AviationNow,
Aviation Week & Space Technology periodically takes an over-the-shoulder look to capture lessons from past aerospace programs, but aided by the perspective of time and in-service experience. Such revisits can benefit current and future system developments, perhaps avoiding the costly and painful trials of rediscovery and relearning. The articles that follow focus on the B-2's development and how the design techniques, technologies and management approaches it fostered are being applied today.
Although the contract for what became the U.S. Air Force's B-2 bomber was awarded almost 25 years ago, much about the stealthy “Spirit” and how it evolved from idea to reality remains classified or consigned to the memory of a few. Consequently, the B-2's profound impact on air warfare and the global aerospace industry has yet to be fully recognized and appreciated.
An impressive list of technologies, design tools, management techniques, manufacturing processes and myriad lessons spawned by the B-2 program are contributing to many commercial and military programs. For example, Northrop Grumman's Unmanned Combat Aircraft System (UCAS) X-47, the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and even Boeing's 777 airliner have close ties to the B-2.
By almost any measure, the bomber's development was one of the largest, most technically complex, expensive and demanding programs in aerospace history. But the final product dramatically changed air combat forever. The B-2's “stealth” or low observability (LO) enables unprecedented penetration of enemy territory, essentially neutralizing very costly air defense systems. Precision weapon delivery in all weather conditions, day or night, changed an air warfare tenet from “sorties per target” to “numbers of targets per sortie.” In the B-2's case, a single bomber carrying 16 conventional weapons can destroy 16 targets. The same mission once would have required dozens of aircraft dropping hundreds of bombs.
Designed as a Cold War weapon system, the B-2 was also a central player in an economic war to break the then-Soviet Union's financial back. The U.S. chose an aggressive offensive strategy, because history had proven it is much costlier to build strong defenses than to field effective offenses. LO aircraft such as the F-117 Nighthawk and B-2 Spirit would have forced the Soviets to spend enormous sums on air defense systems.
When the B-2 program started, “we were quite cognizant that [its] purpose was more than just the next weapon system,” recalls Albert F. Myers, Northrop Grumman's corporate vice president for strategy and technology. “In the early days, [Defense Dept. leaders] characterized the program as being as important as the Manhattan Project,” the massive World War II effort to develop nuclear weapons.
Myers joined Northrop Corp. in 1981 as manager of B-2 flight controls engineering, and later served as chief project engineer, then deputy program manager and vice president of test operations. He plans to retire this summer.
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