2/12/2024 0 Comments B2 spirit cockpitReporters with Aviation Week, knowing the location and time of the rollout, rented a Cessna plane to get photographs from overhead. In 1988, for the B-2 rollout, the bomber was pulled by a tractor from a hangar into the open air, and then wheeled back again. That was before Aviation Week pulled its biggest stunt to report on stealth aircraft. A 1988 memo from the CIA, declassified decades later, estimated that half of what the Soviet Union knew about stealth came from the public reporting on it by one Aviation Week writer in the United States. That makes the shape both tremendously important as a secret during development, even if the ultimate form will be discernible by eyes and cameras. It is built into the physical form of the aircraft, with rounded shapes and smooth edges built to minimize the amount of surface that reflects radio waves back to radar receivers. Stealth is a curious kind of protective technology. This change matched the geopolitical and domestic expectations of the mid-1990s, when the dissolution of the USSR and the seemingly unchecked ascendancy of American power meant specialized aircraft to bypass advanced defenses seemed superfluous at best. ![]() The Spirit’s production, which the Air Force originally expected to reach 132 bombers, was stopped after just 21. ![]() US Air Force / Miguel Lara III The “Spirit” of the Cold War A B-2 Spirit seen in 2015 near Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri. Unlike the Spirit’s 1988 reveal, the B-21 arrived in a world with a very different geopolitical climate, one where the nuclear superpower over the horizon for the US to worry about is China, not the Soviet Union. The B-2 could deliver deadly payloads from conventional explosives to nuclear weapons. ![]() The Raider is a stealth flying wing, designed to carry an explosive arsenal deep into hostile countries while bypassing their radar systems. Still, the head-on image is enough to identify some major changes. With only head-on views of the B-21 released and available to the press, it is hard to know all the features that distinguish it from its predecessor. The Raider most closely resembles its stealthy predecessor the B-2 Spirit, and both were built by defense giant Northrop Grumman. On December 2, the Air Force revealed its first new bomber in 34 years: the B-21 Raider.
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