Northrop Grumman B-21 Raider (LRS-B)

If first flight in is scheduled inside the next couple years, it seems to be IOC would occur well before 2030. The December 2021 first flight date was always optimistic, but I assume it won't take more than an extra year or two given the comments on the program. It looks like the B-21 is being built rather pragmatically with tech off the shelf, much like FFG(X).
 
Josh_TN said:
If first flight in is scheduled inside the next couple years, it seems to be IOC would occur well before 2030. The December 2021 first flight date was always optimistic, but I assume it won't take more than an extra year or two given the comments on the program. It looks like the B-21 is being built rather pragmatically with tech off the shelf, much like FFG(X).
Click to expand...
I think we have lots of big shelves.
 
rooster said:
Josh_TN said:
If first flight in is scheduled inside the next couple years, it seems to be IOC would occur well before 2030. The December 2021 first flight date was always optimistic, but I assume it won't take more than an extra year or two given the comments on the program. It looks like the B-21 is being built rather pragmatically with tech off the shelf, much like FFG(X).
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I think we have lots of big shelves.
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Honestly, when it comes to stealth bombers, isn't it a pretty deep shelf for the US? The US is about three generations deep into low RCS designs.
 
TomcatViP said:
Stand by for visual stealth!
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Spirit is already visually stealthy. I've seen at airshow events as is flies off and becomes a narrow sliver that melts into the sky. If you're talking about luminescent panels I hope its not a future hangar queen that can't survive a half dozen rain storms
 
marauder2048 said:
Bhurki said:
marauder2048 said:
Oscillating between IOC and FOC dates.
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If its oscillating between IOC and FOC, then its certainly IOC at the very least.
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He wasn't even clear when his dates were rooted. I looked through the transcripts and it's incredibly unclear.
If you have timestamps of interest let me know.
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Going back to the earlier documents, the consistent line has been (conventional) IOC one decade from contract award.
If you want to count from the lifting of the stop-work order for the protest, that's still mid-2020s.
 
rooster said:
If you're talking about luminescent panels I hope its not a future hangar queen that can't survive a half dozen rain storms
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If your thinking very short range then you would use panels. I'm thinking small powerful emitters embedded in the skin or popups to obscure it from EO sensors.
 
sublight is back said:
If your thinking very short range then you would use panels. I'm thinking small powerful emitters embedded in the skin or popups to obscure it from EO sensors.
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Thinking left field here, cephalopods use their abilities not only to hide, but to confuse. Towards the end of this TED talk, marine biologist Roger Hanlon looks at biomimetic design applying cephalopod techniques to clothing - but a smart skin could be applied to an aircraft to hide from or confuse EO, as well as old-fashioned eyeballs.

www.ted.com

The amazing brains and morphing skin of octopuses and other cephalopods

Octopus, squid and cuttlefish -- collectively known as cephalopods -- have strange, massive, distributed brains. What do they do with all that neural power? Dive into the ocean with marine biologist Roger Hanlon, who shares astonishing footage of the camouflaging abilities of cephalopods, which...
www.ted.com www.ted.com

Moreover, synthetic 'papillae' could alter the aerodynamic properties of the skin.

Most of this article is paywalled, but you can get the gist - visual patterns can be used to confuse recognition software.

www.newscientist.com

Small sticker could hide a fighter jet from an enemy drone

Sticking a small, patterned patch on large objects such as planes can trick AI detectors trained to spot military assets in drone images
www.newscientist.com www.newscientist.com

By the way, the principle goes back to the First World War and 'dazzle painting' that was used to confuse optical rangefinders. Animated dazzle would be a logical next step, and BAE has trialled 'Adaptiv' camouflage for tanks. It's apparently robust enough to consider for tanks, but tanks can't fly...

en.wikipedia.org

Dazzle camouflage - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

www.baesystems.com

ADAPTIV

Unlike traditional camouflage systems which rely on paint or nets to hide vehicles, ADAPTIV can instantly blend a vehicle into its background.
www.baesystems.com www.baesystems.com

I have no idea if anything like this would be applied to the B-21 of course, but I imagine someone's exploring the possibilities.
 
