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Two weeks after images posted on Reddit showed a pre-production B-21 Raider stealth bomber taxiing at Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California, Bloomberg confirmed a video Friday morning showing that the next-generation stealth bomber has taken flight for the first time.
Northrop Grumman Corp.’s B-21 Raider is in flight testing, a step in the test campaign managed by the Air Force Test Center and 412th Test Wing’s B-21 Combined Test Force, according to an Air Force spokesperson. -Bloomberg
Here’s a video posted on the social media platform X showing the B-21 flying across the sky.
B-21 RAIDER FIRST FLIGHT 11-10-23 #RAIDER33 #B21Raider pic.twitter.com/3tEKudqDiw
— Matt Hartman (@ShorealoneFilms) November 10, 2023
With an estimated cost of more than half a billion dollars, the B-21 Raider is capable of carrying both conventional and nuclear weapons.
When the contract for the Raider was first announced in 2015, then-Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James claimed that the US needs a new bomber “that would allow us to take on much more complicated threats, like the threats that we fear we would one day face from China, Russia.”
In total, the Air Force plans to procure at least 100 of the planes. In 2021, Bloomberg reported that the total cost for supporting the development, procurement, and operation of the B-21 program will likely cost taxpayers at least $203 billion over 30 years.
In April 2022, however, commenting on the progress of the B-21 project, US Congressman Adam Smith, who chairs the House Armed Services Committee, said the Air Force seems to have “learned the lessons” from the F-35 program – which became notorious for greatly exceeding its budget.
The Government Accountability Office warned in 2021 that annual cost overruns for the entire military could near $6 billion by 2036.
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