B-2 Stealth Bomber - Full Program

in the history of aviation there has never been a plane more groundbreaking than the b-2 stealth bomber capable of flying anywhere in the world undetected the b2 can arrive over its target release precision munitions and escape confident in the fact that the bombs will hit their targets and that the plane will return home safely revolutionary in design and capability the b2 represents the culmination of many disciplines and Sciences from aeronautics to stealth to bombing itself it also has a distinction unshared by any conventional aircraft for the entirety of its service life the b2 has never been detected targeted or engaged the b2 is flown exclusively by the United States Air Force and is the most sophisticated flying machine in existence its creation relied on 100 years of bombing experience the evolution of computers radical jumps in engineering science new approaches to aircraft design and a new generation of weapons called smart bombs among the personalities involved were a visionary American aircraft designer and an unrecognized Soviet physicist the story of the stealth bomber begins during the first days of bombing early World War one bombers were neither purpose-built nor particularly sophisticated aviation was in its infancy and bombs were often carried aloft in the pilots lap to be tossed by hand at targets on the ground technology had advanced by the time World War two began faster bombers carried heavier weapons over targets protected by early warning radar anti-aircraft guns and high-speed interceptor aircraft by 1944 two distinct schools of tactical bombing had emerged from the war above Europe after suffering staggering losses during daylight bombing raids the British conducted their bombing at night small bombers called mosquitos would be launched in the general direction of a target spitting fire from their engines the mosquitos would proceed without radio contact or formation towards the vicinity of the target flying high and in the dark these small bombers were very hard to detect far ahead of the main bomber force where bombers designated as pathfinders these planes were flown by the best navigators in the Royal Air Force their mission was to drop incendiary bombs on the target producing bright flames and creating an easily spotted target for the main bomber force bombers would then head toward the fires drop their bombs and individually make their escape this decentralized approach with British bombers coming from all directions to bomb one target was difficult to defend against by contrast the United States relied on daylight bombing raids consisting of hundreds of bombers in tight formation the b-17 was an enormous plane with a crew of 10 and defended by 13 50 caliber machine guns in fact the b-17 carried so much weight in machine guns ammunition and defensive Gunners that its bomb load was the same as that of the two-man mosquito escort planes didn't have the range of bombers which meant the big planes were usually over it's with little protection although gun turrets protruded from every side of the b-17 the slow tightly packed fleets of bombers proved easy targets for the fast heavily armed German interceptors because they dropped their bombs as one the bombers flew and complicated formations designed so that they didn't drop bombs on each other advancements in fighter technology as well as enormous industrial output were the two factors that allowed the u.s. to turn the tide of the bombing campaign under the cover of new escort fighters the 8th Air Force began launching bomber missions in excess of 1,000 bombers with 600 escort fighters British mosquito bombers suffered a fraction of the losses endured by the b-17s while the British approach demonstrated how effective bombing could be when utilizing bombers that were difficult to detect the US would continue to use large bombers in high-altitude formations until the 1960s it would take whole fleets of aircraft to fly over a single factory or a single bridge dropping tons and tons of bombs with objectives destroying that one bridge or destroying that one Factory following World War two vast sums of money were spent on bigger faster bombers with larger payloads the United States had powerful new weapons and an equally powerful new enemy the Soviet Union in the event of an all-out war the US needed a new bomber that could carry the enormous atom bombs deep into the heart of the USSR two radically different designs emerged to answer this call built as a flying wing the YB 49 could carry the same bomb load as a larger bomber using less power and thus less fuel built by visionary aircraft designer Jack Northrop the all wing design reduced drag almost completely although initial tests were favorable it was too far ahead of its time the trim efficiency of the YB 49 lost out to the brute force of the enormous Convair b-36 powered by six massive pusher propellers and four jet engines the b-36 was one of the only aircraft of its day capable of reaching the Soviet Union defended by 1620 