The U.S. Air Force unveiled its newest nuclear stealth bomber on Friday as tensions with China continued to grow.
The public got its first glimpse of the B-21 Raider stealth bomber during a ceremony at the Air Force’s Plant 42 in Palmdale, California. It is the first new American bomber aircraft in more than 30 years and is designed to carry out long-range bombing and nuclear missions.
“This isn’t just another airplane,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said. “It’s the embodiment of America’s determination to defend the republic that we all love.”
The B-21 is part of America’s efforts to modernize all three legs of its nuclear triad, which includes silo-launched nuclear ballistic missiles and submarine-launched warheads, as it shifts from the counterterrorism campaigns of recent decades to keep track of China’s rapid military modernization.
“We needed a new bomber for the 21st Century that would allow us to take on much more complicated threats, like the threats that we fear we would one day face from China, Russia, ” said Deborah Lee James, the Air Force secretary when the Raider contract was announced in 2015.
The sixth-generation aircraft is said to utilize previously unseen stealth technology to evade radar detection and can fly with or without pilots.
“Fifty years of advances in low-observable technology have gone into this aircraft,” Austin said. “Even the most sophisticated air defense systems will struggle to detect a B-21 in the sky.”
Northrop Corporate Vice President Thomas H. Jones said the plane was “optimized for operations in highly contested environments.”
“By being able to burn down a lot more risk digitally, we’re able to take this step, which cuts years out of the overall development program and really wrings a lot of risk out,” Jones said. “Hopefully we can get started and up and running in production much more efficiently and effectively.”
The plane is expected to make its initial flight next year, while five other aircraft are still in various stages of assembly. Officials with the Air Force said that the service plans to purchase at least 100 of the advanced bombers.
The cost of the bombers is unclear, but the Air Force previously put the price at an average of $550 million each in 2010, or roughly around $753 million when adjusted for inflation today.
