This look inside the B-2 Bomber is so detailed it should be classified

Air Force pilots of the 1980s-era stealthy B-2 Spirit bomber plan to upgrade and fly the aircraft on attack missions against enemy air defenses well into the 2050s, service officials said.

“It is a dream to fly. It is so smooth,” Maj. Kent Mickelson, director of operations for the 394th Combat Training Squadron, said in an interview.

In a special interview designed to offer a rare look into the technologies and elements of the B-2, Mickelson explained that the platform has held up and remained very effective, given that it was designed and built during the 80s.

Alongside his current role, Mickelson is also a B-2 pilot with experience flying missions and planning stealth bomber attacks, such as the bombing missions over Libya in 2011.

“It is a testament to the engineering team that here we are in 2016 and the B-2 is still able to do its job just as well today as it did in the 80s,” he said. “While we look forward to modernization, nobody should come away with the thought that the B-2 isn’t ready to deal with the threats that are out there today,” he said.  “It is really an awesome bombing platform, and it is just a marvel of technology.”

The B-2 is engineered with avionics, radar, and communications technologies designed to identify and destroy enemy targets from high altitudes above hostile territory.

“It is a digital airplane. We are presented with what is commonly referred to as a glass cockpit,” Mickelson said.

The glass cockpit includes various digital displays, including one showing Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) information, which paints a rendering or picture of the ground below.

“SAR provides the pilots with a realistic display of the ground that they are able to use for targeting,” Mickelson said.

The B-2 has a two-man crew with only two ejection seats. Also, the crew is trained to deal with the rigors of a 40-hour mission.

“The B-2 represents a huge leap in technology from our legacy platforms such as the B-52 and the B-1 bomber. This involved taking the best of what is available and giving it to the aircrew,” Mickelson said.

The Air Force currently operates 20 B-2 bombers, with the majority of them based at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri. The B-2 can reach altitudes of 50,000 feet and carry 40,000 pounds of payload, including both conventional and nuclear weapons.

The aircraft, which entered service in the 1980s, has flown missions over Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan. In fact, given its ability to fly as many as 6,000 nautical miles without need to refuel, the B-2 flew from Missouri all the way to an island off the coast of India called Diego Garcia – before launching bombing missions over Afghanistan.

“Taking off from Whiteman and landing at Diego Garcia was one of the longest combat sorties the B-2 has ever taken. The bomber was very successful in Afghanistan and very successful in the early parts of the wars in Iraq and Libya,” Michelson added.

The B-2 crew uses what’s called a “long-duration kit,” which includes items such as a cot for sleeping and other essentials deemed necessary for a long flight, Mickelson explained.

The B-2 Mission

As a stealth bomber engineered during the height of the Cold War, the B-2 was designed to elude Soviet air defenses and strike enemy targets – without an enemy ever knowing the aircraft was even there. Industry experts refer to this stealthy technological ability as the ability to evade air defenses using both high-frequency “engagement” radar, which can target planes, and lower-frequency “surveillance” radar, which can alert enemies to the presence of an aircraft in the vicinity.

The B-2 is described as a platform that can operate undetected over enemy territory and, in effect, “knock down the door” by destroying enemy radar and air defenses, allowing other aircraft to fly through a radar “corridor” and attack.

However, enemy air defenses are increasingly becoming technologically advanced and more sophisticated; some emerging systems are even able to detect stealth aircraft using better networked systems, faster computer processors, and improved detection capabilities at longer distances across a greater number of frequencies.

The Air Force plans to operate the B-2 alongside its new, now-in-development bomber called the B-21 Raider, well into the 2050s.

Taking the B-2 Bomber Into the 2050s

As a result, the B-2 fleet is undergoing a series of modernization upgrades to ensure the aircraft can remain at its ultimate effective capability for the next several decades, Mickelson said.

One of the key upgrades is called the Defensive Management System, a technology that helps inform the B-2 crew about the location of enemy air defenses. As a result, if there are emerging air defenses equipped with technology sufficient to detect the B-2, the aircraft will have the opportunity to maneuver in such a way as to stay outside of its range.

The Defensive Management System is slated to be operational by the mid-2020s, Mickelson added.

“The whole key is to give us better situational awareness so we can make sound decisions in the cockpit about where we need to put the aircraft,” he added.

The B-2 is also moving to a highly high-frequency satellite to facilitate better communications with command and control. For instance, the communications upgrade could make it possible for the aircraft crew to receive bombing instructions from the President in the unlikely event of a nuclear detonation.

“This program will help with nuclear and conventional communications. It will provide a significant increase in the bandwidth available for the B-2, resulting in a faster data flow speed. We are excited about this upgrade,” Mickelson explained.

The stealth aircraft utilizes a commonly deployed data link called LINK-16, as well as both UHF and VHF data links. Michelson explained that the B-2 is capable of communicating with ground control stations and command and control headquarters, and is also able to receive information from other manned and unmanned assets such as drones.

Information from nearby drones, however, would most likely need to be transmitted through a ground control station at the moment. That being said, emerging technology may soon allow platforms like the B-2 to receive real-time video feeds from nearby drones in the air.

The B-2 is also being engineered with a new flight management control processor designed to expand and modernize the onboard computers and enable the addition of new software.

This involves the re-hosting of the flight management control processors, the brains of the airplane, onto much more capable integrated processing units. This results in the laying-in of some new fiber optic cable as opposed to the mix bus cable being used right now, because the B-2’s computers from the 80s are getting maxed out and overloaded with data, Air Force officials told Scout Warrior.

The new processor increases the performance of the avionics and onboard computer systems by about 1,000 times, he added. The overall flight management control processor effort, slated for fielding between 2015 and 2016, is expected to cost $542 million.

B-2 Weapons Upgrades

The comprehensive B-2 upgrades also include efforts to outfit the attack aircraft with next-generation digital nuclear weapons, such as the B-61 Mod 12 with a tail kit and the Long Range Stand-Off (LRSO) weapon, an air-launched, guided nuclear cruise missile, service officials said.

The B-61 Mod 12 is an ongoing modernization program that seeks to integrate the B-61 Mods 3, 4, 7, and 10 into a single variant with a guided tail kit. The B-61 Mod 12 is being engineered to rely on an inertial measurement unit for navigation.

In addition to the LRSO, B83 and B-61 Mod 12, the B-2 will also carry the B-61 Mod 11, a nuclear weapon designed with penetration capabilities, Air Force officials said.

The LRSO will replace the Air-Launched Cruise Missile, or ALCM, which is currently carried only by the B-52 bomber, officials said.

Alongside its nuclear arsenal, the B-2 will carry a wide range of conventional weapons to include precision-guided 2,000-pound Joint Direct Attack Munitions, or JDAMs, 5,000-pound JDAMs, Joint Standoff Weapons, Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles and GBU 28 5,000-pound bunker buster weapons, among others.

The platform is also preparing to integrate a long-range conventional air-to-ground standoff weapon called the JASSM-ER, for Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile, Extended Range.

The B-2 can also carry a 30,000-pound conventional bomb known as the Massive Ordnance Penetrator, Mickelson added.

“This is a GBU-28 (bunker-buster weapon) on steroids. It will go in and take out deeply buried targets,” he said.

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