millimeter cannon mounted in computer-controlled retractable turrets the b-36 was the largest most heavily defended u.s. bomber ever built although it required more crew and more fuel than the YB 49 the huge b 36 was an imposing bomber with an enormous 86 thousand pound bomb load 14 times the capacity of the b-17 the be thirty Six's enormous bombe made it the only aircraft capable of carrying the newly developed hydrogen bomb despite its success as a bomber the b-36 had been conceived in the early days of World War two by the early 1950s as jet fighters and missiles began to appear in the sky the b-36 became obsolete as engineers stripped out the b-36 s complicated defensive gun turrets Boeing delivered the b-52 the b-52 became the mainstay of the US strategic bombing force and continues to be a formidable aircraft today powered by eight turbojet engines clustered into four pods the b-52 had ample room along its wings for the newly developed cruise missiles the wings were swept back like a fighter to reduce drag and were so long they needed landing gear at the tips bombing tactics hadn't changed since world war ii large fleets of heavy bombers flew in high-altitude formations to target released weapons as one and returned home conventional wisdom told military planners that the Soviet Union couldn't engage targets over 50,000 feet altitude not guns would keep the bomber fleet safe in 1960 the Soviet Union shot down a u-2 spy plane which had been flying at 70,000 feet in the event of an all-out war a bomber assault at 50,000 feet was doomed the answer was to fly low and come in under the radar limited by terrain and the horizon ground-based radar detects incoming aircraft in a cone-shaped pattern the higher an aircraft is the farther out the radar can detect it by flying at low altitudes bombers could delay detection and reach their targets with less resistance most US bombers had been designed to penetrate enemy airspace at high altitudes and supersonic speeds and were completely mismatched for the task of low-level flight the exception was the b-52 after some minor updates it proved to be a very stable low-level bombing platform the new tactics were more successful than high-level bombing had been but the lumbering bombers still required massive amounts of support and escort planes to successfully complete their missions in 1972 the US began the linebacker - bombing raids designed to bring the North Vietnamese to the negotiating table b-52s hammered North Vietnam around-the-clock for 12 days the sophistication of Soviet supplied air defenses in the north meant that over half the planes launched during the bombings were support or escort planes some planes filled the sky with clouds of aluminum strips called chaff that confused ground radar other planes called wild weasels intentionally drew fire so that they could respond with special missiles designed to home in on defensive radar and surface-to-air missile sites based on the scale of the North Vietnamese air defenses and the fact that the Soviet Union would certainly employ an even more sophisticated system conventional bombing raids against the Soviet Union appeared impossible with the b-52 a new bomber was needed the rockwell b-1 lancer seemed to be the answer designed for supersonic flight at low altitudes the b1 was fitted with a special terrain-following radar that matched the ground in front of the plane and lets it fly at less than 100 feet although it flew very low and very fast the b1 was still susceptible to detection by radar at the same time as the b1 was being developed a small group of scientists was designing a revolutionary aircraft that could not be detected by radar they called it the stealth fighter the new aircraft could leisurely enter enemy airspace drop its payload and exit unharmed designed on the limited computers of the early 1970s the f-117 strange-shaped allows it to deflect radar signals away from targeting systems rendering it extremely difficult to detect although it can carry only two smart bombs the stealth fighter proved its effectiveness in the early minutes of the 1991 Gulf War when flights of stealth fighters destroyed Iraq's entire command control and missile defense Network without being detected or engaged the next evolution of stealth was called the advanced technology bomber it incorporated research gleaned from the stealth fighter program plus numerous new features these included a decreased radar cross-section lower acoustic noise a small visual profile decreased electromagnetic emissions and a decreased infrared signature the official term for all of these features is low observable or L Oh officially unveiled in 1988 the ATB would come to be known as the b-2 spirit and would enter service in 1993 nearly impossible to detect the stealthy b2 can carry a wide variety of weapons on internal rotating launchers these launchers let the b2 carry any combination of cruise missiles smart bombs and sea mines smart bombs are assigned targets by computer and are guided by satellite meaning the b2 can engage as