Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit

Sounds like B2 is going on longer than thought.
 
B-2 not going away any time soon, NG got $7B for upgrades, life extension and maintenance. B-2's maybe getting B-21 LO treatment tech, makes sense, B-2 still a real viable platform even after 30+ years, we knew the potential of this aircraft when I got on the program in 1986. B-2 ahead of its time when initiated.
 
Forest Green said:
This is at least the second time it's had signature reduction upgrades. It talked about some having already been done in AFM's 'Stealth' publication back in 2014.

From the link:
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B-2 has always had magnetic RAM. The upgrades improved the maintainability of the signature rather than any significant change in the RCS values
 
martinbayer said:
I would have to assume then that you actually have *any* iron clad documented examples that you are able to provide openly on this forum to back up your so far wholly unsubstantiated claim?
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FYI, the AIAA has two very different versions of a paper on hypersonic transports. Same author, same AIAA 196x-xxxx number... but entirely different papers. I downloaded the paper many, many years ago from AIAA; it was scanned at terrible resolution. I went back every few years to see if maybe a better scan might be made available... and it was eventually replaced with the wholly different version. I did eventually find *one* copy of the original in a printed & bound volume in a university library. I have no idea why they did that.
 
Good Day All -

Yesterday my son Jack and I went to the Wings over Whiteman Air Show at Whiteman AFB. B-29 "Doc" was there on display and flew in the show and amazingly, there was a one time heritage flight of "Doc" and a B-2A. They flew two passes together - pics look like they were photoshopped! The B-2 also flew a couple of passes with Whiteman T-38s one which is a heritage bird in WWI Spad XIII markings. Other than being HOT, it was a great day to be there.

Enjoy the Day! Mark
 

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Mark Nankivil said:
Good Day All -

Yesterday my son Jack and I went to the Wings over Whiteman Air Show at Whiteman AFB. B-29 "Doc" was there on display and flew in the show and amazingly, there was a one time heritage flight of "Doc" and a B-2A. They flew two passes together - pics look like they were photoshopped! The B-2 also flew a couple of passes with Whiteman T-38s one which is a heritage bird in WWI Spad XIII markings. Other than being HOT, it was a great day to be there.

Enjoy the Day! Mark
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those last few pictures with the B-29 are fantastic, and while both of them were designed to drop bombs, one is very different from the other. Also, that control surface action tho :D
 
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Well if you don´t fly alongside it cruising, there is very little chance, indeed. But that´s probably true for most aircraft appropriately aerodynamically balanced.
 
TomcatViP said:
Well if you don´t fly alongside it cruising, there is very little chance, indeed. But that´s probably true for most aircraft appropriately aerodynamically balanced.
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The picture above seems to be taken under cruising conditions, but let me simply put this into the form of a challenge: Produce a picture of the B-2 in *any* state of flight with *all* control surfaces aligned flush.
 
Forest Green said:
www.twz.com

B-2 Stealth Bomber’s Latest Upgrade Is Here

The Spirit Realm 1 upgrade provides the B-2 stealth bomber with new communications and weapons capabilities. The Spirit Realm 1 upgrade provides the stealth bomber with new communications and weapons capabilities.
www.twz.com www.twz.com
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Although 'Spirit Realm 1' sounds like a location that I might visit while playing some sort of medieval fantasy videogame, it sounds like a good move. Cockpit is getting some more glass and probably losing most of the remaining gauges. Too bad LRSO isn't going to be added to the spirit before it's retired, but I can see a few situations where the B2 might be flying well past 2032... and need to get updated weapons capabilities.
 
4decaa said:
Although 'Spirit Realm 1' sounds like a location that I might visit while playing some sort of medieval fantasy videogame, it sounds like a good move. Cockpit is getting some more glass and probably losing most of the remaining gauges. Too bad LRSO isn't going to be added to the spirit before it's retired, but I can see a few situations where the B2 might be flying well past 2032... and need to get updated weapons capabilities.
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I'm honestly not convinced that the B-2 bomb bays are long enough to hold an AGM-86 sized weapon. While I am pretty sure that the B-21 bays are long enough for that, if not fully 28ft long like a B-52 bomb bay.
 
