B-2 Spirit Bomber Stealth Aircraft | Northrop's Heavy Strategic Bomber

Video from the channel DroneScapes about Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 32:34. Language: English. Video type: Documentary.

A documentary on the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber that covers its roots in flying wings, its secret development at Northrop, the 2008 crash and its combat debut over Yugoslavia in 1999. The narration alternates with testimony from engineers who worked on the program and from a crew member on the first combat mission, who recounts the tension of releasing the bombs and the return flight to the United States.

The story opens with brothers Reimar and Walter Horten, who designed flying wings in Germany from the 1930s onward, and with Alexander Lippisch and his Me 163 Komet. In the United States, Jack Northrop tested the XB-35 in 1946 and later the YB-49, powered by eight Allison jet engines with a 172-foot wingspan; the Air Force judged it too unstable without computer assistance, and in late 1949 the surviving aircraft were ordered destroyed. The piece places the search for a reduced radar signature in the 1960s, with Lockheed's SR-71, and recounts how in November 1979 a mock-up of the B-2 was shown to Jack Northrop, by then in his eighties, who recognized his old concept in it. The first aircraft was delivered to Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri on December 17, 1993.

The documentary attributes the aircraft's stealth to its curved, tailless shape, radar-absorbing materials and electronic countermeasures, all managed by more than 130 onboard computers, and states that its radar cross-section is a thousand times smaller than the B-52's. It cites a cost of 2.13 billion dollars per aircraft and an initial order of 132 units that ended up at 21. On February 23, 2008, the Spirit of Kansas crashed in Guam 17 seconds after takeoff because moisture skewed the airspeed sensors; both pilots ejected. On March 24, 1999, two B-2s struck in combat for the first time, over Yugoslavia, after more than 14 hours of flight with aerial refueling over the Mediterranean. The video also mentions its capacity to carry the 15-ton Massive Ordnance Penetrator.