The B-2 was first conceived in the 1970s as a replacement for the aging B-52 and B-1 bombers. The Air Force saw that stealth technology had advanced to the point where it could be incorporated into aircraft design, and they wanted to take advantage of this while it was still emerging. They envisioned a bomber that took full advantage of radar-absorbent material, or RAM, and would have low observability from all angles.
For a project that spanned three decades, the B-2’s development was fairly straightforward. In 1981, Northrop Grumman began developing the aircraft, which would go on to make its first flight in 1989. The total cost for the project came to $44.4 billion and produced 21 aircraft. An additional B-2 was lost in 2008 on an island off Guam during a training mission.
As previously mentioned, the B-2 features a unique flying wing design with no vertical stabilizers or landing gear. To ensure that the craft could land safely without stalling out or spinning uncontrollably when steering with just its rudders (which is done at low speeds while near the ground), an innovative computer system called vectoring in forward flight (VIFF) employs directional thrusters to redirect engine exhaust horizontally when necessary.
The B-2 is a flying wing. Instead of having a conventional shape like the B-17 or an F-15, with two wings and a fuselage, the entire B-2 basically looks like one big wing. The main reason for this design is since there are no areas to disrupt airflow, there are fewer places for radar waves to bounce off of and give away their location. The plane is also made out of composite materials and carbon fiber so that it is lighter than steel and can fly farther. Add in all these factors together—the low observability design, the low reflectivity material—and it adds up to pure stealthiness (or in military parlance: “low observability”).
For the B-2’s testing and deployment, you can expect nothing less than complete secrecy. In fact, for a long time before its first flight on July 17th, 1989 it was kept in a top-secret facility called “The Skunk Works.” The military has used this nickname for certain classified projects since the 1940s. As of July 2019, only twenty B-2s have been built; the United States Air Force expects to keep operating them until at least 2032. While they’re expensive planes—each one cost $2.1 billion in 1997 dollars—they’re also very effective at what they do! When the plane was first tested, it flew right over President George H.W. Bush’s inauguration parade without him or anyone else knowing about it until afterward. The B-2 is so stealthy that test flights are limited to night flights with no electronic monitoring equipment deployed—everything is recorded onboard instead.
The B-2s have flown missions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Serbia. They’ve also dropped 40 percent of the total ordnance during Operation Odyssey Dawn in Libya in 2011. The B-2 is capable of delivering both conventional and nuclear weapons to any destination within its range, thanks to its stealth technology that allows it to evade enemy radar. While it is designed primarily for strategic bombing, the aircraft has been shown to be skilled at precision strikes as well — a skill that greatly increases the plane’s versatility.
In March of 2011, the B-2 flew non-stop from Missouri to Japan and back in an impressive 35 hours — a round trip flight of over 12,000 miles. With such a long reach, why would we need so many planes? The answer lies in the fact that bombers are constantly ready for action and don’t require as much time as fighters or warships when deployed on missions. In addition, since they fly at high altitudes they can be recalled before reaching their target if necessary — something fighters cannot do due to their lower flying speeds. As such bombers make ideal standbys during times when tensions escalate on land or sea between countries like China and Japan where territorial disputes often arise over islands located between them (known collectively as East Asia).
The B-2 appeared on several media.
- Movies: the 2007 film Transformers, the 2002 movie Stealth, and the 1996 action film Executive Decision.
- Video games: Call of Duty: Black Ops II (2012), Earth Defense Force 2025 (2013), and War Thunder (2014).
- Books: Wargames have included scenarios with B-2s since the early 1990s, but it wasn’t until 2009 that an actual B-2 game piece was released for official military wargaming use. It is featured in the 2010 tabletop miniature game Wings of War – Planes of Fame Edition.
- Comics: The B-2 appears as an enemy vehicle on pages 18–19 of issue #1 of the 2008 comic series World at War: Agents of Atlas by Jeff Parker and Gabriel Hardman; it appears again on pages 6–7 and 12–13 of issue #4 by Parker and Leonard Kirk. It also appears as an enemy vehicle on page 20, panel 1, in issue #1 (August 2010) of Atomics by Frank Barbiere and Jonathan Lau, as well as on page 3; panel 1; chapter 7, “A Cry for Help,” in issue #3 (May 2011). In addition, it appears as one of several aircraft flown into battle against a horde of Orc invaders by a pilot who had been sucked through a time warp from modern-day to medieval times in issue #16 (2011) of Dynamo 5 Sins Of The Father by Jay Faerber and Mahmud Asrar. Finally, it makes its appearance three separate times within issues #5–6 (October 2013) and issues #8–9 (November 2013) in Necessary Evil by Garth Ennis and Colin Wilson; secondarily featuring American forces pursuing Chinese forces that have stolen US stealth technology during the Second Korean War depicted in this series’ context timeline set between 1989 and 1993.
The truth is that the B-2 was never intended to be a squadron leader. That role is reserved for aircraft like the F-15 Eagle, the F-16 Fighting Falcon, or the F/A-18 Hornet. Rather, the B-2 was designed as an incredibly advanced flying wing—one capable of carrying out numerous missions, from strategic bombing to air superiority and even conventional ground attacks. This flexibility has kept the B-2 in service for almost three decades, and will likely keep it around for even more years to come.
The B-2 stealth bomber has been in use since 1997 and is used quite frequently. While the United States Air Force has not provided reports on how often they use the aircraft, there are some estimates that they are actually used as much as they were before 9/11. The aircraft has been able to take out targets such as Osama bin Laden’s compound, which was accomplished in 2011 after a decade-long search. By using the B-2 instead of a commando assault or other method, there was no loss of American life for this mission.
In 2003, the B-2 was planned to make a final operational flight over the skies of the United States, but due to the weather, it was pushed back to 2004. The bomber has since started flying again in 2005. There are scheduled to be no more than 100 of these aircraft created, with active-duty numbers possibly going down to 60 by 2008 at Northrop Grumman’s Air Logistics Center in California. Aside from some minor flaws in aircraft technology and a lack of funding for upgrades and necessary parts for the bills that were needed, this is an extraordinary aircraft that sends chills down one’s spine when viewing its divine tail wings fly across the horizon.
The B-2s are still used for both testings and for missions. They were also redesigned, eliminating one engine and redistributing the weight of the plane. This allowed the wings to be larger than before. However, this also required a redesign of some of the other features on the plane, including the fins and landing gear. And yes, they are used today to drop bombs in war zones all across the world.