Northrop B-2 Bomber; Classic Warplanes

New York: Gallery Books [An imprint of W. H. Smith Publishers Inc.], 1991. Presumed First U. S. Edition, First printing. Hardcover. Good. 45, [1] pages. Illustrations (some in color). Map. Index [on the inside of the back cover]. Decorative covers. No dust jacket present. Cover has some wear, soiling, and a few 'dings'. This is one of the Classic Warplanes series. Discusses airframe design, history and development, structure, operational requirements, and service life of the secret "flying wing" Stealth bomber. The contents include Developments and dreams -- A wing and a prayer -- The hidden warrior -- Meeting the need -- Seek and destroy -- A dream fulfilled? Doug Richardson is a defense journalist and author specializing in the fields of aviation, guided missiles and electronics. After a successful career as an electronics and aerospace engineer he moved into journalism He has been the defence Editor of "Flight International", Editor of "Military Technology" and Editor of "Defence Materiel", before becoming a full-time freelance writer. He has written many books for Salamander Books LTD included "The Illustrated Guide to Electronic Warfare." "The F-16 Fact File,"m "The AH-1 Fact File", An Illustrated Survey of the West's Modern Fighters," and "Stealth Warplanes." This work was written shortly after the B-2 came into acknowledged production. The Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit, also known as the Stealth Bomber, is an American heavy strategic bomber, featuring low-observable stealth technology designed to penetrate dense anti-aircraft defenses. A subsonic flying wing with a crew of two, the plane was designed by Northrop (later Northrop Grumman) and produced from 1987 to 2000. The bomber can drop conventional and thermonuclear weapons, such as up to eighty 500-pound class Mk 82 JDAM GPS-guided bombs, or sixteen 2,400-pound B83 nuclear bombs. The B-2 is the only acknowledged in-service aircraft that can carry large air-to-surface standoff weapons in a stealth configuration. Development began under the Advanced Technology Bomber (ATB) project during the Carter administration, which canceled the Mach 2-capable B-1A bomber in part because the ATB showed such promise. But development difficulties delayed progress and drove up costs. Ultimately, the program produced 21 B-2s at an average cost of $2.13 billion (~$4.04 billion in 2023), including development, engineering, testing, production, and procurement. Building each aircraft cost an average of US$737 million, while total procurement costs (including production, spare parts, equipment, retrofitting, and software support) averaged $929 million (~$1.11 billion in 2023) per plane. The project's considerable capital and operating costs made it controversial in the U.S. Congress even before the winding down of the Cold War dramatically reduced the desire for a stealth aircraft designed to strike deep in Soviet territory. Consequently, in the late 1980s and 1990s lawmakers shrank the planned purchase of 132 bombers to 21. As of 2015, twenty B-2s were in service with the United States Air Force, one having been destroyed in a 2008 crash. The Air Force plans to operate them until 2032, when the Northrop Grumman B-21 Raider is to replace them.
The B-2 can perform attack missions at altitudes of up to 50,000 feet (15,000 m); it has an unrefueled range of more than 6,000 nautical miles (6,900 miles) and can fly more than 10,000 nautical miles (12,000 miles) with one midair refueling. It entered service in 1997 as the second aircraft designed with advanced stealth technology, after the Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk attack aircraft. Primarily designed as a nuclear bomber, the B-2 was first used in combat to drop conventional, non-nuclear ordnance in the Kosovo War in 1999. It was later used in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya.