After years of intense speculation, the Air Force finally revealed a first image of its long-awaited new bomber, and gave it an official name. Formerly known as the Long Range Strike Bomber, or LRS-B, the new, Northrop Grumman designed plane is now the B-21. If that sounds at all familiar, it's because America's last brand-new shiny Northrop Grumman designed bomber was the B-2 Spirit. With the shroud lifted off the new bomber, we can see that the B-21 looks...almost exactly like its predecessor.
If this Northrop Grumman ad is any indication, we haven't seen the last of the piloted fighter jet. The defense giant is best known for its long line of flying wings, including the iconic B-2 Spirit stealth bomber and the yet-to-be-unveiled Long Range Strike Bomber. Their new 30-second clip doesn't show us any new details about that bomber, which remains under wraps in ads even after winning a major Air Force contract. Instead, it gives us a trio of arrow-head-shaped grey wedges, all stealthy jet fighters with room for human pilots on board.
Jack Northrup never went to college, but his strict work ethic, incredible drive, and unwavering ambition trumped his lack of formal education. He was a visionary who became a giant in aviation, familiar today as the Northrop in Northrop Grumman. But he never saw his pet project come to life, the flying wing aircraft whose whole body was a lifting surface. With minimum drag and maximum lift, he imagined the radical design becoming an efficient long-range bomber. The first true flying wing took flight in the mid-1940s, and within half a decade all were gone from the skies. Not until seven years after his death did Northrop's flying wing really take off, becoming the asset to the US Air Force he knew it could be.
It's hard to deny just how stunning the B-2 Spirit looks. A gorgeous, slick, all-black stealth bomber, its rudderless body and technological edge combine the coolness and menace of Batman and Darth Vader into one deadly package for the American military. Last Friday, Northrop Grumman released some stunning footage of the plane in flight.
Meet the B-52's grandchild. Today, after four years of development in secret, the United States Air Force awarded Northrop Grumman the contract to build their Long Range Strike Bomber. With a target price of $511 million apiece (in 2010 dollars), the LRS-B is the first new bomber for the Air Force since their 21st and final B-2 Spirit entered service in 1997. The Air Force will order the first 21 of 100 total LRS-Bs to replace their aging bomber fleet.
As research for our January 2015 feature story about stealth new aircraft, we created virtual models of the coolest new drones in the sky—the Northrop Grumman RQ-180 and the BAE Systems Taranis. Both are top-secret projects. In fact, the RQ-180 is so “black-world” that it's only been spotted once or twice, flying high over the U.S. Air Force's remote Area 51 in Nevada. Nonetheless, leaked information exists on both projects, and in the right hands it can speak volumes about their capabilities.
For the U.S. Navy and Northrop Grumman, it's shaping up to be a banner year in unmanned flight. While the carrier-based autonomous X-47B continues to hit milestones aboard the USS George H.W. Bush somewhere off the East Coast, out west in Palmdale, Calif., today the Navy flew its MQ-4C Triton maritime drone for the first time, marking the beginning of a sea change (pardon the pun) in the way the U.S. military patrols the oceans. The drone flew for 80 minutes and reached an altitude of 20,000 feet.