Scott Kenny said:
I'm honestly not convinced that the B-2 bomb bays are long enough to hold an AGM-86 sized weapon. While I am pretty sure that the B-21 bays are long enough for that, if not fully 28ft long like a B-52 bomb bay.
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The B-2's bays can hold a MOP, so if they're too short for AGM-86 it would be by 10cm, which would be bizarre. The B-21 may well have a longer bay though, assuming there's only 1 on the centreline.

en.wikipedia.org

GBU-57A/B MOP - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
1721416256147.png
 
Forest Green said:
The B-2's bays can hold a MOP, so if they're too short for AGM-86 it would be by 10cm, which would be bizarre. The B-21 may well have a longer bay though, assuming there's only 1 on the centreline.

en.wikipedia.org

GBU-57A/B MOP - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
View attachment 734951
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was just about to reply with this. The bay on the B-21 is some ~24 feet in length per Paralay, so it honestly doesn't seem like it is all that much different lengthwise than the B-2's bay either. Though...if new munitions are designed to maximize the space within the B-21, the B-2 will simply be unable to carry them...

no idea about exact B-2 bay dimensions though. It looks like the MOP is a pretty comfortable carry maybe?
 
Scott Kenny said:
Huh, how did I never see that length before?

I always thought the B2 bays were the same length as the B1 bays. ~14ft.
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No, the B-1 only ended up that way because it was designed for AGM-86As, which had the same length as SRAMs but turned out to have too short a range and so were superseded by the AGM-86Bs.
 
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4decaa said:
was just about to reply with this. The bay on the B-21 is some ~24 feet in length per Paralay, so it honestly doesn't seem like it is all that much different lengthwise than the B-2's bay either. Though...if new munitions are designed to maximize the space within the B-21, the B-2 will simply be unable to carry them...

no idea about exact B-2 bay dimensions though. It looks like the MOP is a pretty comfortable carry maybe?
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24ft would be 7.32m, so slightly longer, if correct.
 
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Scott Kenny said:
Huh, how did I never see that length before?

I always thought the B2 bays were the same length as the B1 bays. ~14ft.
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The exact number has not been published but further up in the thread there are posts that are pretty explicit about the length. I’m not sure AGM-86 would not fit; it might simply have been a cost issue. Seems a little pointless to integrate an aging missile into a stealth bomber.
 
An aging and non stealthy missile. with a range and attack profile that makes being paired with a stealth bomber irrelevant,
 
Forest Green said:
No, the B-1 only ended up that way because it was designed for AGM-86As, which had the same length as SRAMs but turned out to have too short a range and so were superseded by the AGM-86Bs.
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Right, but the B-2 would be packing ~14ft-long SRAMs or gravity bombs on the penetration missions. There's little to no point in loading 21ft cruise missiles into a stealth aircraft. 21ft supersonic missiles, yes, there's a point for those.

I was actually expecting 28ft bomb bays on the B-21. BUFF sized bays.
 
Scott Kenny said:
Right, but the B-2 would be packing ~14ft-long SRAMs or gravity bombs on the penetration missions. There's little to no point in loading 21ft cruise missiles into a stealth aircraft. 21ft supersonic missiles, yes, there's a point for those.

I was actually expecting 28ft bomb bays on the B-21. BUFF sized bays.
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The B-2 was originally supposed to carry the ACM I think, or up to 32 SRAM IIs IIRC (2 per RLA rail).
 
The B-2 can carry the AGM-86 CALCM, the nuke version was banned by treaty. The SRAM II was 14 ft long just like TSSAM and again, SRAM II banned by treaty. The B-2 weapons bay are large and could/can carry a wide variety of weapons. Early on in the B-2 program, USAF did not want to make an error in bay size.
 
