The first strategic stealth bomber unveiled by the US Air Force in 30 years was on Friday. The B-21 Raider, which is expected to cost over $500 million, has not yet taken its first flight.
In a ceremony at Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California, the Northrop Grumman bomber, which can transport both conventional and nuclear missiles, was on display. Senior Pentagon officials, including Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, were present at the ceremony.
“This is deterrence the American way,” Austin said, praising the B-21 Raider as “the essence of America’s willingness to preserve the republic that we all cherish.”
The US needs a new bomber, according to then-Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James, “that would allow us to take on far more difficult threats, including the ones that we think we may one day face from China and Russia,” she said when the Raider deal was initially announced in 2015.
In 2023, the stealth bomber is anticipated to fly for the first time. The US Air Force had intended for a 2019 launch date for the aircraft, but it was eventually postponed to December 2021 and then mid-2022.
Originally estimated to cost $550 million each, inflation over time caused the price to rise to $692 million. The Air Force intends to purchase at least 100 of the aircraft overall. According to a Bloomberg report from 2021, the total cost of supporting the B-21 program’s development, acquisition, and operation will probably cost taxpayers at least $203 billion over the course of 30 years.
However, US Congressman Adam Smith, who serves as the leader of the House Armed Services Committee, stated in April 2022 that the Air Force seemed to have “learned the lessons” from the F-35 program, which gained notoriety for significantly going over budget. By 2036, yearly cost overruns for the whole military might approach $6 billion, the Government Accountability Office projected in 2021.
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