B-21 Raider stealth bomber expected to take first flight next year
(Worthy News) – The US Air Force has announced that the B-21 Raider stealth bomber currently under construction is expected to take its first flight in mid-2022, UPI reported Wednesday. A second plane is also already being built.
The B-21 Raider stealth bomber plane is part of the US Air Force Long-Range Strike Bomber program and is intended to complement and eventually replace B-1, B-2, and B-52 bombers, UPI said. Expected to be ready for service by 2026, the B-21 is designed as a very long-range, large, heavy-payload stealth plane that can carry both conventional and nuclear weapons.
In an interview with Air Force magazine, Randall Walden of the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office confirmed officials’ previous statements that the bomber’s first flight may be delayed. However, Walden said, the first B-21 being built at Northrop Grumman’s Palmdale, Calif. facility is “really starting to look like a bomber.”
The second plane is on the assembly line, Walden added. “The second one is really more about structures and the overall structural capability. We’ll go in and bend it, we’ll test it to its limits, make sure that the design and the manufacturing and the production line make sense,” Walden said.
The Pentagon has set a budget of $80 billion to build at least 100 B-21s, UPI reported.
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