The Air Force is keeping its B-1 bombers credible until their retirement with new pylons, new weapons, and the use of a real-world stress test aircraft and digital twins to predict fatigue problems and address vanishing vendor issues.
In another step toward first flight, the initial B-21 Raider has had its first “power-on” test, Northrop Grumman CEO Kathy Warden announced. The company still expects first flight—and a contract for low-rate initial production—by the end of 2023, she said in the company's second quarter ...
It’s come a few decades later than perhaps it should have, but the U.S. is on the precipice of sweeping and much-needed modernization for its nuclear arsenal, the Air Force's top boss for strategic forces said May 4. The Pentagon is projecting an investment of ...
Australia says it won’t buy the B-21 bomber, but Northrop Grumman CEO Kathy Warden said it may still be “on the table” when the program is more mature. Warden also reiterated that the new bomber will fly this year.
While Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said he's “comfortable” with the amount of spending in the Air Force’s fiscal 2024 budget, Rep. Rob Wittman (R-V.) said it’s not big enough, arguing for funding that at least matches the rate of inflation.
The future U.S. bomber force could provide a way for the Pentagon to simultaneously deter conflict with peer adversaries in two geographically disparate theaters, said Mark Gunzinger, the director of future concepts and capability assessments at AFA's Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, during a March ...
The B-21 Raider will be the “future backbone of the bomber fleet,” the head of Air Force Global Strike Command Gen. Thomas A. Bussiere said March 7. The new bomber, which is expected to fly this year, is just one part of a broad effort ...
Inflation threatens Northrop Grumman's profits on the B-21 bomber program, as the program moves from development to production, company officials said on their quarterly earnings call. The program remains below cost and on schedule, though, they said.
The many capabilities embodied by the Air Force’s next-generation B-21 Raider extend beyond conventional measures of range, payload, and radar-penetrating stealth—they also include “other things that it can be a part of that could help leverage the agility and the speed that we need to ...
A B-2 Spirit was damaged Dec. 10 after the crew was forced to make an emergency landing at Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo., the Air Force said. The stealth bombers cost over $1 billion per plane and fewer than two dozen were produced, making any ...
Air Force Gen. Anthony J. Cotton assumed command of U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM) in a ceremony at Offutt Air Force Base on Dec. 9, putting an Air Force general in charge of America’s nuclear forces at a time of rising nuclear threats around the globe.
The unveiling of the new B-21 bomber was staged to keep many of its innovations under wraps, but more than 34 years of technological advances since the B-2’s 1988 rollout were clearly in evidence. Although a senior Northrop Grumman official said the majority of what ...