many as 16 different targets simultaneously it's low observability mixed with the unique weapon delivery system means the b2 can arrive over a target with no warning release sixteen different weapons destroy sixteen different targets and leave without the enemy knowing what happened when it rolled onto the tarmac at Palmdale California the flying wing bomber carried the name of Jack Northrop's company and had exactly the same wingspan as his 1943 bomber the YB 49 standing at the podium the master of ceremonies said simply Jack Northrop we salute you the term for all the things that make the b2 the stealth bomber is low observable or ello ello is made up of radar cross-section infrared signature appearance electromagnetic signature and acoustic signature although stealth aircraft seem to be a new invention in air combat there are many documented attempts at stealth from as early as World War one the German heavy bomber linka Hoffmann r1 had part of its fuselage constructed from transparent salon although the plane made its debut too late in the war to study its effect the plane itself represents some forward thinking in the arena of low-observable in 1944 American soldiers discovered the unfinished German Horton ho9 flying wing bomber incorporating a number of forward-thinking features this ello bomber had jet engines buried in the fuselage a long exhaust path a radar absorbent covering and a flying wing shape which gave it a diminished radar cross-section these features would all resurface on the b2 over 50 years later an L o bomber that did fly during world war ii was the de Havilland Mosquito which flew only at night to keep costs down it was built of balsa wood while this was viewed as a step backward from the all-metal bombers being produced at the time the wooden construction reflected less radar energy than aluminum and lent the aircraft a very diminished radar signature this combined with its small size made the mosquito very difficult to detect its overall losses were a fraction of the b-17 another approach to avoiding detection was by flying at extremely high altitudes built by Lockheed Fame skunk works the u-2 spy plane flew above 60,000 feet while the sr-71 flew on the edge of space 95,000 feet at three times the speed of sound both aircraft incorporated radar absorbent coverings and radical designs to reduce their radar cross-sections the Lockheed yoe a silent observation plane ignored radar detection altogether the guerilla tactics used by the North Vietnamese Army relied on sound to detect approaching enemy aircraft although not stealth to radar an enormous muffler allowed this plane to loiter silently above the jungle treetops for hours relaying troop and supply movements undetected each of these aircraft represents a small step forward in a specific area of low observability this succession of little steps culminated in the b-2 which is a revolution in all fields of low observability the most common method of detection is radar which is an acronym meaning radio detection and range radar was developed during world war ii as a means for directing and countering aircraft at night these early radars proved quite useful in defending England from German nighttime bombing raids the theory is simple a radar transmitter sends out radar waves which bounce off things and scatter in all directions some of the scattered energy is reflected back to the radar site the reflected radar energy is collected by a receiving antenna most modern radar dishes combine the two antennae alternating between transmitting and receiving things which reflect radar are called targets by feeding information about the intensity of the reflection as well as its angle into a computer the location of the target can be plotted unfortunately radar does not necessarily distinguish between types of targets so it is really only useful for detecting aircraft where there is nothing else around for the wave to reflect off of although less detectable bombers had proven their efficiency in world war ii there was still no scientific method for decreasing an aircraft's radar cross-section despite the ellow characteristics of u.s. spy planes the US could not build a stealthy strike aircraft it was an academic paper from the Soviet Union that would change all this pou ffensive was an obscure soviet physicist who just happened to discover the secret of stealth you finns have published a paper which dealt with determining deflection angles of radar waves radar waves behave similarly to light waves the law of reflection states that a light ray will reflect off of a surface at the same angle at which it encountered the surface thus to get a return a radar reflection requires a surface that is perpendicular to the incoming wave a sphere provides the largest radar cross-section because it has an infinite number of tangential surfaces thus the sphere always has a perpendicular side to any angle while most energy directed at a sphere is deflected the small amount that is always reflected back makes the sphere detectable from any angle