B-21 First Flight In 2021 Not Likely
WASHINGTON: Will the B-21 bomber make its first flight in December 2021, as the Air Force Vice-Chief announced last month? “I wouldn’t bet on that date,” Randall Walden, director of the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office (AFRCO).
While the end-of-’21 first flight suggested by Gen. Stephen Wilson is the “earliest” possible date, Walden told an Air Force Association audience this morning, the B-21 is unlikely to fly so soon...
Overall, he said the program is making good progress. It completed its design review last year, and the first test vehicle is now in production at Northrop Grumman’s Palmdale facility in California.
“I won’t go into a lot of detail about how far along we are, but suffice it to say we are working the production line,” he said, although he did note that the line was producing “big parts.”
“We’re getting ready to ty to accept that first airplane coming out,” Walden said.
Walden reiterated the Air Force’s current plan to build “a minimum of a hundred” B-21s. “The production line should be able to handle that easily,” he said, adding that, “based on the timing, if we wanted to ramp up or build more, we could go do that depending on what the nation needs.”
As Breaking D readers know, the Air Force has been signaling that more B-21s are likely. Air Force Global Strike Commander Gen. Timothy Ray last month made a point of citing a study showing a need for 225 bombers in total — 50 more than the current plan that would see a force comprised of 100 B-21s and 75 B-52s.
https://breakingdefense.com/2019/10/b-2 ... -unlikely/
20 Sep 2019, 00:31
