Wednesday’s video (below) marks the service’s first reveal of the aircraft’s flight operations.

• READ MORE: B-21 Flight Testing, Production ‘Continues to Make Progress,’ Air Force Says

“A B-21 Raider conducts flight testing, which includes ground testing, taxiing, and flying operations in California,” the Air Force said in a statement accompanying the video. “Flight testing is a critical step in the test campaign managed by the Air Force Test Center and 412th Test Wing’s B-21 Combined Test Force (CTF) to provide survivable, long-range, penetrating strike capabilities to deter aggression and strategic attacks against the United States, allies, and partners.

“The B-21 will be the backbone of the service’s future bomber force, and will possess the range, access, and payload to penetrate the most highly contested threat environments and hold any target around the globe at risk,” the service said.

The stealth strike bomber was unveiled in December 2022 and officially moved into low-rate production earlier this year. In January, Northrop Grumman said six B-21 bombers are in various stages of final assembly and testing at its facility in Palmdale, California.

• READ MORE: B-21 Raider Takes First Flight

The Air Force has said it intends to purchase at least 100 of the aircraft. Ellsworth Air Force Base (AFB), South Dakota, has been designated as the first main operating facility for the B-21 and its formal training unit. The bomber is expected to arrive at Ellsworth by the mid-2020s.

Friday, the Air Force announced that the service’s newest bomber would also be based at Whiteman AFB, Missouri, and Dyess AFB, Texas.

“We continue to achieve B-21 production milestones,” General Thomas Bussiere, Air Force Global Strike Command commander, said in a statement. “Through digital engineering and open architecture design, we are getting an agile strategic deterrent that delivers a decisive response as required.” 

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“Continuing a lasting relationship with the Tournament of Roses Foundation, the B-2 will kick off the Rose Bowl game between the Alabama Crimson Tide and the Michigan Wolverines with a flyover,” the Air Force’s 509th Bomb Wing said.

The B-2 has flown over the Rose Parade and Bowl every year since 2005—until last year when the Air Force grounded its fleet for inspection after a bomber made a hard landing at Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri. The stealth bomber is operated by the 509th and 131st Bomb Wings at Whiteman AFB. 

During the December 2022 incident, a B-2 flying a routing operation had an inflight malfunction and was forced to make an emergency landing, catching fire in the process. The mishap prompted Whiteman AFB to institute a safety pause for a B-2 fleet inspection. A pair of B-1B Lancer bombers from Dyess Air Force Base, Texas, were then tasked with carrying over the flyover tradition for the 2023 Rose Parade or Rose Bowl Game.

“We are excited to return to the 2024 Rose Bowl,” said Colonel Keith Butler, 509th Bomb Wing commander at Whiteman AFB. “We have enjoyed a long relationship with the city of Pasadena and are honored to bring the B-2 back to demonstrate Team Whiteman’s commitment to the American people. Our mission is to execute nuclear operations and global strike…anytime, anywhere, and it would not be possible without the support of the people we serve. This is our way of saying, thank you.”

Earlier this month, Whiteman AFB marked its three decades as home to the B-2 Spirit by holding a ceremony that reenacted the bomber’s first arrival to the base.

Retired U.S. Air Force Senior Master Sergeant Keith Meadows marshals the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber at Whiteman AFB December 15, 2023. As a staff sergeant at the time, Meadows was the first crew chief to marshal in the B-2 30 years ago when it first arrived at Whiteman AFB. [Courtesy: U.S. Air Force]

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The news emerged as Ellsworth Air Force Base, South Dakota—location of the first operational B-21 Raider unit—broke ground last week on a 95,000-square-foot Low Observable Restoration Facility. The facility is the first of more than 30 projects slated for the base to support the aircraft, the Associated Press reported.

The ground testing milestone in early May focused on instrument calibration and verifying structural integrity of the bomber, and “yielded positive and consistent results,” the company said. 

“During testing, the B-21’s airframe endures varying percentages of stress to ensure the aircraft can proceed on its path to flight readiness,” Northrop Grumman said in a statement. 

Additional ground testing phases are now set to include powering up the aircraft, subsystem testing, engine runs, and low-speed and high-speed taxi tests.

Digital Design

Testing also validated the company’s digital design process that aims to reduce production risk, the company added. 

Northrop Grumman, much like aircraft manufacturers Boeing and Airbus, turned to digital development to expedite development of the bomber. 

• READ MORE: Boeing Plans Dynamic Digital Ecosystem

“Innovative application of digital engineering and commercial off-the-shelf digital tools continue to deliver an advanced degree of precision and efficiency in the build process, with production risk reduction progressing every day as B-21 test aircraft move down the actual production line,” Northrop Grumman said.

Defense acquisition is increasingly turning to digital design in an attempt to shave time in aircraft development. 

“The digital trinity of digital engineering and management, agile software, and open architecture, is the true successor to stealth. It’s the next big paradigm shift for military tech dominance,” Will Roper, former assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, technology and logistics, said in an October 2020 report, Breaking Defense reported last year.

• READ MORE: Report: Air Force Set To Roll Out B-21 Stealth Bomber This Year

Northrop Grumman said the B-21 is “making strides toward flight readiness” and “remains on-schedule” for the first flight projected for 2023.

Earlier this year, the Air Force indicated that the six B-21 aircraft in production would roll out in 2022, with the first bombers likely in the air quickly thereafter.

• READ MORE: Stealth No More: B-21 Production Underway, AF Secretary Confirms

The stealth bomber is designed to carry out long-range conventional and nuclear missions and slated to hit full operations in the mid-2020s. The Air Force has said it intends to purchase at least 100 aircraft it says will form the backbone of the service’s bomber force, with an average unit procurement cost of $639 million each.

Ellsworth AFB, the training grounds of the B-17 Flying Fortresses in 1942, has been designated the B-21’s main operating base and site of its formal training unit.

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