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The B-2 Bomber Is Still Getting "Game-Changing" Upgrades As Focus Shifts To The B-21
The upgrades the B-2 and its sustainment program are getting now will have a direct influence on the capabilities of the B-21 in the future.
AUGUST 22, 2019
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zo...changing-upgrades-as-focus-shifts-to-the-b-21
Excerpts:
The War Zone recently had a chance to visit Northrop Grumman's facilities at the Air Force's Plant 42 complex as part of an event to mark the 30th anniversary of the first flight of the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber. Northrop said it has and continues to leverage lessons from the B-2 program to support work on the new B-21 Raider, but also highlighted how it is still adding "game-changing" capabilities to the existing Spirits, including major upgrades as part of the Defensive Management System Modernization program, as well as improving the processes for sustaining and maintaining the bombers. America's stealth bombers still have many years of life left in them and will find themselves flying alongside B-21s, at least for a period, as the Air Force begins to take delivery of the new aircraft in the next few years.
In July 2019, U.S. Air Force Vice Chief of Staff General Stephen Wilson revealed that the service is looking toward the B-21 making its first flight in December 2021. The first examples are expected to enter operational service sometime in the mid-2020s. It seems very probable, if not likely, that some form of risk reduction prototype or test articles have already flown as part of the Raider's development. Northrop Grumman's RQ-180 reconnaissance drone may have also served a dual purpose in supporting this development. U.S. Air Force Major General James Dawkins, head of Eighth Air Force, the service's top strategic bomber unit, declined to comment on whether the first B-21s would eventually have a pilot-optional capability as outlined in the original requirements when we asked him after the ceremony.
In the meantime, the B-2s will continue to be a vital component of the Air Force's strategic bomber force and Northrop Grumman continues to modernize those aircraft, as well as improve the maintenance and sustainment processes to keep fleet going. The stealth bombers are high-demand, but low-density assets that have complex time- and resource-intensive maintenance and logistics requirements. All this contributes to the high operating costs for the B-2, which recent reports say is presently around $122,000 per flight hour.
Each B-2 has to go through a programmed depot maintenance cycle every nine years, which includes a general overhaul and a complete reapplication of the aircraft's special radar-absorbing material skin and paint job. The bombers used to have to go to the depot in seven-year intervals, but improvements to the specialized coatings and other components have given them extended service life. Robotic tooling to help install parts and apply coatings, which helps improve consistency and quality control, has also contributed to this added flying time between depot visits.
Northrop Grumman says the entire depot process takes a year, but that it has been able to speed up the basic work, again through the use of robotic systems. What this means is that the company now includes various upgrade work in each trip to the depot, which helps to reduce costs and improve availability rates. At present, the 19 combat-coded B-2s have a mission capable rate just over 60 percent. An additional bomber is at Edwards Air Force Base in a non-combat test capacity. Two of them, roughly 10 percent of the fleet, are at Plant 42 for depot work at any one time.
Past B-2 modernization projects have included new communications equipment and improved avionics. The latest major upgrade effort, which is going on right now, is the Defensive Management System
Modernization (DMS-M) program.
"By leveraging ‘state-of-the-art’ electronic warfare antennae, processors, controller, and displays, B-2 aircrews will realize unprecedented situational battlespace awareness and dynamic, real-time threat avoidance in the most complex radio frequency emitter environments," is how the Air Force has described the updates in budget documents in the past. "The inherent increased sensitivity of the modernized DMS over the legacy system, with increased processing power, will build a battlespace picture that could be shared with joint force platforms by onboard communication systems."
The DMS-M upgrades will allow crews to rely less on rigid mission planning and be more readily able to change their routes and tactics on the fly based on situational threat information. Electronic warfare systems will provide an additional set of tools to ensure the B-2s can get to their targets even as potential opponents, especially Russia and China, continue to improve their integrated air defense networks and develop potential countermeasures to detect and engage stealth aircraft.
In addition, there has also been talk over the years about adding additional defenses, including hard-kill anti-missile systems, using either physical interceptors or directed energy weapons, on various U.S. military aircraft. Northrop Grumman itself has a patent for an anti-missile interceptor system for stealthy aircraft, which The War Zone has explored in detail in the past.
