Jim Morris, Warrior Vice President, News
The US Air Force wants more B-21 Raider stealth bombers than are planned. And for the first time, the service has publicly said how many.
The head of the US Strategic Command, Gen. Anthony J. Cotton, says the Air Force needs 145 of the bombers instead of the 100 it plans to buy. Cotton also wants to speed up the production rate of the plane.
Northrop Grumman, the maker of the B-21, says it had had early-stage talks with the Air Force about boosting production. There are reports that Northrop is building about seven of the aircraft per year. According to The Aviationist, the Air Force is currently happy with modest production, which could help it avoid cost overruns and issues similar to those that have plagued the F-35.
One possible reason why the Air Force would want a higher production rate now: the price of the B-21 appears to have actually decreased. According to Aviation Week, the budget for the first five production lots of the bomber has decreased by 28 percent, from the $19.1 billion budgeted in 2023 to $$13.8 billion allocated this year.
In other words, the Air Force could now be getting more B-21s for their money – a rare occurrence for a defense program.
The idea that the Air Force wants more B-21s doesn’t come as a shock. The head of the Air Force Global Strike Command, Gen. Thomas Bussiere, has mentioned that the US needs 220 bombers. Since the Air Force is planning to field 75 B-52J aircraft, that would mean that 145 B-21s are needed.
Northrop Grumman won the contract for the B-21 in 2015, beating out Boeing and Lockheed Martin. The plan is for the plane to replace the B-1 and B-2 bombers by 2040 and, down the road, replace the B-52. As of last September, three B-21s were involved tests at Edwards Air Force Base in southern California.
We don’t know a whole lot about the plane. It will have a two-person crew and can reach an altitude of roughly 50,000 feet with a top speed of Mach 0.8. The plane is designed to carry both nuclear and conventional munitions, including the AGM-181 LRSO cruise missile and JDAM-equipped smart bombs.
According to Northrop Grumman, advancements in next-generational stealth and what is called “low observable processes” will make the B-21 less costly to maintain than other bombers. Meanwhile, the plane was designed with “open architecture” which will permit rapid upgrades of both software and weapons.
