Northrop breaks ground on B-21 final assembly line
The facility is located in Palmdale, California, where Northrop is already building early low-rate B-21s.
Military aircraft manufacturer Northrop Grumman has broken ground on a new production facility that will assemble the company’s B-21 Raider next-generation stealth bomber.
The facility is located on the grounds of the US Air Force’s secure Plant 42 site in Palmdale, California, where Northrop is already assembling early low-rate B-21s. Two test-configured aircraft are already flying from nearby Edwards AFB after initially launching from Palmdale.
Northrop’s final B-21 line will encompass more than 93,000sq m (1 million sq ft) of space, construction of which is being funded under a $4.5 billion agreement between Northrop and the USAF announced earlier this year to accelerate production of the new stealth bomber.
“This groundbreaking represents more than construction; it represents a sustained commitment to delivering the capability our nation needs at the speed the security environment demands,” says General Dale White, director of critical major weapon systems for the air force. “The B-21 Raider is foundational to the air force’s future long-range strike capability, and this investment strengthens the industrial capacity required to field that capability faster.”
Senior civilian and uniformed leaders from the USAF made an appearance in Palmdale to mark the occasion on 29 September, although the air force only revealed the milestone on 8 October.
The Pentagon says it will take delivery of the first operational B-21 in 2027, with that aircraft already assigned to the Ellsworth AFB in South Dakota – one of the USAF’s primary bomber bases. That first tranche of Raiders will be sourced from the low-rate production line already active at Plant 42.
The expansion now getting underway will transition the assembly work from “demonstrated programme performance to increased production capacity and more rapid fielding of operational capability”, the air force says.
Colonel Nicholas Jordan, the service’s programme director for B-21 systems, says Northrop has established a foundation to “accelerate production responsibly”, without risking slowdowns or delays.
“This investment in Palmdale will provide the infrastructure, workforce and manufacturing capacity needed to deliver the Raider to the Air Force at an increased rate,” he says.
The USAF has committed to acquiring at least 100 B-21 bombers. That is a markedly different outcome from how the service handled procurement of its last stealth bomber — Northrop’s B-2 Spirit.
Cost overruns and post-Cold War spending cuts led the Pentagon to curtail that fielding at a fleet of only 20 bombers. Each aircraft cost around $2 billion when they were built in the 1990s.
To avoid that outcome this time around, the USAF imposed strict price targets on the B-21 of $692 million per aircraft in 2022 values, adjusted from the original 2010-valued target of $550 million for each bomber.
Senior US military leaders have floated the idea of expanding the B-21 fleet to as many as 200 examples, although the Pentagon has not yet officially made any such commitment.
The B-21 flight test phase is already in an advanced stage. In March, the flying wing bomber demonstrated the ability to take on fuel in flight from a Boeing KC-135 tanker – a crucial task for the long-range strike mission that is the stealth bomber’s primary function.
The post Northrop breaks ground on B-21 final assembly line first appeared on FlightGlobal.
Source: www.flightglobal.com — article syndicated from the publisher’s feed; all rights remain with the original publisher.