Stealthy New Air Force B-21 Bomber Will Control Drones & Fly Unmanned

By Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization

(Washington D.C.) The Air Force’s new stealth B-21 bomber may be as impactful as it is secretive given that the largely “black” program is soon to explode onto the scene with its first flight this year.

B-21 Bomber

Certainly very little is known about the aircraft for understandable security reasons, yet senior Air Force weapons developers have for many years been clear that the new platform will operate with an ability to hold any target at risk, anywhere in the world at any time. This is quite significant, as the B-21 may be engineered with new, paradigm-changing levels of stealth technology enabling it to operate against some of the most cutting-edge air defenses in existence. 

The details as to how this might be accomplished are naturally not likely to be available for security reasons, yet the breakthrough elements of the B-21’s technology likely reside in its stealth properties, sensing and computing. Perhaps the B-21 incorporates new radar absorbent materials making the aircraft even less “findable” by enemy radar systems than may have been the case with previous platforms, and there certainly may be new methods of thermal management able to lower the aircraft’s heat signature as well. Internally buried engines and specific technologies managing exhaust or heat emissions can further reduce the aircraft’s detectability to enemy sensors.

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The world got its first official public glimpse of the B-21 in December of last year, when the aircraft was partially revealed to the public in a special ceremony in California. During the unveiling, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin called the aircraft “imposing” and further suggested that its most impressive technologies may lie beneath its stealthy exterior.

“The B-21 looks imposing,” Austin said in a December, 2022 Pentagon report. “But what’s under the frame and the space-age coatings is even more impressive.”

There are several key areas in which the B-21 may break new technological and tactical ground, such as in the realm of computing, autonomy, range and manned-unmanned teaming. Without offering specifics, Austin was clear that the B-21 will operate with unprecedented ranges, meaning it will be able to hold targets at risk anywhere in the world without needing to be fully “forward positioned.”