, what Brian saw there. Hear our next Check 6 Podcast on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. One last request, if you're listening to us and want to support the podcast, please leave us a star rating or review. Bye for now.