IMOHO working on photon's trajectory (similarly to stealth) and capture would more be the trick. What you see is what ping back to you.
For a sensor that is frequency walled, harvesting those photons or mitigating with their frequency could be a path to go.

Don't forget also that the size of holes in a panel with traps to capture photons is irrelevant aerodynamically and RCS wise. It might then be that those problems are decorelated, easing their solutions...
 
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rooster said:
TomcatViP said:
Stand by for visual stealth!
Click to expand...
Spirit is already visually stealthy. I've seen at airshow events as is flies off and becomes a narrow sliver that melts into the sky. If you're talking about luminescent panels I hope its not a future hangar queen that can't survive a half dozen rain storms
Click to expand...

It isn't necessarily visual stealth as much as a very small profile head on. Back in the day I was on a 135 serving as a radar target and it was amazing how it would just appear out of nowhere, and we were using TCAS to know where to look. The only chance you'll get for visually spotting it is to get some parallax to see it from above or below.
 
There were experiments all the way back in WWII using incandescent lights to wash out the shadow of aircraft. They were successful at making aircraft much harder to spot at longer distances, but I think the the arrangement wasn't very aerodynamically friendly and probably not cheap. However now adays it wouldn't be difficult to give off light to blend it with the ambient background using much lower powered (and conformal) LEDs that can cycle through any color combination. I doubt it's worth the effort on a military aircraft though. It seems to me unless you can cover up your IR signature, there isn't a lot of point in obscuring your visual. Most peer a/c will have an IRST and even AAMs are imaging infrared.
 
The first F-4C, 63-7407 was used as a testbed for the "Yehudi" lights. They were on the sides of the intakes about where the unit insignia goes and under the nose just forward of the nose gear. The aircraft was initially painted white but when the lights were added the top and sides were repainted light ghost grey. The fairings were rectangular with both fore and aft ends tapering to a point in a pyramidal fashion at the fuselage surface. The forward pyramid was clear glass with the light inside. Don't have any info on how successful the project was. Believe it was named Compass Ghost.
 
Daylight stealth and luminescent panels or thousands of LED emitters is best left to a few dozen or so drones forfollowing and taking out terrorists. The wiring harnesses for thousands of emitters is Complex and heavy. Why do you need to complicate a heavy bomber with standoff weapons that will operate presumably mostly at night? Something relatively small like a spirit or raider at 50k and without contrails is hard to spot visually already.
 
mkellytx said:
rooster said:
TomcatViP said:
Stand by for visual stealth!
Click to expand...
Spirit is already visually stealthy. I've seen at airshow events as is flies off and becomes a narrow sliver that melts into the sky. If you're talking about luminescent panels I hope its not a future hangar queen that can't survive a half dozen rain storms
Click to expand...

It isn't necessarily visual stealth as much as a very small profile head on. Back in the day I was on a 135 serving as a radar target and it was amazing how it would just appear out of nowhere, and we were using TCAS to know where to look. The only chance you'll get for visually spotting it is to get some parallax to see it from above or below.
Click to expand...

But the net effect is still the same. And then just imagine if there was some edge treatment that made the planform outline seem to have even less contrast, like a light gloss grey wavy paint effect along the leading and trailing edge.
 
I got the impression that production was going to be deliberately slow and drawn out...which might help keep the line open for additional buys. Two hundred sounds fanciful but then again if there’s a finalized design with a reasonable fly away cost, maybe that’s doable. Replacing the B-1 and B-2 would get rid of a lot of parts streams and maintenance costs.
 
Have they released any kind of schedule? I thought the production rate was to be rather slow, relatively speaking. I thought they'd be producing through the early 2030s.
 
