Department of the Air Force leaders and industry partners provided updates on the B-21 Raider, the Air Force's newest bomber, during a panel at the Air and Space Force Association's Air, Space and Cyber Conference, Sept. 18.
The B-21 will incrementally replace the B-1 Lancer and B-2 Spirit bombers to become the backbone of the 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.
Panelists who provided updates included Gen. Thomas Bussiere, Air Force Global Strike Command commander; Maj. Gen. Jason Armagost, Eighth Air Force and Joint-Global Strike Operations Center commander; William Bailey, Department of the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office director; and Thomas Jones, Northrop Grumman Aeronautics Systems sector president.
Bailey and Jones provided updates about how the B-21 program is progressing.
"We're really starting to strike up quite a cadence [and] generate two flight test flights in a given week," Jones said. "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."
The panelists also described a significant milestone in which the B-21 completed its static test on the G-1 asset, a ground-based test article used to evaluate the structural integrity of the aircraft. This test was essential to "confirming the structural design of the aircraft is sound and validated confidence in the digital models," Bailey said.
The aircraft is now going through a fatigue testing campaign.
Armagost discussed how the B-21 program is preparing for the delivery of the aircraft to Ellsworth Air Force Base, South Dakota, to include laying the foundation for AFGSC squadrons to be sufficiently equipped, trained, and certified for aircraft delivery, while Bailey spoke to the teamwork that has been essential to the program's development.
"We're very clear as a team what the priorities are day after day," Bailey said. "That collaboration between operators and acquirers has been a key component of this success … that has got to be a consideration [in Great Power Competition]."
Bussiere 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 added. "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."
He added, "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 echoed Bussiere's comments about the adaptability of the B-21 systems, which were "designed 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 concluded.
The B-21 program has a production goal of a minimum of 100 aircraft.
When the B-21 enters the service, Ellsworth 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; and Dyess AFB, Texas, in that order.