by contrast a flat plane is only detectable from a ninety degree angle at any angle other than dead on a flat plane will deflect all radar energy away from the radar site at one angle the plane presents the largest radar cross-section but at all others the smallest unfortunately flat planes are not aerodynamic for aircraft the best compromise between the flat plane and the sphere is a curved shape with a variable radius called a continuous curve this shape allows aerodynamic flow without the spheres infinite number of tangential surfaces to reflect radar inexplicably the Soviet Union allowed the paper to be published and apparently didn't pursue any sort of stealth aircraft program an American scientist used you film Seb's paper to develop a computer program called echo one which could calculate the radar cross-section of crude shapes this gave engineers a tool for designing a stealth strike aircraft work began in secret to discover ways to manufacture aircraft based on Echo one calculations the lack of computing power in the 1960s and 70s meant that echo 1 couldn't calculate the radar cross-section of curved shapes the curved designs of the sr-71 and u2 which had reduced radar cross-sections had been obtained largely by accident the restrictions of those early computers meant the first Delft aircraft would have to be built out of flat planes flat planes present a design challenge because they are not aerodynamic and if perpendicular to a radar site they are extremely detectable designers determined that the biggest threat to strike aircraft is ground-based radar as a result the stealth fighter was designed specifically to deflect radar waves coming from below the aircraft the result was the f-117 the first aircraft to carry the unofficial designation stealth advances in computer technology and research into stealth would eventually allow the computation of continuous curved shapes for reflecting radar which would ultimately yield the flying wing shape b2 the shape of the b2 is basically designed so that it minimizes the amount of radar that can be returned to the original source by unlike the 117 which uses faceting to redirect the radar it either absorbs it or in some cases a tree to flex it a different direction like the f-117 the b2 shape was designed from the beginning to reduce radar unlike the f-117 however the b2 D flex radar from any angle the primary reason its shape the way it is is to help deflect the radar away from the originating source so once the radar beam hits the B - it's actually deflected into another area where the originating radar is not so it doesn't pick up the signal that is sent out therefore its stealthy the b2 also makes full use of radar absorbent materials or RAAM RAAM is basically radar absorbing material so it does actually absorb the radar waves keeping them from reflecting off of the aircraft although the true composition of RAM is secret it's likely it is made of lossy materials that contain three electrons which when bombarded by radar waves vibrate and convert the radar energy heat the result is that radar energy is dispersed across the skin of the b2 rather than being reflected back to enemy radar sites Ram can be a number of things to the way the aircraft is constructed and how those materials fit together and interact with each other to a single layer of coating that we apply to the aircraft English and American scientists developed Ram during World War two although they didn't quite realize its potential designed to deflect an absorb radar Ram is an important element in modern stealth aircraft but during World War two Ram was applied to submarine periscopes and in radar testing facilities in a few cases the antenna on ships were coated with Ram to prevent them from being detected as targets by the ship's own radar but Ram was never applied to aircraft to further reduce the b-2s detectability other elements of ello are implemented to reduce the noise of the b2 the engines are buried deep within the airframe turning the body of the plane into a gigantic muffler next to radar the heat signature of an aircraft is the easiest to detect heat is used in a combat situation primarily to defeat an aircraft through its exhaust and as an aircraft is flying through the air it also generates a heat signature a lot of modern missiles and can pick up on those heat and signatures and use those to target a vehicle therefore we try to defeat that as a means of detection as well although the skin of an aircraft may not be hot the boiling air produced by the engines exhaust creates a contrail which acts like a beacon to correct the heat problem the b2 incorporates a long exhaust path heat absorbing tiles and a dual air intake system below the main engine air intakes are smaller bypass intakes the air from these intakes is diverted around the engine and mixed with the hot engine exhaust once this mixed air leaves the engines it passes over heat absorbing tiles these same tiles are used on the space shuttle to protect it from the intense friction in the atmosphere on