The upgrades the B-2 and its sustainment program are getting now will have a direct influence on the capabilities of the B-21 in the future.
AUGUST 22, 2019
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zo...changing-upgrades-as-focus-shifts-to-the-b-21
Excerpts:
The War Zone recently had a chance to visit Northrop Grumman's facilities at the Air Force's Plant 42 complex as part of an event to mark the 30th anniversary of the first flight of the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber. Northrop said it has and continues to leverage lessons from the B-2 program to support work on the new B-21 Raider, but also highlighted how it is still adding "game-changing" capabilities to the existing Spirits, including major upgrades as part of the Defensive Management System Modernization program, as well as improving the processes for sustaining and maintaining the bombers. America's stealth bombers still have many years of life left in them and will find themselves flying alongside B-21s, at least for a period, as the Air Force begins to take delivery of the new aircraft in the next few years.
In July 2019, U.S. Air Force Vice Chief of Staff General Stephen Wilson revealed that the service is looking toward the B-21 making its first flight in December 2021. The first examples are expected to enter operational service sometime in the mid-2020s. It seems very probable, if not likely, that some form of risk reduction prototype or test articles have already flown as part of the Raider's development. Northrop Grumman's RQ-180 reconnaissance drone may have also served a dual purpose in supporting this development. U.S. Air Force Major General James Dawkins, head of Eighth Air Force, the service's top strategic bomber unit, declined to comment on whether the first B-21s would eventually have a pilot-optional capability as outlined in the original requirements when we asked him after the ceremony.
In the meantime, the B-2s will continue to be a vital component of the Air Force's strategic bomber force and Northrop Grumman continues to modernize those aircraft, as well as improve the maintenance and sustainment processes to keep fleet going. The stealth bombers are high-demand, but low-density assets that have complex time- and resource-intensive maintenance and logistics requirements. All this contributes to the high operating costs for the B-2, which recent reports say is presently around $122,000 per flight hour.
Each B-2 has to go through a programmed depot maintenance cycle every nine years, which includes a general overhaul and a complete reapplication of the aircraft's special radar-absorbing material skin and paint job. The bombers used to have to go to the depot in seven-year intervals, but improvements to the specialized coatings and other components have given them extended service life. Robotic tooling to help install parts and apply coatings, which helps improve consistency and quality control, has also contributed to this added flying time between depot visits.
Northrop Grumman says the entire depot process takes a year, but that it has been able to speed up the basic work, again through the use of robotic systems. What this means is that the company now includes various upgrade work in each trip to the depot, which helps to reduce costs and improve availability rates. At present, the 19 combat-coded B-2s have a mission capable rate just over 60 percent. An additional bomber is at Edwards Air Force Base in a non-combat test capacity. Two of them, roughly 10 percent of the fleet, are at Plant 42 for depot work at any one time.
Past B-2 modernization projects have included new communications equipment and improved avionics. The latest major upgrade effort, which is going on right now, is the Defensive Management System
Modernization (DMS-M) program.
"By leveraging ‘state-of-the-art’ electronic warfare antennae, processors, controller, and displays, B-2 aircrews will realize unprecedented situational battlespace awareness and dynamic, real-time threat avoidance in the most complex radio frequency emitter environments," is how the Air Force has described the updates in budget documents in the past. "The inherent increased sensitivity of the modernized DMS over the legacy system, with increased processing power, will build a battlespace picture that could be shared with joint force platforms by onboard communication systems."
The DMS-M upgrades will allow crews to rely less on rigid mission planning and be more readily able to change their routes and tactics on the fly based on situational threat information. Electronic warfare systems will provide an additional set of tools to ensure the B-2s can get to their targets even as potential opponents, especially Russia and China, continue to improve their integrated air defense networks and develop potential countermeasures to detect and engage stealth aircraft.
In addition, there has also been talk over the years about adding additional defenses, including hard-kill anti-missile systems, using either physical interceptors or directed energy weapons, on various U.S. military aircraft. Northrop Grumman itself has a patent for an anti-missile interceptor system for stealthy aircraft, which The War Zone has explored in detail in the past.
