Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit
"Stealth Bomber" redirects here. For stealth aircraft in general, see
Stealth aircraft.
| B-2 Spirit |
| |
| A USAF B-2 Spirit in flight |
| Role | Stealth bomber |
| National origin | United States |
| Manufacturer | Northrop Corporation
Northrop Grumman |
| First flight | 17 July 1989 |
| Introduction | April 1997 |
| Status | Active service: 20 aircraft |
| Primary user | United States Air Force |
| Number built | 21[1][2] |
| Program cost | US$44.75 billion (through 2004)[3] |
| Unit cost | $737 million (1997 cost for each aircraft, $1.01 billion today)[3][4] |
The
Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit (also known as the
Stealth Bomber) is an American
heavy bomber with low observable
stealth technology designed to
penetrate dense
anti-aircraft defenses and deploy both
conventional and
nuclear weapons. The bomber has a crew of two and can drop up to 80 500 lb (230 kg)-class
JDAM GPS-guided bombs, or 16 2,400 lb (1,100 kg)
B83 nuclear bombs. The B-2 is the only aircraft that can carry large air to surface
standoff weapons in a stealth configuration.
Development originally started under the "Advanced Technology Bomber" (ATB) project during the
Carter administration, and its performance was one of the reasons for his cancellation of the
B-1 Lancer. ATB continued during the
Reagan administration, but worries about delays in its introduction led to the reinstatement of the B-1 program as well. Program costs rose throughout development. Designed and manufactured by
Northrop Grumman with assistance from
Boeing, the cost of each aircraft averaged US$737 million in 1997 dollars).
[3] Total
procurement costs averaged $929 million per aircraft, which includes spare parts, equipment, retrofitting, and software support.
[3] The total program cost, which includes development, engineering and testing, averaged $2.1 billion per aircraft in 1997.
[3]
Because of its considerable
capital and
operational costs, the
project was controversial in the
U.S. Congress and among the
Joint Chiefs of Staff. The winding-down of the
Cold War in the later portion of the 1980s dramatically reduced the need for the aircraft, which was designed with the intention of penetrating Soviet airspace and attacking high-value targets. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Congress slashed initial plans to purchase 132 bombers to 21. In 2008 one bomber
crashed just after takeoff and was destroyed as the crew ejected safely.
[5] A total of 20 B-2s remain in service with the
United States Air Force.
Though originally designed primarily as a nuclear bomber, the B-2 was first used in combat to drop conventional
bombs on
Serbia during the
Kosovo War in 1999, and saw continued use during the wars in
Iraq and
Afghanistan.
[6] B-2s were also used during the
2011 Libyan uprising.
Development
Origins
In the mid-1970s the search for a new US
strategic bomber to replace the
Boeing B-52 Stratofortress was underway, with nothing to show for it. First the
North American XB-70 Valkyrie and then the
Rockwell B-1 Lancer both became obsolete before entering service, and were canceled after only small numbers had been built. The B-70 was intended to fly above and beyond defensive
interceptor aircraft, only to find these same attributes made it especially vulnerable to
surface-to-air missiles (SAMs). The B-1 attempted to avoid SAMs by flying close to the ground to mask their radars behind terrain, only to face a new generation of interceptors with
look-down/shoot-down capabilities that could attack them from above.
However, technology continued to progress throughout. By the mid-1970s it was becoming clear that there was an entirely different way to avoid missiles
and intercepts. Known today as "
stealth", the idea was to build an aircraft with an airframe that deflected or absorbed radar signals so that too little was reflected back to the radar unit. An aircraft that was stealthy enough would be able to fly wherever it pleased, and could be attacked only by weapons and systems that did not rely on radar. Although such possibilities exist, notably human observers, ranges were so short that most aircraft could fly right by the defence with impunity, especially at night.
[8]
In 1974
DARPA requested information from US aviation firms about the largest
radar cross section of an aircraft where it would remain effectively invisible to radars.
[9] Initially,
Northrop and
McDonnell Douglas were selected for further work.
Lockheed had experience in this field due to their work on the
Lockheed SR-71, which included a number of stealthy features, notably its canted vertical stabilizers, the use of composite materials in key locations, and the overall finish in
radar absorbing paint. A key improvement was the introduction of computer models that could be used to predict the reflections from flat surfaces and could be used to design a "faceted" aircraft. Work on the first such designs had started in 1975 with "the hopeless diamond", a model built at Lockheed to test the concepts.
[10] Improvements quickly followed that allowed designs with more traditional layouts and construction techniques.
These plans were well advanced by the summer of 1975, when DARPA started the Experimental Survivability Testbed (XST) project. Northrop and Lockheed won the first round of testing, and Lockheed was the sole winner of the second round in April 1976. This led to the
Have Blue program.
[11]
ATB program
By 1976 these programs had advanced to the point where the concept of a long-range strategic stealth bomber appeared to be a safe bet. Whereas the B-1 relied on flying around known defense sites and could only change its mission within a limited selection of pre-selected routes, a stealth bomber would be able to overfly the Soviet Union with impunity, allowing it to loiter and hunt for targets instead of simply running in and out as fast as possible. In a nuclear exchange, this would allow it to wait out the initial attacks and find targets that escape destruction, eliminating the "overkill" that was built into existing war planning. Better yet, as the need for high speed was reduced or eliminated, and all of the extremely expensive
electronic warfare equipment removed, the aircraft would be much simpler and less expensive.
Carter was aware of these developments during 1977, and it appears to have been one of the major reasons the B-1 was canceled.
[12] Further studies were ordered in early 1978, by which point the Have Blue platform had flown and proven the concepts. During the
1980 presidential election in 1979,
Ronald Reagan repeatedly complained that Carter was weak on defence, and used the B-1 as a prime example. In return, on 22 August 1980, the
Carter administration publicly disclosed that the
United States Department of Defense (DoD) was working to develop stealth aircraft, including a bomber.
[13]
The Advanced Technology Bomber (ATB) began in 1979.
[14] Full development of the
black project followed. The black program was funded under the code name "Aurora".
[15] After the evaluations of the companies' proposals, the ATB competition was reduced to the
Northrop/
Boeing and
Lockheed/
Rockwell teams with each receiving a study contract for further work.
[14] Both teams used flying wing designs.
[15] Northrop had previous experience from the development of the
YB-35 and
YB-49 flying wing aircraft.
[16] The Northrop design was larger while the Lockheed design included a small tail.
[15]
The B-2's first public display in 1988
The Northrop/Boeing team's ATB design was selected over the Lockheed/Rockwell design on 20 October 1981.
[14][17] The Northrop design received the designation B-2 and the name "Spirit". The bomber's design was changed in the mid-1980s when the mission profile was changed from high-altitude to low-altitude, terrain-following. The redesign delayed the B-2's first flight by two years and added about US$1 billion to the program's cost.
[13] An estimated US$23 billion was secretly spent for
research and development on the B-2 by 1989.
[18]
The B-2 was first publicly displayed on 22 November 1988, at Air Force
Plant 42,
Palmdale, California, where it was assembled. This initial viewing was heavily guarded and guests were not allowed to see the rear of the B-2. However,
Aviation Week editors found that there was no ban on overflying the airfield apron/presentation area and, to the chagrin of the USAF, took pictures from above of the aircraft's then-secret
planform and suppressed engine exhausts. The B-2's first public flight was on 17 July 1989 from Palmdale.
[19] At the program's peak, approximately 13,000 people were employed at a dedicated plant in
Pico Rivera, California for the aircraft's engineering and portions of its manufacturing.
[20]
The B-2's first public flight in 1989
Espionage
In 1984, a
Northrop employee,
Thomas Cavanaugh, was arrested for attempting to sell
classified information to the
Soviet Union, which apparently was smuggled out of the Pico Rivera, California factory.
[21] Cavanaugh was eventually sentenced to life in prison and released on parole in 2001.
Noshir Gowadia, a design engineer who worked on the B-2's propulsion system, was arrested in October 2005 for selling B-2 related classified information to foreign countries.
[22] On 9 August 2010, Gowadia was convicted in the
United States District Court for the District of Hawaii on 14 of 17 charges against him.
[23] On 24 January 2011, Gowadia was sentenced to 32 years in prison.
[24]
Program costs and procurement
A procurement of 132 aircraft was planned in the mid-1980s, but was later reduced to 75.
[25] By the early 1990s, the
Soviet Union had disintegrated, which effectively eliminated the Spirit's primary Cold War mission. Under budgetary pressures and congressional opposition, in his 1992
State of the Union Address, President
George H.W. Bush announced B-2 production would be limited to 20 aircraft.
[26] In 1996, however, the Clinton administration, though originally committed to ending production of the bombers at 20 aircraft, authorized the conversion of a 21st bomber, a
prototype test model, to Block 30 fully operational status at a cost of nearly $500 million.
[27]
In 1995, Northrop made a proposal to the USAF to build 20 additional aircraft with a
flyaway cost of $566 million each.
[28]
The program was the subject of public controversy for its costs to American taxpayers. In 1996, the
General Accounting Office disclosed that the USAF's B-2 bombers "will be, by far, the most costly bombers to operate on a per aircraft basis", costing over three times as much as the
B-1B (US$9.6 million annually) and over four times as much as the B-52H ($US6.8 million annually). In September 1997, each hour of B-2 flight necessitated 119 hours of maintenance in turn. Comparable maintenance needs for the B-52 and the B-1B are 53 and 60 hours respectively for each hour of flight. A key reason for this cost is the provision of air-conditioned hangars large enough for the bomber's 172 ft (52.4 m) wingspan, which are needed to maintain the aircraft's stealthy properties, especially its "low-observable" stealthy skins.
[29][30] Maintenance costs are about $3.4 million a month for each aircraft.
[31]
In a 1994
live fire exercise near
Point Mugu, California, a B-2 drops forty-seven 500 lb (230 kg) class
Mark 82 bombs, which is more than half of a B-2's total ordnance payload
The total "military construction" cost related to the program was projected to be US$553.6 million in 1997 dollars. The cost to procure each B-2 was US$737 million in 1997 dollars, based only on a fleet cost of US$15.48 billion.
[3] The procurement cost per aircraft as detailed in
General Accounting Office (GAO) reports, which include spare parts and software support, was $929 million per aircraft in 1997 dollars.
[3]
The total program cost projected through 2004 was US$44.75 billion in 1997 dollars. This includes development, procurement, facilities, construction, and spare parts. The total program cost averaged US$2.13 billion per aircraft.
[3]
Opposition
In its consideration of the fiscal year 1990 defense budget, the House Armed Services Committee trimmed $800 million from the B-2
research and development budget, while at the same time staving off a motion to kill the bomber. Opposition in committee and in Congress as mostly broad and bipartisan, with Congressmen
Ron Dellums (D-CA),
John Kasich (R-OH), and
John G. Rowland (R-CT) authorizing the motion to kill the bomber and others in the Senate such as
Jim Exon (D-NE) and
John McCain (R-AZ) also opposing the project.
[32]
The growing cost of the B-2 program, and evidence of flaws in the aircraft's ability to elude detection by radar,
[32] were among factors that drove opposition. At the peak production period specified in 1989, the schedule called for spending US$7 billion to $8 billion per year in 1989 dollars, something Committee Chair
Les Aspin (D-WI) said "won't fly financially."
[33]
In 1990, the Department of Defense accused Northrop of using faulty components in the
flight control system. Efforts have also been made to reduce the probability of bird ingestion, which could damage engine fan blades.
[34]
In time, a number of prominent members of Congress began to oppose the program's expansion, including former Democratic presidential nominee
John Kerry, who cast votes against the B-2 in 1989, 1991 and 1992 while a US Senator representing
Massachusetts. By 1992, Republican President
George H.W. Bush called for the cancellation of the B-2 and promised to cut military spending by 30% in the wake of the collapse of the
Soviet Union.
[35]
In May 1995, on the basis of its 1995 Heavy Bomber Force Study, the DOD determined that additional B-2 procurements would exacerbate efforts to develop and implement long term recapitalization plans for the
U.S. Air Force bomber force.
In October 1995, former
Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force,
General Mike Ryan, and Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General
John Shalikashvili, strongly recommended against Congressional action to fund the purchase of any additional B-2s, arguing that to do so would require unacceptable cuts in existing conventional and nuclear-capable aircraft to pay for the new bombers,
[36] and because the military had much higher priorities on which to spend its limited procurement dollars.
[37]
Some B-2 advocates argued that procuring twenty additional aircraft would save money because B-2s would be able to deeply penetrate anti-aircraft defenses and use low-cost, short-range attack weapons rather than expensive standoff weapons. However, in 1995, the
Congressional Budget Office (CBO), and its Director of National Security Analysis, found that additional B-2s would reduce the cost of weapons expended by the bomber force by less than US$2 billion in 1995 dollars during the first two weeks of a conflict, which is when the Air Force envisions bombers would make their greatest contribution. This is a small fraction of the US$26.8 billion (in 1995 dollars) life cycle cost that the CBO projected an additional 20 B-2s would cost.
[38]
In 1997, as
Ranking Member of the
House Armed Services Committee and National Security Committee, Congressman
Ron Dellums (D-CA), a long-time opponent of the bomber, cited five independent studies and offered an amendment to that year's defense authorization bill to cap production of the bombers to the existing 21 aircraft. The amendment was narrowly defeated.
[39] Nonetheless, Congress did not approve funding for the purchase of any additional B-2 bombers.
Upgrades
A number of upgrade packages were applied to the B-2 during the 21st century. In 2004, Northrop Grumman tested a new alternate high-frequency material (AHFM) for use as a RAM coating for the B-2.
[40] The
Air Force Research Laboratory has developed a new material to be used on the part of the wing trailing edge that is subject to engine exhaust to replace the current material that degrades.
[41] In 2008, the US Congress funded upgrades to the B-2's weapon control systems for hitting moving targets.
[42]
In July 2008, the B-2's computing architecture was redesigned with a new integrated processing unit (IPU) that communicates via a fiber optic network and a smaller, faster single-board processor that runs a new version of the operational flight program (OFP) software converted from
JOVIAL to
C by automated tools.
[43][44]
On 29 December 2008, Air Force officials awarded a production contract to Northrop Grumman to modernize the B-2 fleet's radars. The contract provides advanced radar components, with the aim of sustained operational viability of the B-2 fleet into the future. The contract has a target value of some US$468 million.
[45] The award follows successful flight testing with the upgraded equipment. A modification to the radar was needed since the
US Department of Commerce required the B-2 to use a different radar frequency.
[46] It was reported on 22 July 2009 that the B-2 had passed the second of the two USAF audit milestones associated with this upgraded
AESA radar capability.
[47]
On 28 April 2009, an Air Force/contractor team verified that the 30,000 lb (14,000 kg)
Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) would fit in the B-2's bomb bay.
[48]
Future developments
The Pentagon is currently (as of 2011) evaluating a radically different unmanned stealth bomber, characterized as a "mini-B2", to come into operational service by 2020.
[49] During a transition period, US political expert
Rebecca Grant has posited when the B-2 is no longer able to penetrate enemy defenses, the
Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II may take on its strike/interdiction role. The F-35 also carries the
B61 nuclear bomb as a tactical bomber and is not covered by strategic arms limitation treaties such as
New START.
[50]
Design
The B-2's engines are buried within its wing to conceal the induction fans and minimize their exhaust signature. The crew of two sit side-by-side in the cockpit.
The B-2's low-observable, or "
stealth", characteristics give it the ability to penetrate an enemy's most sophisticated anti-aircraft defenses to attack its most heavily defended targets. The bomber's stealth comes from a combination of reduced acoustic, infrared, visual and radar signatures, making it difficult for opposition defenses to detect, track and engage the aircraft. Many specific aspects of the low-observability process remain classified. The B-2's composite materials, special coatings and
flying wing design, which reduces the number of leading edges, contribute to its stealth characteristics.
[51] The Spirit has a radar signature of about 0.1 m
2.
[52] Each B-2 requires a climate-controlled hangar large enough for its 172-foot (52 m) wingspan to protect the operational integrity of its sophisticated radar absorbent material and coatings.
[53] The engines are buried within the wing to conceal the induction fans and hide their exhaust.
[54]
The blending of low-observable technologies with high aerodynamic efficiency and large payload gives the B-2 significant advantages over previous bombers. The U.S. Air Force reports its range as approximately 6,000
nautical miles (6,900 mi; 11,000 km).
[6][55] Also, its low-observation ability provides the B-2 greater freedom of action at high altitudes, thus increasing its range and providing a better field of view for the aircraft's sensors. It combines GPS Aided Targeting System (GATS) with
GPS-aided bombs such as
Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM). This uses its
passive electronically scanned array APQ-181 radar to correct GPS errors of targets and gain much better than laser-guided weapon accuracy when "unguided" gravity bombs are equipped with a GPS-aided "smart" guidance tail kit. It can bomb 16 targets in a single pass when equipped with 1,000 or 2,000-pound (450 kg or 900 kg) bombs, or as many as 80 when carrying 500 lb (230 kg) bombs.
Former Vice President
Dick Cheney sits inside the cockpit of a B-2 with pilot Capt. Luke Jayne during a visit to Whiteman AFB in 2006.
The B-2 has a crew of two: a pilot in the left seat, and mission commander in the right.
[6] The B-2 has provisions for a third crew member if needed.
[56] For comparison, the B-1B has a crew of four and the B-52 has a crew of five.
[6] B-2 crews have been used to pioneer
sleep cycle research to improve crew performance on long
sorties. The B-2 is highly automated, and, unlike two-seat fighters, one crew member can sleep, use a toilet or prepare a hot meal while the other monitors the aircraft.
[57]
As with the
Boeing B-52 Stratofortress and
Rockwell B-1 Lancer, the B-2 provides the versatility inherent in manned bombers. Like other bombers, its assigned targets can be canceled or changed while in flight, the particular weapon assigned to a target can be changed, and the timing of attack, or the route to the target can be changed while in flight.
A B-2 during
aerial refueling which extends its range past 6,000 miles (9,700 km) to support intercontinental sorties.
The prime contractor, responsible for overall system design, integration and support, is
Northrop Grumman.
Boeing,
Raytheon (formerly
Hughes Aircraft),
G.E. and
Vought Aircraft Industries, are
subcontractors.
The original B-2 design had tanks for a
contrail-inhibiting chemical, but this was replaced in the final design with a contrail sensor from Ophir that alerts the pilot when he should change altitude.
[58] Mission planning also considers altitudes where the probability of contrail formation is minimized.
Operational history
The first operational aircraft, christened
Spirit of Missouri, was delivered to
Whiteman Air Force Base,
Missouri, where the fleet is based, on 17 December 1993.
[59] The B-2 reached initial operational capability (IOC) on 1 January 1997.
[60] Depot maintenance for the B-2 is accomplished by U.S. Air Force contractor support and managed at
Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center at
Tinker Air Force Base.
[6] Originally designed to deliver nuclear weapons, modern usage has shifted towards a flexible role with conventional and nuclear capability.
Into combat
The B-2 has seen service in four campaigns. Its combat debut was during the
Kosovo War in 1999. It was responsible for destroying 33% of selected Serbian bombing
targets in the first eight weeks of U.S. involvement in the War.
[6] During this war, B-2s flew non-stop to Kosovo from their home base in Missouri and back.
[6] The B-2 was the first aircraft to deploy GPS satellite guided
JDAM "smart bombs" in combat use in Kosovo.
[61]
B-2 Spirit U.S. Air Force video
The B-2 has been used to drop bombs on
Afghanistan in support of the
Operation Enduring Freedom. With the support of aerial refueling, the B-2 flew one of its longest missions to date from Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri to Afghanistan and back.
[6]
The B-2's combat use preceded a U.S. Air Force declaration of "full operational capability" in December 2003.
[6] The Pentagon's Operational Test and Evaluation 2003 Annual Report noted that the B-2's serviceability for Fiscal Year 2003 was still inadequate, mainly due to the maintainability of the B-2's low observable coatings. The evaluation also noted that the Defensive Avionics suite also had shortcomings with "pop-up threats".
[6]
During the
Iraq War (Operation Iraqi Freedom), B-2s operated from
Diego Garcia and an undisclosed "forward operating location". Other
sorties in Iraq have launched from Whiteman AFB.
[6] This resulted in missions lasting over 30 hours and one mission of over 50 hours. "Forward operating locations" have been previously designated as
Andersen Air Force Base in
Guam and
RAF Fairford in the
UK, where new climate controlled hangars have been constructed. B-2s have conducted 27 sorties from Whiteman AFB and 22 sorties from a forward operating location, releasing more than 1.5 million pounds of munitions,
[6] including 583 JDAM "smart bombs" in 2003.
[62]
All B-2s, nuclear-capable B-52s, and nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles have shifted to the nuclear-focused
Air Force Global Strike Command set up on September 2009.
[63][64]
In March 2011, B-2s were the first US aircraft into action in
Operation Odyssey Dawn, the UN mandated enforcement of the
Libyan no-fly zone. Three B-2s dropped 40 bombs on a Libyan airfield in support of the UN no-fly zone.
[65]
Operators
The "Spirit of Indiana" sits on the
ramp at
Andersen AFB in Guam on 23 June 2006
B-2s are operated exclusively by the
United States Air Force active units.
Accident
On 23 February 2008, the B-2
Spirit of Kansas,
89-0127 crashed on the runway shortly after takeoff from
Andersen Air Force Base in
Guam.
