Northrop Grumman B-21 Raider (LRS-B)

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TomcatViP said:
Ideally not from Starlink or anything truly orbital. The role of tactical datalink for targeting should be passed to suborbital pseudo satellites such as those in VLEO.
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The new SDA constellation is supposed to handle most every radio format from LEO, even L band Link16. I do not see a reason why weapons should not receive updates from orbit, though I would want work arounds for a graceful degradation as well.
 
Regarding B-21 radar: I suspect it tends to get used more as a spotlight for generating more information about a target of interest. Focus beams that can provide range, NCTR, SAR, ISAR, TMI, etc based on the target type/location to collect more data. There probably is an A2A scan mode but I doubt it is envisaged as a normal use for the radar. And as noted, the emitters are also ECM inside their frequency range. It would not surprise me if the diamond tail had a third, or even forth, installation for 360 degree coverage.
 
@Josh_TN : If all parties can come around some kind of agreement that targeting is not part of fully orbital constellation, that would render the space debris Armageddon more livable.
ISR from Space is widely accepted today. But in some time, it will be more easier for some nations to go after the satellites than the vectors to defeat a strike, even temporarily.
 
TomcatViP said:
@Josh_TN : If all parties can come around some kind of agreement that targeting is not part of fully orbital constellation, that would render the space debris Armageddon more livable.
ISR from Space is widely accepted today. But in some time, it will be more easier for some nations to go after the satellites than the vectors.
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The SDA constellation Incr 1 is going to be 126 satellites for communications. The entire ~170 group is to be launched in ten F9s next year. Similar numbers for Inc2 in 2026-2027. NRO has put up 60+ satellites in three launches this year with three more planned. We have reached the point where the satellites are likely cheaper than any practical ground to orbit KE weapon. Though a nuclear detonation in orbit would likely trash most everything in LEO without a military level of hardening.
 
. If the Air Force still plans to buy 21 Raiders in the LRIP stage, the $65 million difference between the inflation-adjusted target cost and actual price of each aircraft adds up to $1.37 billion, nearly matching the $1.56 billion amount of Northrop’s reach-forward loss.
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Quite a strange assertion. I would suggest an insignificant pay cut of 15% to the writer's boss of these lines. ;)
 
If the B-21 program keeps delivering and Congress signals intent for a higher order quantity, I'd be interested to see how China responds to that.
 
In_A_Dream said:
If the B-21 program keeps delivering and Congress signals intent for a higher order quantity, I'd be interested to see how China responds to that.
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The USAF has been pretty clear though that any increase isn't happening until the 2030s. There potentially will be a lot of water under the China US relations bridge by the time any real increase is a factor.
 
The entire effort used tech readiness level 6 or better - that is a huge part of why the program has been successful. What is the current state of the art instead of the typical U.S. program that creates the state of the art as it goes.
 
FighterJock said:
Looks like Northrop have learned their leasons from the B-2 program which is good news all round.
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Don't forget that the B-2A was originally supposed to have a production run of 132 bombers which would've resulted in a significant reduction in the unit price, also back then in the 1990s composites were still for the most part hand laid especially complex shapes which meant slow AND expensive. Of course since then there've been tremendous advances in how composite airframes are built especially with automated lay up, the JSF programme has greatly added to that for example.
 
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The B-2 back then had to be invented in regards to composites and LO among other things including avionics. Plus NMaude is correct, 132 B-2's were to be built. The B-21 now takes advantage of the evolution including lessons learned of not just the B-2 but from "other" programs as well. Since the B-2's now have to be around until about 2050, the B-2 can now take advantage of the 6th gen tech from the B-21, primarily LO coatings, materials, avionics/systems upgrades, etc.
 
