Month: December 2022

This month has been pretty exciting in the world of aviation.  Most notably, Northrop Grumman revealed the world’s newest, most technologically advanced airplane.  The highly anticipated reveal of the B-21 Raider happened on December second, and I was so excited about it.  I called my friend Ac (cool name, right), and we watched the life reveal together.  He is not much of an aviation enthusiast, or at least not to my level, but he likes to listen to people talk about aviation.  That’s great because I want to talk about aviation (pick your friends right, people).

So what is the B-21 Raider?  It is a proposed strategic bomber with stealth capabilities.  Apparently, it can also fill the role of a low-level bomber.  These all sound cool, I’m not much of a military expert, but I can tell that this means that it is going to be good at what it does.  The B-21 is supposed to replace the B-2 Spirit and the B-1 Lancer.  I can’t lie, I am a little disappointed because they are beautiful airplanes, but they are getting old.  Both of those airplanes were developed in the 1900s (just like my brothers, I guess they are old too).  Sadly, we are all too familiar with the United States government, and this will likely never happen.

Anyways, let me just get this out of the way; I like money.  I always have, actually; it is just sort of a cool thing.  Now don’t get me confused with the Smeal kids; I think they may write love poems about the stock market.  I specifically like saving money.  What’s the relevance?  The B-21 Raider will supposedly be very cheap to produce and operate.  The Raider will hopefully lead to a cut in military spending, which I think we can all agree is necessary.  It seems almost too good to be true to me, though.  I cannot see how an airplane could be so modern and so advanced but be cheaper to produce than previous airplanes.  There is obviously something missing here.  Actually, there is a lot missing here.

 

Do you notice anything similar with these photos?  All photographs of the B-21 have been from the front side.  There have been no glimpses into the cockpit, what the side profile of the airplane may look like, and we do not even know how many engines this plane has.  There are two air intakes, but it is possible that each intake feeds two engines.  I thought to myself, “if we can’t see anything on this airplane, why are they showing it to us?” After a quick bit of research and a few YouTube videos later, I found my answer.  Russia (of course).   There is a treaty,  the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, that requires both countries to disclose all nuclear-capable delivery systems to each other.  So that means that this airplane is able to carry a nuke.  That’s precisely what we need right now.  That was sarcasm.