Northrop Grumman Corp recently rolled out its new B-21 “Raider” jet, the first of a new fleet of long-range stealth nuclear bombers for the United States Air Force.
About the B-21 raider –
- The B-21 Raider will employ cutting-edge stealth technologies to carry out nuclear missions and long-range bombing.
- Each aircraft costing about $2 billion or Rs 1624 Crore to be built.
- The B-21 Raider will be a subsonic aircraft.
- Speed — Average of 563 miles per hour.
- The B-21 Raider, which takes its name from the 1942 Doolittle Raid over Tokyo, will be slightly smaller than the B-2 to increase its range.
- Other changes likely include advanced materials used in coatings to make the bomber harder to detect, new ways to control electronic emissions.
- So the bomber could spoof adversary radars and disguise itself as another object, and use of new propulsion technologies.
Modernisation –
- The bomber is part of the Pentagon’s efforts to modernise all three legs of its nuclear triad, which includes silo-launched nuclear ballistic missiles and submarine-launched warheads, as it shifts from the counterterrorism campaigns of recent decades to meet China’s rapid military modernisation.
- The U.S Air Force plans to build 100 that can deploy either nuclear weapons or conventional bombs and can be used with or without a human crew.
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