Hydroman said:
The B-2 can carry the AGM-86 CALCM, the nuke version was banned by treaty.
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Source, please.

I've never seen any evidence that the B-2 could carry CALCM; that was exclusively a B-52 weapon as far as I can tell.

And I can't find a treaty that would have prevented the B-2 from carrying ALCM. But I could be missing an annex to New START or something like that.
 
TomS said:
Source, please.

I've never seen any evidence that the B-2 could carry CALCM; that was exclusively a B-52 weapon as far as I can tell.

And I can't find a treaty that would have prevented the B-2 from carrying ALCM. But I could be missing an annex to New START or something like that.
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START I
 
quellish said:
START I
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START I does not prohibit the B-2 from carrying ALCMs. It just says that if they do, they count as 10 or 20 warheads (depending on whether the cap has been reached yet) instead of 1 warhead (for bombers with only gravity bombs and short-range missiles).

In practical terms, that probably makes it hard to do because the projected inventory of B-2s was going to be large and would mean they would count as a lot of warheads. And there was no practical way to visually distinguish missile carrying B-2s from not, the way the B-52G wing root fairings did. But not barred by treaty.
 
TomS said:
START I does not prohibit the B-2 from carrying ALCMs. It just says that if they do, they count as 10 or 20 warheads (depending on whether the cap has been reached yet) instead of 1 warhead (for bombers with only gravity bombs and short-range missiles).

In practical terms, that probably makes it hard to do because the projected inventory of B-2s was going to be large and would mean they would count as a lot of warheads. And there was no practical way to visually distinguish missile carrying B-2s from not, the way the B-52G wing root fairings did. But not barred by treaty.
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Maybe it was START II which prohibited ALCM. I do remember the B-2 was a least being considered for CALCM?
 
Hydroman said:
Maybe it was START II which prohibited ALCM. I do remember the B-2 was a least being considered for CALCM?
Click to expand...

Ultimately JASSM was integrated, so they probably at least studied CALCM integration. There probably was not a high need to integrate it with a stealth bomber though. JASSM was ultimately integrated as a future proofing feature (and I suspect to add range to targets at risk very deep in opponent airspace).
 
-86B/-86C are listed among B-2 weapons load options in Don Logan's "ACC Bomber Triad" and surely fit RLA and weapons bays but were never integrated or carried
 
On a side note, there was a plan to integrate SBD that got canned as a cost savings measure (and too redundant with 500lb JDAM) but I have seen a photo SBD 1 four round launchers with test coloring on the rotary launcher. Was either version ever integrated? At least one USAF paper from the early oughts estimated 192-216 could be carried, presumably using custom racks. Rotary storage would limit this to 64 and have little value.
 
TomS said:
START I does not prohibit the B-2 from carrying ALCMs. It just says that if they do, they count as 10 or 20 warheads (depending on whether the cap has been reached yet) instead of 1 warhead (for bombers with only gravity bombs and short-range missiles).
Click to expand...

Yes, there is not a line in START I that says "The B-2 cannot carry ALCMs".

START I limited the total number of weapons and how they were counted. The implementation of START I had severe effects on the US heavy bomber force to preserve the other components of the strategic triad and its modernization.

- All but 71 B-52s were to be destroyed
- The efforts to certify the B-1B to carry ACM and ALCM were stopped.
- Plans for the B-2 to be certified to carry the ACM and ALCM were also stopped.
- Reduced production of the ACM

TomS said:
In practical terms, that probably makes it hard to do because the projected inventory of B-2s was going to be large and would mean they would count as a lot of warheads. And there was no practical way to visually distinguish missile carrying B-2s from not, the way the B-52G wing root fairings did. But not barred by treaty.
Click to expand...

The 1 or 2 B-1Bs that could carry cruise missiles for flight testing carried external... things that could be verified by national technical means. There is no reason the same could not be done with the B-2.
 

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