reentry the exhaust path is long and above the wing it's not visible from the ground the result is that the air behind the aircraft as visible from the ground is much cooler than when it comes out of the engine and produces no contract although its existence is unknown the b2 may make use of a radical new technology known as radar absorbent structures if radar absorbent material is a sponge for soaking up radar energy radar absorbent structures are a vacuum a radar absorbent structure is based around a hollow structure most likely a honeycomb the open sides of the honeycomb face out on the aircraft and are covered with the aerodynamic radar absorbent material radar waves strike the RAM but instead of being dispersed most of the energy is transmitted through the RAM and into the honeycomb inside the radar bounces off the inside of the honeycomb which is coated with RAM each deflection decreases the radars energy somewhat even if the radar could get a solid reflection the end of the structure is blocked by the outer Ram coating trapping the radar energy inside it's a living breathing aircraft it's sweet it sweats moisture and other things develop inside the aircraft anything you know that develops inside the structure the aircraft comes out through the weep holes and so there are little tiny holes in the airplane that allow moisture and other things that develop inside the way and to come out and it maintains the structural integrity of the aircraft the result is that the radar energy is completely absorbed into the structure of the aircraft and absolutely no reflection is possible although there is no proof that radar-absorbent structures exist if they do the b2 may very well be completely invisible to radar this represents what is known about the b-2 stealth design and capabilities what truly lies beneath the skin of the b2 will likely remain classified for a long time to come when air approaches a wing it is forced in two directions up and down this creates a high pressure area above the forward portion of the wing and below the way as the wing slopes away a low pressure area is formed above the remainder of the way this low-pressure area lifts the wing up in addition the high pressure below the wing pushes it it's all about lift and drag an airplane has wings what those are another word for them is air foils as air travels over the wing it creates a pressure differential between the top of the wing and the bottom of the wing and what that produces is lift as the low-pressure seeks the high pressure area traditionally shaped aircraft have two large wings supporting a central fuselage stabilized at the rear with a horizontal stabilizer and a vertical stabilizer or tail although advances in computer technology have allowed the fuselage to be more efficient it still produces a great deal of drag this drag not only decreases performance in terms of speed it also requires large wings and engines burning lots of fuel to lift it off the ground and to keep it there the reduction of fuselage drag combined with an overall increase in lift is the flying wings primary advantage the flying wing is also called a lifting body because the body of the plane does just that the advantages to the wing design to the flying wing design over a traditional aircraft is this is the replacement of that fuselage with more wing so that creates a bigger surface area of wing which translates into more lift instead of the traditional arrangement the entire volume of the aircraft is contained within the wing this eliminates fuselage drag and vastly increases overall lift the difficulty with flying wings has always been stability Jack Northrop's flying wing was notoriously dangerous and in theory all flying wing share the same inherent risks a flying wing is stable in terms of pitching up or down or banking left or right what the flying wing does not inherently counteract is yaw yaw is the tendency of a plane to fishtail left or right on traditional aircraft the horizontal and vertical stabilizers are mounted on the tail of the plane placing a great deal of control at the end of what is essentially a long lever a flying wing doesn't have this lever and thus control surfaces must be far more complex to compound the control complications on the b2 there are no vertical surfaces whatsoever northrop's why be 49 and XP 35 both had vertical stabilizers the b2 however does not have this luxury most bombers have enormous tails which act like billboards when struck by radar waves instead the b2 controls its roll pitch and yaw all with the same set of complex control flaps on the rear of the wing for everyone who's seen a b2 the one thing that you notice right off the bat that's missing is that vertical tail the vertical stabilizer without computers there's no way we could fly we could fly the b2 the computers actually since the environment around the aircraft as well as the pilots input and keep the aircraft keep the aircraft going the flight control computers sense the air loads using things like those air data ports over there that