Josh_TN said:
Have they released any kind of schedule? I thought the production rate was to be rather slow, relatively speaking. I thought they'd be producing through the early 2030s.
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With the recent increase in assertiveness by China and headlines about NGAD developments, I think things are going to pick up.
 
Josh_TN said:
Have they released any kind of schedule? I thought the production rate was to be rather slow, relatively speaking.
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This is for a company that, for any type, produces at most a high single digit number of aircraft per year.
And they could very well be in a loss position on the first lot or two. So there's probably a desire
to be very gradual and ginger with the ramp.
 
FighterJock said:
NUSNA_Moebius said:
220? I honestly didn't expect that high and am doubtful it ever will.
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I hope that the USAF stick to the 220 figure and do not cut the number.
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What history has showed us.
You can take that prospect of planned total produced figure, then divide that by 2... then divide that by 2 again.
And by then we should be close to the reality.
 
Note that that 220 figure is the total number of bombers, not the number of B-21's to be produced.
The planning is to build 100 B-21's.
The other 120 should then be existing B-52's, existing F-15E's, et cetera.
And I don't think they will actually retire the B-2's , and maybe not even all B-1's, espicially not if it turns out that the B-21 is going to be much more costly than planned (as is usually the case) and therefor less than 100 will be built.
 
haavarla said:
FighterJock said:
NUSNA_Moebius said:
220? I honestly didn't expect that high and am doubtful it ever will.
Click to expand...

I hope that the USAF stick to the 220 figure and do not cut the number.
Click to expand...

What history has showed us.
You can take that prospect of planned total produced figure, then divide that by 2... then divide that by 2 again.
And by then we should be close to the reality.
Click to expand...
History now that is being referenced should be from 1970s era rather than 1990-2000 era since that is size of the threat thats emanating potentially from combined growth of military capabilities of peer adversaries.

As such, thinking the B21 program will go the way of B2 or F22 in terms of production cuts would be erring.

Unlike those programs, B21 isn't a program devoid of use cases to be applied to, rather, its a necessity to fulfill the gaps of capability that have formed in the last 20-30 years.
 
Dagger said:
Note that that 220 figure is the total number of bombers, not the number of B-21's to be produced.
The planning is to build 100 B-21's.
The other 120 should then be existing B-52's, existing F-15E's, et cetera.
And I don't think they will actually retire the B-2's , and maybe not even all B-1's, espicially not if it turns out that the B-21 is going to be much more costly than planned (as is usually the case) and therefor less than 100 will be built.
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the B-1s are falling apart and the B-2s are bespoke airframes. It’s simply a question of which gets replaced first, not if.
 
marauder2048 said:
Grey Havoc said:

B-21 And Fighters Prepare For Disruptive Software-led Change | Aviation Week Network

U.S. Air Force thinks a software development shift will drive combat aircraft advances and change the defense industry business model.
aviationweek.com aviationweek.com

A recipe for yet more disaster?
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What do you view as problematic?
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Open Source software / architecture has been more than a bit of a disappointment, not to mention that it is a security nightmare at the best of times. And these are far from the best of times.
 
With respect to the current pacific situation. I think the contra temps will be sooner than any service introduction. Likely anyway.
 
Grey Havoc said:
marauder2048 said:
Grey Havoc said:

B-21 And Fighters Prepare For Disruptive Software-led Change | Aviation Week Network

U.S. Air Force thinks a software development shift will drive combat aircraft advances and change the defense industry business model.
aviationweek.com aviationweek.com

A recipe for yet more disaster?
Click to expand...

What do you view as problematic?
Click to expand...

Open Source software / architecture has been more than a bit of a disappointment, not to mention that it is a security nightmare at the best of times. And these are far from the best of times.
Click to expand...

Except it's not really open source (except for some of the containers for which there are decidedly closed source hardware isolation mechanism)

It's "open" in the sense that the government owns the data rights and the system integration labs.
 

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