Hydroman said:
The B-2 back then had to be invented in regards to composites and LO among other things including avionics. Plus NMaude is correct, 132 B-2's were to be built. The B-21 now takes advantage of the evolution including lessons learned of not just the B-2 but from "other" programs as well. Since the B-2's now have to be around until about 2050, the B-2 can now take advantage of the 6th gen tech from the B-21, primarily LO coatings, materials, avionics/systems upgrades, etc.
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B-2 is to stay in service until 2050?! Everything I read said the USAF will consolidate to two bombers, with the B-21 updates to Whitman scheduled to occur even before Dyess. My read on that schedule is that half the B-1 fleet at Ellsworth gets retired, consolidating the best airframes and scavenged parts at Dyess, and then the B-2 fleet is replaced in one go. Then the remaining B-1s.

EDIT: that is my interpretation of the base update schedule. But certainly USAF has been adamant about downsizing to two bomber types.
 
Forest Green said:
theaviationist.com

The B-21’s Price Is Decreasing With Over $5 Billion Saved for the First Five Lots

The insanely costly B-21 Raider program is apparently becoming less expensive, with the projected cost for the first five production lots dropping from
theaviationist.com theaviationist.com
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Nothing in this article makes any sense to me. I don't think the author understands the difference between contract prices, cost estimates, and budget numbers. There's no way Northrop would go through a source selection, be forced to accept fixed prices for the first 21 production articles, announce in advance of performance that they are writing down $1.6B in losses, and then graciously decide to lower those prices further so they can lose more. And I'm pretty sure the Air Force, if they negotiated lower prices, would be crowing about it rather than quietly reprogramming budget dollars. It's much more likely that production money is being reprogrammed because the program schedule is moving to the right. At the time of EMD contract award, the Air Force announced an IOC date of 2025. Over the succeeding years, they have "fuzzied" that up to mid-2020's. Now we're two months away from 2025 and have one test aircraft flying. Depending how flight test goes, IOC could be a long way off. If you look at the history of other modern low observable aircraft (B-2, F-22, F-35), the average time from first flight to IOC is about 8 years, with very little variation.
 
TomcatViP said:
They have 2 test a/c.
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I assume you're referring to the B-21A? In regards to test aircraft aren't they going to have a total of five test-vehicles? I assume that once the test-phase is complete most, if not all, of the test-vehicles will be sent back to the factory to be refurbished into fully operational bombers.
 
NMaude said:
They might keep them on in a permanent capacity as test-aircraft to test any upgrades to the B-21A.
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Fair point. I could definitely see installing the current standard systems into the instrumented airframes as dedicated testbeds. But not removing all the instrumentation.
 
I suspect that the EMD aircraft can be updated to production standards quite easily, since they were built on the actual production line. The test model potentially as well , though perhaps it requires more work and is only a single aircraft. Regardless of how many of them there are, it is still a 700 million aircraft. You still want test or training aircraft to be production standard if it was not too expensive.
 
kmrumble said:
Nothing in this article makes any sense to me. I don't think the author understands the difference between contract prices, cost estimates, and budget numbers. There's no way Northrop would go through a source selection, be forced to accept fixed prices for the first 21 production articles, announce in advance of performance that they are writing down $1.6B in losses, and then graciously decide to lower those prices further so they can lose more. And I'm pretty sure the Air Force, if they negotiated lower prices, would be crowing about it rather than quietly reprogramming budget dollars. It's much more likely that production money is being reprogrammed because the program schedule is moving to the right. At the time of EMD contract award, the Air Force announced an IOC date of 2025. Over the succeeding years, they have "fuzzied" that up to mid-2020's. Now we're two months away from 2025 and have one test aircraft flying. Depending how flight test goes, IOC could be a long way off. If you look at the history of other modern low observable aircraft (B-2, F-22, F-35), the average time from first flight to IOC is about 8 years, with very little variation.
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I agree the author is fundamentally misunderstanding the finances; it is a fixed price contract for LRIP. The program does seem somewhat delayed, though by how much is hard to judge in the absence of any production information. But the B-21 is hardly like any other aircraft program; its test aircraft was largely built with full avionics on the intended production line. The EMD aircraft are tentatively full production aircraft, built on the production line. This a rather far cry from the F-35s life cycle. Barring any major hang ups found in testing, there’s no reason LRIP cannot move forward right now.
 
