Behind the Flying Wings of the B-2 Bomber

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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.
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Channel: Not What You Think
Views: 281,727
Rating: undefined out of 5
Keywords: not what you think, B-2 spirit, B-21 raider, YB-49, parasitic drag, stealth, stealth bomber, wing body, hybrid wing body, jetzero, stealth drone
Id: flwgwIRo_lk
Channel Id: undefined
Length: 17min 35sec (1055 seconds)
Published: Fri Jun 21 2024
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