AF Preps Stealthy B-21 Critical Design Review

by Kris Osborn

An upcoming Critical Design Review of the Air Force’s new B-21 Raider stealth bomber will examine design specs, assess technical maturity and seek to prepare the aircraft to fly against fast-evolving, future air defenses.

Air Force senior leaders say the engineering and technological “intent” when building the B-21 is to construct a platform that able to counter current cutting-edge threats as well as threats anticipated to surface in coming decades.

Essentially, Air Force and Northrop Grumman engineers are architecting the aircraft with a mind to being able to elude enemy air defenses well into the 2030s, 2040s and beyond.

“We build with an open mission system architecture so that as the threat evolves, we can rapidly adapt the airplane to jump – and address things that are constantly changing,” Lt. Gen. Arnold Bunch, Military Deputy, Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, told Scout Warrior in an interview.

While many details of the upcoming technical review are not expected to be available for security reasons, Air Force senior developers do emphasize that the new stealth bomber is being designed to quickly evolve as needed.

Open mission systems, as described by Bunch, involves building a set of common standards and interfaces with software, hardware, sensors, radar, countermeasures and even weapons technology; this include IP protocol and common hardware able to receive software upgrades as required. The concept is to expedite integration of upgrades or changes to the platform as required by the current threat environment. Faster incorporation of needed adjustments is therefore regarded as a crucial means of sustaining a technological advantage.

While describing the rationale for this effort, Bunch emphasized that the US technological advantage and domination of the skies is by no means as expansive as it was in recent decades, a circumstance which further underscores the need to innovate and rapidly adapt.