sense static pressure and aerodynamic pressures on the aircraft what its angle of attack is what its sides lift all those inputs go into a flight control computer the flight control computer then makes adjustments to the flight controls faster than the pilot could by hand and abling the the the flight control computers really produce that stability that we lost with the tail the outer most control surfaces on the b2 are the rudders which also function as brakes twin flaps move in conjunction to make the bomber y'all left or right when the flaps on both sides are extended both up and down they act as a speed brake these flaps aren't effective when fully closed so during normal flight they're left slightly open this does increase the radar signature and during combat operations the b2 is flown with the rudders fully closed moving in board from the rudders is where the Ella bonds are located Ella bonds are a combination of ailerons and elevators ailerons and elevators control the pitch and roll of an aircraft on most planes the ailerons are located on the trailing edges of the wings while the elevators are located on the horizontal stabilizer the ailerons act in opposite directions of one another to roll the airplane while the elevators act together to pitch the plane up or down on the b2 the Ella bonds perform both functions through combinations of movement if all the a Laban's pitch up or down the aircraft will pitch in the opposite direction if the left Ella bonds pitch up while the right Ella bonds pitch down the bomber will roll to the left and vice versa the coordination of all these flaps is the job of an amazing technology known as fly-by-wire fly by wire takes inputs from the pilot and other aircraft sensors feeds them into a series of computers which then produce an output to a hydraulic actuator which moves the flight controls for us because the computers job is to make the aircraft perform according to the pilots controls any external forces that act on the aircraft such as wind gusts are counteracted automatically by the computer this allows the b2 and other fly-by-wire aircraft to maintain the traditional controls and maneuvers common to all aircraft despite its radical design the radical design of the b2 represents a step forward in all arenas of aircraft design the result will fly-by-wire is that while pilots compare flying a b-52 to driving a bus the b2 handles more like a sports car the b2 s mission is to penetrate heavily defended areas drop precision guided munitions and extract itself without ever being detected that be the ultimate capability to be able to go in undetected and leave undetected however there's one unique aspect of all bombers if you're going in you're more than likely going into drops up something so right off the bat as soon as bombs start going off someone's going to know there's an aircraft in this guy so as you're leaving the country really what you're looking for now is that ability to sneak back out of the country the power of stealth was demonstrated fully in the 1991 Gulf War f-117a nighthawk strike aircraft destroyed military targets deep in the heart of Baghdad without ever being detected at the time Baghdad had the most sophisticated grid of interlocking defensive and anti-aircraft radar systems ever fielded during the course of the war f-117 aircraft engaged targets in Iraq 1271 times and lost zero air this was due almost entirely to the f-117 stealthy radar cross-section that the b2 has an even smaller radar cross-section with less detectable ello characteristics paired with a bomb capacity eight times that of the f-117 is a testament to its potential the b2 is a stealth aircraft it's designed to basically kick down the door to open up that entryway for other aircraft any b2 mission begins with planning positions of known radar sites as well as any missile sites and intercept aircraft has to be plotted the B to deflect some Raider and absorb some but it's not impervious for this reason v2 pilots must determine the best route through known radar positions known as the court the b2 enables us to pull the wool over the enemy's eyes and significantly darken his view so with that in mind there may be advantages to making different turns and going different directions and route to the target with the bomber to enable us to accomplish the mission the amount of radar and aircraft reflectance is called its radar cross section or RCS as aircraft approach radar sites they encounter more radar energy which increases RCS this means that an aircraft which is undetectable at long range becomes detectable at close range defensive radar networks are set up around strategic areas using multiple radar sites the size of an aircraft's radar cross-section and its proximity to the radar site determines when it can be detected all of this is taken into consideration so that the individual radar site zones of detection overlap effectively creating a wall of radar because the b-2s radar cross-section is so much smaller than all other military aircraft it can only be detected