Massive Stealth Breakthrough: “Space Age” B-21 Raider Bomber to “Take to the Sky”

By Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization

Covered in “Space-Age Coating,” durable, stealthy, nuclear-capable, intel-gathering capable, drone controlling and very long range … are a few of the terms Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin used to describe the burgeoning new B-21 Raider stealth bomber.

“You know, the B-21 looks imposing. But what’s under the frame and the space-age coatings is even more impressive,” Austin told an audience.

Austin’s remarks were likely quite “general” by design, given that the cutting edge program is almost entirely “black,” meaning not available to the public for obvious security reasons. However, Austin’s remarks did offer a critical window into key areas of emphasis for the new bomber, which is expected to start arriving in coming years. Members of Congress, think tanks and even some Air Force senior leaders have in recent years suggested the possibility that perhaps the planned fleet size for the B-21 should be much larger than the planned 100 planes and possibly double up to more than 225. Future budgets may adjust the service’s plans for the fleet, yet the expected program plan is to acquire as many as 100, the first several of which are already well along and under construction and slated to take to the sky in coming months.

Senior leaders have said very little about the bomber in the years it has been under-development, yet Austin’s remarks indicate a few points of technological focus for the platform. We’ve heard from Pentagon and Air Force developers in recent months and even years that the B-21 is likely to be unmanned-capable and also likely able to control small fleets of mini-drone loyal wingman platforms to extend its reach, blanket areas with surveillance, tests enemy air defenses and support a multi-domain “meshed” network of interconnected “nodes” throughout multi-domain formations.

We’ve also heard that the B-21 incorporates paradigm-changing dimensions of stealth technology and, as Austin put it, incorporates “fifty-years of advances in low-observable technology.”

Enemy Air Defenses

“Even the most sophisticated air-defense systems will struggle to detect a B-21 in the sky,” Austin said last December at the unveiling of the platform. While the particular stealth properties woven into the B-21 are unavailable, there are some general parameters or areas of focus fundamental to achieving low-observability or a “stealth” ability to elude enemy air defenses and tracking systems. The most noticeable element of stealth is often configuration, as one can clearly see that the B-21 is rounded, horizontal, sleek and built with a blended wing-body formation. The fewer sharp edges, protruding structures or angled contours on an aircraft, the stealthier an aircraft is as it presents a massively reduced or restricted ability for electromagnetic “pings” from ground-based radar to deliver a rendering or return signal of an object. Stealthy aircraft, for example, are engineered to appear similar to a small bird to enemy radar and completely avoid both lower-frequency “surveillance” radar and higher frequency “engagement” or targeting radar technologies. Electromagnetic signals can determine the shape, size and even speed of an object by virtue of bouncing electrons off of a surface and analyzing the return signal to obtain a rendering of an object.