The B-2 bomber looks nothing like a typical
aircraft, because instead of having wings attached to a fuselage, the B-2 is just a flying
wing. For most people, stealth is what pops into their head when they think of the B-2 and they
often overlook another important aspect of this design. The flying wing is extremely efficient
at generating lift, which in turn maximizes fuel efficiency. In other words, it gives the
B-2 incredible range, which is critical, because stealth without range has a problem. A
big problem. And this is not limited to airplanes. Even the ultimate stealth weapons, submarines,
lose their superpower when they are forced to surface in order to get air for their
diesel-electric engines. This is why nuclear submarines are superior, because they
don’t need air to run. This allows them to remain submerged for as long as the crew has
food to eat, which could be weeks at a time. Similarly, no matter how stealthy an aircraft is, it needs aerial refueling to continue
flying. The issue is that the massive refueling tanker lights up on a radar like a
christmas tree! But lucky for the B-2 Spirit, the flying wings are fuel-efficient enough so the
aircraft can penetrate deep into enemy territory, perform its mission and leave. Only once
in safe airspace, the B-2 would quench its thirst. It’s the combination of stealth and range
that makes the B-2 the perfect stealth bomber. But why the flying wings suck at almost all
other roles, why they failed during WWII, what made them practical in the 1980s and why
they are making a comeback in the 21st century, and finally, why the future of aviation
is triangle shaped, is Not What You Think! Stealth is not the same as invisibility.
Typical air detection radars work by emitting radio waves and detecting the echoes that bounce
back from objects. Radars can determine the distance, size, and position of a target based on
its echo. The size of the echo is what’s known as the Radar Cross Section of an object. The idea
behind stealth is to reduce the size of the echo. For example, the wingspan of the B-2 is not
that much shorter than the wingspan of the B-52. But the radar cross section of a B-52
bomber is over 1000 sq feet. while the radar cross section of the B-2 is just
0.15 square inch. That’s about the size of an eagle's eye or a bumble bee. I should
emphasize that radars are actually capable of detecting objects even that small. But
for practical reasons, they need to filter out these smaller echoes. Otherwise the radar
display would look like an old analog TV, full of noise. This is how a stealth aircraft manages
to hide in the clutter and avoids radar detection. The small radar cross section of the B-2 is due
to its shape and specially-crafted geometry, which ensures that electromagnetic waves are reflected
away from the original source. Because of this, only a small handful of signals actually manage
to make their way back to the transmitter. Even the screws are perfectly flush with the body to
reduce any bumps that could return signals. The aircraft is also covered with a special stealth
coating that absorbs some of the radar signals. Because of this special coating, the aircraft
requires air-conditioned hangars. Back in 1997, each flight hour of the B-2 bomber
required 119 hours of maintenance, translating to $3.4 million dollars per month. That expensive maintenance cost goes hand
in hand with the B-2 bomber’s roughly $2 billion dollars price tag. That’s because
the US Air Force only produced 21 units of the B-2 instead of the original 131 that
was planned. So the project’s high R&D cost was split over a much smaller number
of airplanes, increasing the unit cost. There is some news suggesting that the US Air
Force may repeat history and scale back on its newest stealth bomber, the B-21 Raider. The
thing is, news agencies can use different angles and headlines to convey a particular message, but
there is a way to easily see through these biases, which is why I prefer using Ground News to consume
my daily news, and they are sponsoring this video. It doesn’t get much simpler than this. You
basically choose your topics of interest. For me it’s military and technology,
as well as a few specific countries. Ground News then compiles the relevant
news articles from around the world And shows their coverage across the political
spectrum. It can be interesting to see how left, right and center cover the same news differently.