[67] B-2
89-0127 had been operated by the
393rd Bomb Squadron,
509th Bomb Wing,
Whiteman Air Force Base,
Missouri, and had logged 5,176 flight hours. It was the first crash of a B-2. The two person crew ejected safely from the aircraft and survived the crash. The aircraft was completely destroyed, a
hull loss valued at US$1.4 billion.
[68][69] After the accident, the Air Force took the B-2 fleet off operational status until clearing the fleet for flight status 53 days later on 15 April 2008.
[70] The cause of the crash was later determined to be moisture in the aircraft's Port Transducer Units during air data calibration, which distorted the information being sent to the bomber's air data system. As a result, the flight control computers calculated an inaccurate airspeed, and a negative angle of attack, causing the aircraft to pitch upward 30 degrees during takeoff.
[71]
Aircraft on display
Because of its high cost,
strategic bombing role, and the still-classified aspects of its low observable coatings, no production B-2 has been placed on permanent display. However, B-2s have made periodic appearances on ground display at various
air shows.
- B-2 test article (s/n AT-1000), the second of two built without engines or instruments for static testing, was placed on display in 2004 at the National Museum of the United States Air Force near Dayton, Ohio.[72] The test article passed all structural testing requirements before the airframe failed.[73] The Museum's restoration team spent over a year reassembling the fractured airframe. The display airframe is marked to resemble The Spirit of Ohio (S/N 82-1070), the B-2 used to test the design's ability to withstand extreme heat and cold.[72] The exhibit features the actual Spirit of Ohio nose wheel door, with its distinctive Fire and Ice artwork, which was painted and signed by the technicians who performed the temperature testing.[72] The restored test aircraft is on display in the museum's "Cold War Gallery".[74]
- From 1989 to 2004, the South Dakota Air and Space Museum located on the grounds of Ellsworth Air Force Base displayed the 10-short-ton (9-metric-ton) "Honda- Stealth", a 60% scale mock-up of a stealthy bomber which had been built by North American Honda in 1988 for an advertising campaign.[75] Although not an actual replica of a B-2, the mock-up was close enough to the B-2's design to arouse suspicion that Honda had intercepted classified, top secret information, as the B-2 project was still officially classified in 1988. Honda donated the model to the museum in 1989, on condition that the model be destroyed if it was ever replaced with a different example. In 2005, when the museum received a B-1 Lancer for display (Ellsworth being a B-1 base), the museum destroyed the mock-up.[76][77]
Specifications (B-2A Block 30)
Orthographically projected diagram of the B-2
Spirit General characteristics
- Crew: 2
- Length: 69 ft (21.0 m)
- Wingspan: 172 ft (52.4 m)
- Height: 17 ft (5.18 m)
- Wing area: 5,140 ft² (478 m²)
- Empty weight: 158,000 lb (71,700 kg)
- Loaded weight: 336,500 lb (152,200 kg)
- Max takeoff weight: 376,000 lb (170,600 kg)
- Powerplant: 4 × General Electric F118-GE-100 non-afterburning turbofans, 17,300 lbf (77 kN) each
- Fuel Capacity: 167,000 pounds (75,750 kilograms)
Performance
- Maximum speed: Mach 0.95 (550 knots, 630 mph, 1,010 km/h) at 40,000 ft altitude / Mach 0.95 at sea level[78]
- Cruise speed: Mach 0.85[55] (487 knots, 560 mph, 900 km/h) at 40,000 ft altitude
- Range: 6,000 nmi (11,100 km (6,900 mi))
- Service ceiling: 50,000 ft (15,200 m)
- Wing loading: 67.3 lb/ft² (329 kg/m²)
- Thrust/weight: 0.205
Armament
- 2 internal bays for 50,000 lb (23,000 kg) of ordnance.[55]
- 80× 500 lb class bombs (Mk-82) mounted on Bomb Rack Assembly (BRA)
- 36× 750 lb CBU class bombs on BRA
- 16× 2000 lb class weapons (Mk-84, JDAM-84, JDAM-102) mounted on Rotary Launcher Assembly (RLA)
- 16× B61 or B83 nuclear weapons on RLA
Later avionics and equipment improvements allow B-2A to carry
JSOW,
GBU-28, and
GBU-57A/Bs as well. The Spirit is also designated as a delivery aircraft for the
AGM-158 JASSM when the missile enters service.
Russia
