Sentry Contributor
The United States Department of Defense released new test footage of the B-21 Raider stealth bomber in flight. The B-21 will incrementally replace the B-1 Lancer and B-2 Spirit bombers to become the backbone of the U.S. Air Force’s flexible global strike capability. The airframe is a long-range, highly survivable stealth bomber capable of delivering a mix of conventional and nuclear munitions and will be the air leg of the nuclear triad, critical to deterring conflict.
Officials released the test footage during the Air and Space Force Association’s Air, Space and Cyber Conference in September 2024, held just outside Washington, D.C. It showed the B-21 taking off and landing as part of a battery of flight tests that included ground testing, taxiing, and flight operations. Flight testing is a critical step in the campaign managed by the Air Force Test Center and 412th Test Wing’s B-21 Combined Test Force to provide survivable, long-range, penetrating strike capabilities to deter aggression and strategic attacks against the U.S. and its Allies and Partners.
During the conference, Air Force leaders and industry experts provided updates on the production of the B-21. Thomas Jones, Northrop Grumman Aeronautics Systems sector president, said of the progress, “We’re really starting to strike up quite a cadence [and] generate two flight test flights in a given week. […] When we started this journey, we made a vow that we were going to design this system to be a daily flyer. It’s been a phenomenal year of progress, and we hope to continue that through the next year.”
Panelists also described a significant milestone in which the B-21 completed a static test on the G-1 asset, a piece of ground-based test equipment used to evaluate the structural integrity of the aircraft. This test was essential to confirm the structural design of the aircraft is sound and validate confidence in the digital models, said William Bailey, Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office director.
Gen. Thomas Bussiere, commander of Air Force Global Strike Command, addressed current strategic threats posed by adversaries and the necessity of the bomber force, and the future capabilities the B-21 will provide, to keep pace with those threats.
“We are the free world’s only bomber force. We’re probably not going to see a decreased demand signal from our regional combatant commands on bomber task forces,” Bussiere said. “That demand signal, in my opinion, is only going to go up in the years ahead. As we transition from legacy to new, the B-21 fleet will provide great comfort to our Allies and should provide great pause to any potential adversary. Nobody on the planet can do what we’re doing right now. Nobody on the planet can build an exquisite, technologically advanced platform like the B-21, and quite frankly, nobody on the planet can hold at risk what we can hold at risk at a time and place of our choosing.”
Bailey concurred, saying the platform was built with flexibility in mind.
“Agility and flexibility — they can’t just be buzzwords. These are the kind of things that you need to be able to demonstrate over time. Why? Because it’s going to be changing on you, and we’ve had the benefit of employing a lot of those strategies on this program,” Bailey said.
When the B-21 enters service, Ellsworth Air Force Base (AFB), South Dakota, will be the first B-21 main operating base and location of the formal training unit. The Air Force recently announced the second and third basing locations for the B-21: Whiteman AFB, Missouri, followed by Dyess AFB, Texas.