I find this to be a very efficient way to cross-check information. You can then click on a
particular article to go to the original source. Probably my favorite feature of
Ground News is the “Blindspot”, which begins out stories that have little
to no reporting by one side of the political spectrum. So whether you’re left-leaning or
right-leaning, you can check your blindspots. So if you too want a better way to consume news, go to ground.news/NWYT or click the
link in the description to sign up, and get 40% off the Vantage plan with
unlimited access to all these features. Stealth may be a requirement in the warzone, but on the way there, it can create a
risk of midair collision with civilian aircraft. This is why the B-2 pilots stay
in touch with civilian air traffic control, all the way to the war zone. The aircraft is also
equipped with strobe lights for visibility which are retracted in order to stealth up. But how does
the flying wing improve fuel efficiency and range? When you hold your hand out of the window of
a moving car, you feel a push back. This is called parasitic drag. This type of drag has a
lot to do with the shape of the moving object, which is why switching from your palm facing
the wind to being parallel to the wind, reduces the parasitic drag. You can then
generate lift by tilting your hand up and redirecting the airflow downward. This will also
create induced drag, which pushes your hand back. The flying wing is great at reducing both
types of drag, and a lot of that has to do with the aircraft not having a tail.
In typical military aircraft, the tail section accounts for about one-third of the total
surface area, which drastically increases drag. That said, the tail is where the vertical
and horizontal stabilizers are, which as the name suggests, stabilize the aircraft by
preventing it from swinging side to side. The tail fin also usually houses some kind of
rudder system, which aids in turning the aircraft left and right. So how does the flying
wing remain stable in flight without the tail? Flying wing designs were first prototyped as
early as 1910, but it wasn’t until the 1940s that a legitimate flying wing bomber design was
first showcased. Northrup’s XB-35 and YB-35 were prototype propeller bomber designs during World
War II. The idea was that with the more efficient flying wing design, they would be able to fly far
enough to reach Europe in case Britain fell to Germany. Two YB-35s were eventually strapped with
Allison J35 engines, and given the new designation YB-49. With no tail to stabilize them, these
experimental flying wings heavily struggled with stability in flight. Eventually they
were both destroyed during test flights, and the program was canceled in order to
free up funding for other bomber designs. During the early days of the Cold War,
flying wing designs fell out of favor. Both Western and Soviet air forces
were instead focusing on supersonic aircraft and long range missiles.
It wasn’t until the 1980s that the United States again took an interest in a
flying wing design, thanks to the Soviets. By the 1970s, the Soviet air
warning systems had reached a level of sophistication that American
military aircraft were either too slow, or lacked the range to effectively penetrate
into an enemy air space without a massive risk of getting shot down. The United States realized
that they would need to use a different strategy. It just so happens that the flying wing prototypes
that the military had shelved decades earlier, were exactly the design they were looking for. On August 22nd 1980, the United
States publicly disclosed that it was creating a new stealth aircraft,
under the Advanced Technology Bomber, or ATB, program, and nine years later, the B-2
Spirit made its first public flight in 1989. Thanks to advancements in
digital flight control systems, the aircraft could have a stable flight
while having a monolithic body with no tail. The early 2000’s saw the rise of numerous drones, all using a flying wing design. In the United
States, this was done under the J-UCAS program, headed by the ubiquitous Defense Advanced
Research Program Agency, better known as DARPA. This was a joint effort between the Navy
and the Airforce that resulted in the X-47 series of drones for the Navy,
and the RQ-170 for the airforce.
On December 4th 2011, an Iranian electronic
warfare unit downed an American RQ-170 drone, which was quickly captured and reverse engineered.
