Nothing says 'Merica more than Air Force officials providing an update on the Northrop Grumman B-21 Raider program. The latest update shows the stealth bomber is undergoing continued flight testing, including a "fatigue testing campaign." This bomber is slated to replace the backbone of the USAF's flexible global strike capability, comprised of the Rockwell B-1 Lancer and the Northrop B-2 Spirit bombers.
On Wednesday, Gen. Thomas Bussiere, commander of the Air Force Global Strike Command; Maj. Gen. Jason Armagost, commander of the Eighth Air Force and Joint-Global Strike Operations Center; William Bailey, director of the Department of the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office; and Thomas Jones, president of the Northrop Grumman Aeronautics Systems sector, were all panelists at the Air and Space Force Association's Air, Space, and Cyber Conference.
The group provided crucial updates on the B-21 program:
Bailey and Jones provided updates about how the B-21 program is progressing.
"We're really starting to strike up quite a cadence [and] generate two flight test flights in a given week," Jones said. "When we started this journey, we made a vow that we were going to design this system to be a daily flyer. It's been a phenomenal year of progress, and we hope to continue that through the next year."
The panelists also described a significant milestone in which the B-21 completed its static test on the G-1 asset, a ground-based test article used to evaluate the structural integrity of the aircraft. This test was essential to "confirming the structural design of the aircraft is sound and validated confidence in the digital models," Bailey said.
The aircraft is now going through a fatigue testing campaign.
Armagost discussed how the B-21 program is preparing for the delivery of the aircraft to Ellsworth Air Force Base, South Dakota, to include laying the foundation for AFGSC squadrons to be sufficiently equipped, trained, and certified for aircraft delivery, while Bailey spoke to the teamwork that has been essential to the program's development.
"We're very clear as a team what the priorities are day after day," Bailey said. "That collaboration between operators and acquirers has been a key component of this success … that has got to be a consideration [in Great Power Competition]."
Bussiere addressed current strategic threats posed by adversaries and the necessity of the bomber force, and the future capabilities the B-21 will provide, to keep pace with those threats.
"We are the free world's only bomber force. We're probably not going to see a decreased demand signal from our regional combatant commands on bomber task forces," Bussiere added. "That demand signal, in my opinion, is only going to go up in the years ahead. As we transition from legacy to new, the B-21 fleet will provide great comfort to our allies and should provide great pause to any potential adversary."
He added, "Nobody on the planet can do what we're doing right now. Nobody on the planet can build an exquisite, technologically-advanced platform like the B-21, and quite frankly, nobody on the planet can hold at risk what we can hold at risk at a time and place of our choosing."
Bailey echoed Bussiere's comments about the adaptability of the B-21 systems, which were "designed with flexibility in mind."
"Agility and flexibility — they can't just be buzzwords. These are the kind of things that you need to be able to demonstrate over time. Why? Because it's going to be changing on you, and we've had the benefit of
On X, the USAF released footage of B-21 flight testing.
The B-21 program is positioned to deliver a minimum of 100 stealth bombers in the years ahead, which will be based at Ellsworth AFB, South Dakota, Whiteman AFB, Missouri, and Dyess AFB, Texas.