NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. – The U.S. Air Force is considering whether to move funding from the B-1B Lancer program to buy additional next-generation B-21 bombers in the fiscal 2021 budget, as changes are considered for the overall future of the aging bomber force.
Accelerating procurement of the Northrop Grumman-developed B-21 Raider is a priority for the service, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein said Sept. 17 at a media roundtable at the Air Force Association’s Air, Space & Cyber conference here.
The service has announced plans to retire the B-1B Lancer “Bone” fleet over the next decade – as well as the B-2 Spirits – while development continues on the new B-21. Acting Air Force Secretary Matt Donovan confirmed Monday that the B-21 is currently being built at Northrop Grumman’s Palmdale, Calif., facility.
The B-21 would carry the B61-12 nuclear gravity bomb — an upgrade of the oldest deployed U.S. nuclear weapon that will homogenize four previous version of the bomb by the mid- to late 2020s — and, eventually, the Long-Range Standoff Weapon cruise missile tipped with the W80-4 warhead to be provided by the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration.
The W80-4, needed for about 1,000 new cruise missiles, will be a refurbished W80-1. The 80-4 program entered the development engineering phase this year.
First flight of the B-21 is currently scheduled for 2021, officials previously said. While more funding may not push the program to the left in terms of schedule, “I’m hoping we can accelerate in terms of numbers,” Goldfein said. The Air Force has indicated a desire to procure 100 B-21s, but a number of government-sponsored reports have shown the service might require even more aircraft, he added. “I’m 100 percent lockstep with those analyses,” he said.
The Air Force has not said when B-21 would reach its initial operational capability for nuclear missions.
Along with additional B-21s, the released funding meant for B-1s could go to long-range strategic precision weapons and the ongoing B-52 re-engine competition, he added. Air Force leaders did not say how much funding would be shifted.
Operational use of the B-1B has caused “significant structural issues,” Goldfein said. The aircraft was designed to fly high speeds at slow altitudes, to penetrate enemy defenses and take out targets. But for the last 18 years, it’s been flown at medium-altitude, “very slow, wings forward” for missions in Afghanistan where it was determined to be the “optimal platform,” he said.
“We flew the B-1 in the least optimal configuration for all these years, and the result of that is we put stresses on the aircraft that we did not anticipate.”
This story first appeared in Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor affiliate publication Defense Daily.