kmrumble said:
Nothing in this article makes any sense to me. I don't think the author understands the difference between contract prices, cost estimates, and budget numbers. There's no way Northrop would go through a source selection, be forced to accept fixed prices for the first 21 production articles, announce in advance of performance that they are writing down $1.6B in losses, and then graciously decide to lower those prices further so they can lose more. And I'm pretty sure the Air Force, if they negotiated lower prices, would be crowing about it rather than quietly reprogramming budget dollars. It's much more likely that production money is being reprogrammed because the program schedule is moving to the right. At the time of EMD contract award, the Air Force announced an IOC date of 2025. Over the succeeding years, they have "fuzzied" that up to mid-2020's. Now we're two months away from 2025 and have one test aircraft flying. Depending how flight test goes, IOC could be a long way off. If you look at the history of other modern low observable aircraft (B-2, F-22, F-35), the average time from first flight to IOC is about 8 years, with very little variation.
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https://www.defensenews.com/air/2019/07/25/coming-in-2021-the-b-21-raiders-first-flight/

They seemed to aim for a first flight in 2021 along with IOC in 2025, so an accelerated timeline between first flight and IOC was probably already planned for. They even pushed back nuclear weapon integration to after IOC… Whether it will go according to plan is another question.

Simply extrapolating from the actual date of first flight in 2023, I would expect it to reach IOC in 2027-2028.
 
Seems G-2 news wasn't here yet
www.janes.com

Northrop Grumman adds second B-21 ground test article

The Northrop Grumman B-21 test fleet has expanded to three aircraft: one test-flight aircraft and two for static tests on the ground, Tom Jones, president of Northrop...
www.janes.com www.janes.com

Waiting for T-2 maiden flight soon.
 
NMaude said:
So in that case I suppose they'd be NB-21As?
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IIRC, the N prefix is for aircraft that cannot be modified back to the standard configuration. So these wouldn't technically be NB-21s, because it'd be possible to remove all the test sensors and infrastructure. Just undesirable to do so.
 
Scott Kenny said:
IIRC, the N prefix is for aircraft that cannot be modified back to the standard configuration.
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Not so much that they can't be brought back to standard configuration but can't be brought back without a major structural rework (Most likely at the factory) so perhaps JB-21A instead.
 
J- means "modifed for test, not flying"
N- means "permanently modified, no longer a standard combat plane".

Consider NASA rocket Starfighters 60 years ago. There was a JF-104 that tested the rocket thrusters - on the ground only. Then was the NF-104, which was a F-104A from Air Force stocks yet the plane would never return to a combat squadron: permanently modified.
So those B-21s test articles should be JB-21.
 
Archibald said:
J- means "modifed for test, not flying"
N- means "permanently modified, no longer a standard combat plane".

Consider NASA rocket Starfighters 60 years ago. There was a JF-104 that tested the rocket thrusters - on the ground only. Then was the NF-104, which was a F-104A from Air Force stocks yet the plane would never return to a combat squadron: permanently modified.
So those B-21s test articles should be JB-21.
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Not correct. The J prefix was for temporary modification, whereas N was for permanent modification. There were multiple JF-104s, JB-57s, etc., that were flown with temporary mods.
 
However if the test-instrumentation in the first five air-vehicles are going to be left in (Maybe they require extensive rework to remove at the factory) then perhaps the NB-21A designation would be appropriate instead of JB-21A.
 
NMaude said:
However if the test-instrumentation in the first five air-vehicles are going to be left in (Maybe they require extensive rework to remove at the factory) then perhaps the NB-21A designation would be appropriate instead of JB-21A.
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You expect this from the riders of the clown car who assigned the OA-1K and EA-37B designations with straight faces?

I just can't wait till we see the "B1RD" and the "OU812?" assigned.
 

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