This resulted in two Iranian copies, called Shahed 171 Simorgh, and Shahed Saegheh. These drones are
the first flying wing designs in service in Iran, and so far, they have been only used to
spy on surrounding regions. That said, they could be upgraded in the future to carry
weapons. Additionally these captured designs will be available for export, spreading the
use of flying wing designs to other countries. Russia has also begun fielding its own set of
flying wing stealth drones, known as the S-70 Hunter combat drone, which largely serves in
the same role as their American counterparts. Even though still in prototyping stage, they are
said to be part of Russia’s future 6th generation projects,serving as wingman aircraft to the
SU-57 stealth fighter. Their role would include providing extra sensors and countermeasures
against incoming threats. Even though the flying wing is perfect for stealth bombers and
drones, it sucks for almost everything else. Fighters need to be quick and maneuverable,
which the flying wing is not. Tankers and cargo airplanes need a high volume of cargo compared to
their size, which is also not offered by flying wings. They are also not particularly suited
for passenger transport. A tube-shaped fuselage is structurally much better suited to resist the
fatigue of repeated pressurization cycles. It is a lot more difficult to have a large pressurized
volume in a flying wing due to its shape. Another issue is emergency evacuations, where passengers
must be able to evacuate the airplane in under 90 seconds. Evacuating a wing shaped fuselage
is not as intuitive as leaving a tube. This is why a new hybrid
design concept has emerged, which is called blended wing body or hybrid
wing body. This new design attempts to combine the internal volume of tube & wing aircraft
with the low drag of flying wing aircraft. Unlike a strict flying wing, Blended wings have
a main fuselage and separate wings. However the entire aircraft smoothly transitions from
body to wings, without any separation. These fuselages are known as lifting bodies,
because unlike a traditional fuselage, they help produce lift. This is even
more efficient than a pure flying wing, which cannot use the primary portion
of the body to generate lift. Blended body designs reduce what is called the
“wetted area”, This is the total surface area of the plane that is subject to the airstream
while in flight. Wetted area is a holdover from ship building, referencing the
part of the boat that sits underwater. According to some reports, the world’s first sixth
generation fighter that is being developed by the United States under the NGAD program,
will be utilizing a blended wing design. These designs reduce the amount of reinforcement
needed to support the structure of the wings, which results in a lighter aircraft. And
lighter aircraft result in longer range, and heavier payloads, all
while maintaining the stealth benefits seen on older flying
wing designs like the B-2. Military aside, several civilian companies are working on designing blended wing
designs for carrying passengers. The blended wing is 50% more fuel
efficient, as claimed by Mark Page, founder and CEO of JetZero, a company
that focuses on blended wing aircraft. The Airbus corporation is also running
scale models of blended wing body aircraft, which are in essence, the most expensive
remote controlled planes you’d find anywhere. These smaller technological
demonstrators, known as MAVERICS, are being used to test design features
for future large scale air travel. As countries develop and implement ever
more sophisticated early warning and air defense systems, any future strategic
bombers would have to incorporate stealth technology. This is why the flying wing
designs are yet again making a comeback. The US government publicized the first flight
of the new B-21 Raider in November 2023. The B-21, developed by Northrop Grumman,
was created under the Long Range Strike Bomber program designed to carry both
conventional and nuclear munitions. The B-21 is set to eventually replace the
aging B-2, which has become difficult and more expensive to repair as time goes on,
and the B-1 Lancer, which, while capable, is not a dedicated stealth aircraft. It could
even go on to replace the venerable B-52, the longest serving military
aircraft in US history. But other military powers are not sitting still.
The Russians are currently testing their secretive Tupolev PAK DA to replace the aging Tu-95 bombers
still in active service. These are expected to enter service in 2027, but their capabilities
and technology are closely guarded secrets. China has been a bit more public with
the development of their new flying wing stealth bomber. The Xi’an
H-20 was first revealed in 2016, and included a published video copying that of
the American Air Force’s Reveal of the B-21. The H-20 reportedly has the ability to reach
the second island chain in the Pacific, specifically at strategic military bases
inside Guam and Hawaii, However reports from the US Department of Defense claim
that the capabilities of the new stealth bomber fall well below that of even the B-2,
which is several decades old at this point. So while the next generation
of flying wing aircraft is still hidden behind classified
documents and black budgets, the future of military aviation will
without a doubt, be very triangle shaped.