at extremely close range thus the overlapping zones of radar which detect all other aircraft are useless against the b2 and the radar wall develops holes to which the b2 slips once over the target the b2 releases bombs which are individually targeted and self-guided typically we like I said we knock the door down we go in we go in first and lead the way for other aircraft with a larger radar signature to come in and strike targets to drop those unguided weapons thus the b2 can arrive over its target unannounced release fire-and-forget weapons and leave craters as the only evidence of its presence it is only fitting that the most sophisticated bomber on earth carries the world's most sophisticated arsenal the b2 can carry anywhere from 80 500-pound bombs to eight five thousand pound bunker busters other options include sea mines stealthy cruise missiles and just about everything in between the crown jewel in the b-2s arsenal is the 2,000 pound Jaden jdam stands for joint direct attack munition but it's commonly shortened to smartphone the jdam comes in a variety of weights from 250 pounds to 5000 pounds although each variant has the same basic purpose to deliver a high-powered explosive punch with pinpoint accuracy every time a JDAM is made from a freefall bomb a strike assembly which adds stability and a tail kick which contain satellite guidance equipment and the fins which steer the bomb Jay dams can be programmed on the ground before they are loaded into the b2 or they can be reprogrammed in flight to accommodate changing target conditions the b2 carries its weapons in a manner different from most other bombers where b-17s and the original b-52s carried their bombs stacked and racks to be released unmask the b2 uses a rotary launch assembly when the pilot wants to drop a bomb the bomb bay doors open the assembly rotates to the correct position and drops the requested bomb this allows the b2 to carry different types of munitions or bombs programmed for specific targets in the same bomb bay and provides a connection between smart bombs and the b2 s computers in the air the b2 s onboard computers and the computers in the JDAM are linked providing the smart bomb with up-to-the-minute information about target position and weather during the b2 s 40 hour flight targets may move winds may shift or storms may move in the JDAM uses this information to correct its course and to assure maximum impact with minimal civilian casualties the strength assembly and tail fins on the JDAM act like wings giving it a gliding range of just under eight miles all the b2 must do is pass within eight miles of its target and the JDAM will take care of the rest once the JDAM is released from the b2 its guidance is internal an extremely accurate satellite guidance receiver in the tail homes the jdam in on its target if the satellite guidance fails the JDAM has an inertial guidance system backup accurate to within inches it is the same system used on u.s. submarines for navigation the most common load on the b2 is 16 mm pound J dams new technology called the smart bomb rack assembly will allow the b2 to carry 80 smaller 500-pound JDAMs this is over four times its previous capacity missions that would have required five be two flights now only require one because for most targets the 500-pound bomb is just as effective as the two thousand-pound bomb the b-2 carries many other amazing weapons including the agm-158 stealth cruise missile angular and shape the 158 is nearly invisible to radar the five thousand-pound bunker buster is a variant of the jdam designed to penetrate deep into the earth and release a devastating explosion from 500-pound smart bombs to stealth cruise missiles the b2 has the versatility to carry just about any weapon anywhere on earth and deliver it with precision accuracy every time the b-2 bomber has proven its effectiveness time and again through its use of low observability and smart weapons the b2 can engage targets with more accuracy less civilian damage and more safety for the pilots than any other aircraft in the world

Channel: Janson Media

Views: 4,857,669

Rating: 4.5733767 out of 5

Keywords: b2 bomber, b2 bomber documentary, b2 documentary, stealth bomber, b-2, b2 stealth bomber, b-2 spirit stealth bomber, b-2 documentary, inside the stealth b2 bomber, b2 bomber design, b-2 stealth, Bomber (Aircraft Type), Stealth Aircraft (Aircraft Type)

Id: godifMGvf6c

Length: 45min 2sec (2702 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 28 2009

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

Some serious bs on control surfaces.

[u/[deleted]]

Good, but moved a bit slow for my attention span...

[u/mnp]

Anybody want to speculate what's in the cockpit that's too classified to photograph?

[u/Vlip]

I liked how they said it had no known weakness.

I got one alright; it's mind-boggingly expensive to operate ;)

[u/buildmonkey]

Ok so the first 4 minutes are wrong. Do I keep watching?

Edit: Made it to 17 minutes. Are all US documentaries this patronising and inaccurate? I give up.