Photo: Northrop Grumman
Come next year, America will have a brand new bomber in its arsenal. Sure, for the near-term future, it will only have it as a prototype for testing purposes, but the first examples in the fleet should be ready for service by the end of this decade.
The bomber, capable of carrying nuclear weapons, is called B-21 Raider, and it’s being put together by Northrop Grumman. And we’ve just learned of the aircraft passing, with flying colors, a crucial test at the beginning of the month.
More to the point, Northrop Grumman conducted and completed something called loads calibration test. It was the first such procedure in a longer series, and meant calibrating instrumentation prior to flight and verifying structural integrity, in this latter case by subjecting the aircraft’s frame to different levels of stress.
The prototype is not quite ready for its first flight, and now will have to succeed in upcoming procedures, including power-up, subsystems tests, engine runs, and taxi runs at various speeds.
At the time of writing, Northrop Grumman says the U.S. Air Force’s (USAF) goal of having the B-21 in the air for the first time next year is doable. Once that is done, and the plane cleared for production, the company should “deliver the B-21 at a rate that will have a real effect for the U.S. Air Force in combating the threat.” In all, some 100 of these beasts will likely be made.
Some info made public at the end of last year by Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall revealed two test aircraft are already in the final stages of assembly, and up to five of them are on the assembly lines being put together.
“The B-21 test aircraft is the most production-representative aircraft, both structurally and in its mission systems, at this point in a program, that I’ve observed in my career,” said in a statement this week Randy Walden, program executive officer of the B-21 Raider program.
More to the point, Northrop Grumman conducted and completed something called loads calibration test. It was the first such procedure in a longer series, and meant calibrating instrumentation prior to flight and verifying structural integrity, in this latter case by subjecting the aircraft’s frame to different levels of stress.
The prototype is not quite ready for its first flight, and now will have to succeed in upcoming procedures, including power-up, subsystems tests, engine runs, and taxi runs at various speeds.
At the time of writing, Northrop Grumman says the U.S. Air Force’s (USAF) goal of having the B-21 in the air for the first time next year is doable. Once that is done, and the plane cleared for production, the company should “deliver the B-21 at a rate that will have a real effect for the U.S. Air Force in combating the threat.” In all, some 100 of these beasts will likely be made.
Some info made public at the end of last year by Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall revealed two test aircraft are already in the final stages of assembly, and up to five of them are on the assembly lines being put together.
“The B-21 test aircraft is the most production-representative aircraft, both structurally and in its mission systems, at this point in a program, that I’ve observed in my career,” said in a statement this week Randy Walden, program executive officer of the B-21 Raider program.
Google News