So, what do I know about the B-2?
I interviewed enlisted men and officers during three visits to the B-2 base at Whiteman AFB, beginning in 1999. All the trips were for articles that appeared in Air&Space Smithsonian Magazine.
On those visits I took a seat in the co-pilot's position, spent an hour in the Mission Planning Cell, flew in the simulator with a B-2 pilot, watched Airmen loading a bunker-buster into the bomb-loading trainer, and interviewed aircraft maintainers while walking with an escort around the hangar. I also interviewed experts on stealth operations outside the Air Force.
Why is the B-2 based near Knob Noster in rural Missouri, rather than a bigger base near one of the coasts? I've seen this question a lot on discussion boards. It's because missions might be executed anywhere in the world. So there's no location better than any other. From the first, the aircraft was set up to fly halfway across the world and back with refueling. As they did with Minuteman missile basing, war planners apparently preferred the central US as providing something of a defensive and security buffer. A buffer is not a bad idea, given that the Pentagon has long been concerned about ballistic missiles that could be launched from hostile submarines lurking off our coastline. See my post on the history of DEFCON alerts.
The base originated with a World War II training airfield. It was later named Whiteman after 2nd Lt. George Whiteman, who was killed in action during the Pearl Harbor attack. I met his brother on one of my visits.
What's the B-2 like, close up? Numerous articles have described the flight deck, with its cramped quarters and a small rectangular space behind the seats so one pilot can get some rest. Only two people are allowed on board, even for VIP flights; that's because the plane has only two ejection seats. I don't have much to add to what's been printed, other than the hot-dog warmer that I saw has been replaced with a microwave.
But I haven't seen material in the news about a walk-around in the hangar, so here goes.
Credit: Senior Airman Parker J. McCauley
When I visited (under close escort, of course!) the hangar was as spotless as a high-end auto showroom, with not a spot of fluid on the glossy painted floor. The plane has a huge wingspan (172 feet) but it's hard to appreciate that from a few feet away. The radar-absorbent skin is extremely smooth, marked by occasional outlines of hatchways and access doors. Some of these doors are for navigation antennas, for use in civilian skies. Northrop Grumman had to be extremely careful with the fit and finish of all these doors and hatches, since exposed metal edges are visible on radar from miles away. I was told that crewmen wear gloves whenever they might come into contact with the edges.
If the B-2 is so stealthy, why the need for a decoy flight to Guam before the attack on Iranian nuclear-development sites? The B-2 design is 35 years old, so even with upgrades, it's more vulnerable to state-of-art radar than when first used in combat. And the USAF never regarded it as “invisible” to radar, even from the first. The best way to describe a successful flight into enemy territory is that a B-2 shows up only as “faint and intermittent” on enemy radar. See below on how mission planners use the latest airspace info to achieve this.
While the B-2 is intended for early strikes, the USAF never uses it as a “first-night” aircraft if any opposition from late-model anti-aircraft equipment or fighter aircraft can be expected. As used in Kosovo, Iraq, Libya, and lately in Iran, the B-2 followed initial sorties by less-stealthy aircraft using bombs and missiles to destroy AA radar installations, fighter bases, communication links, and command and control centers.
How much work goes into setting up a bombing mission? A great deal, in part because of the large number of supporting aircraft (like tankers, fighters, missile-carrying aircraft) required. As far as the B-2 itself, the Blue Line is a key part of stealth planning, and those tactics are just as vital as the airplane’s design and the materials that reduce its radar cross-section. Uniquely crafted and continually updated in Whiteman's Mission Planning Cell, the Blue Line marks the flight path to assigned targets. Here's a link to one of my Air&Space articles that goes into more detail on that critical task. Rarely a straight line, the Blue Line maps out zigs and zags to avoid the most dangerous enemy defenses. One of the mission planners explained it to me this way: the B-2 should show up very faintly on radar screens, and sometimes won't be visible at all.
Stealth-wise, B-2 mission planners have several things besides radar to worry about. The planes have to be refueled every six hours, or more often depending on conditions, so that means a B-2-aware enemy will be watching for distant tankers, which are not stealthy. Another weak spot is the engine exhaust. Because the four engines dump their exhaust on top of the fuselage, rather than the usual locations on warplanes (below or behind), the B-2 is less visible in infrared when viewed from below. But that also means a high-flying interceptor with heat detection might spot it from above. I'm also told that stealthy aircraft are vulnerable to detection by reflected AM radio signals. While this wouldn't be sufficient for AA targeting, it might narrow the search for an interceptor.
Which are the most demanding portions of a mission? Refuelings require a lot of attention ...
Credit: U.S. Air Force / Master Sgt. Val Gempis
... as does in-flight monitoring by the pilots of the threat picture; this task is called ISR, for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. The commander of the 509th Bomb Wing described it to me this way: the pilots have “been transformed from stick-and-rudder pilots to system operators.” What would also be difficult is a change in targeting or the Blue Line, while in flight.
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