TENTH ANNIVERSARY OF B-2 CELEBRATED; BOMBER'S PERFORMANCE IN RECENT WAR LAUDED.Byline: Jim Skeen Staff Writer Ten years after it made its first flight amid criticism of its cost and questions over its capability, the B-2 stealth stealth Any military technology intended to make vehicles or missiles nearly invisible to enemy radar or other electronic detection. Research in antidetection technology began soon after radar was invented. bomber bomber Military aircraft designed to drop bombs on surface targets. Aerial bombardment can be traced to the Italo-Turkish War (1911), in which an Italian pilot dropped grenades on two Turkish targets. was saluted Saturday as a technical marvel and a proven war machine. The 10th anniversary of the first flight was celebrated in a ceremony at Air Force Plant 42 attended by about 2,000 Northrop Grumman Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC) is an aerospace and defense conglomerate that is the result of the 1994 purchase of Grumman by Northrop. The company is the third largest defense contractor for the U.S. workers, their families and several pioneers of the program. The ceremony was especially sweet for Northrop Grumman workers after seeing their product proven in the air war over Kosovo. ``No one likes to see warfare, but it was good to see the B-2 do the job the way it was supposed to, especially for what was essentially a humanitarian mission,'' said Irv Waaland, one of three aircraft designers whose name is on the B-2 patent. Waaland said the B-2 is still a maturing system and will become even more capable. ``It's just a teen-ager. It's just coming onto its own,'' Waaland said. The B-2 is coming off the Kosovo air campaign, where it flew less than 1 percent of all the sorties the allies flew, yet accounted for 11 percent of the bombs dropped. During the air war, B-2s regularly made 30-hour round-trip missions between Whiteman Air Force Base Whiteman Air Force Base (Whiteman AFB) is a base of the United States Air Force in Johnson County, Missouri, United States. It is near the town of Knob Noster, Missouri. The population was 3,814 at the 2000 census. , Mo., and Kosovo. There were nights, in fact, when B-2 bombers were the only aircraft available to fly missions because of bad weather. ``The airplane airplane, aeroplane, or aircraft, heavier-than-air vehicle, mechanically driven and fitted with fixed wings that support it in flight through the dynamic action of the air. exceeded everybody's expectations,'' said Brig Brig, town, Switzerland Brig (brēk), Fr. Brigue, town, Valais canton, S Switzerland, on the Rhône River, at the north entrance of the Simplon Tunnel. . Gen. Leroy Barnidge, commander of the 509th Bomb Wing at Whiteman, one of the guests for Saturday's ceremony. ``It's got a war-fighting capability that is second to none.'' At the time of its first flight, however, there were questions in Congress about the airplane's capability and cost. At the time, the Pentagon had planned to buy 132 of the radar-evading aircraft, but over the subsequent years the program was cut until only 21 bombers were built. During the first flight, Northrop test pilot Bruce Hinds Hinds may refer to: People with the surname Hinds:
Great excitement Among the hundreds of Northrop employees watching the first flight was human resources The fancy word for "people." The human resources department within an organization, years ago known as the "personnel department," manages the administrative aspects of the employees. manager Mark Stanley Mark Stanley is a professional lighting designer. He specializes in dance lighting, but has also worked in opera, the theatre, and even television. He has been the Resident Lighting Director for New York City Ballet since 1986 and is an Associate Professor of Lighting Design at . ``When it was taking off there was great excitement. You could feel the tension rising,'' Stanley said. ``When it took off there was stunned stun tr.v. stunned, stun·ning, stuns 1. To daze or render senseless, by or as if by a blow. 2. To overwhelm or daze with a loud noise. 3. silence. You could feel the hair on your arms and legs rise.'' Carol Stone of California City has been with the program for 11 years, first with the Air Force and later with Northrop. Stone was part of the ground crew for the first flight. ``It was the most exciting thing I'd been on,'' Stone said. ``My whole body was shaking. As it went by, all the GIs saluted. People had tears in their eyes.'' Stone was involved with the flight test effort at Edwards Air Force Base for the B-2 program, making sure the ground operations for the aircraft worked the way they were intended. Those operations were proven in Kosovo. ``Until three months ago, I didn't know if we did our job. Now we know,'' Stone said. Another worker on hand was Andy Visokey, a Lancaster city councilman who is still with the program. ``You felt a tremendous sense of pride because of all the teamwork,'' Visokey said. ``To see the product you had been working on for so long take off was just a feeling of jubilation. I did a lot of jumping up and down.'' During the 1990s, more than 40,000 people in 38 states worked on the program, including 16,500 in California. Kent Kresa, Northrop Grumman president and chief executive, called the B-2 the ``largest defense program of the era.'' During the B-2's production, more than 900 new materials and manufacturing processes were developed. Making it even better All 21 of the bombers have been delivered to the Air Force. Twelve of the bombers are at Whiteman Air Force Base. Eight are back at Palmdale and are in various stages of upgrades. One aircraft is at Edwards Air Force Base for flight tests to validate software upgrades and weapons improvements. During the ceremony, Rep. Howard ``Buck'' McKeon, R-Santa Clarita, drew the biggest cheer of the morning by calling for more B-2s. ``Mr. President Mr. President can refer to:
Treasury offerings of additional amounts of outstanding issues, rather than an entirely new issue. A reopened issue will always have the same maturity date, CUSIP number, and interest rate as the original issue. the B-2 production line?'' McKeon said. McKeon said it would be cheaper to build more B-2s than to go through the research and development costs to produce a new long-range bomber. Congress is now debating defense bills that will provide up to $187 million for engineering work on future upgrades to the bomber fleet. Those improvements include making the airplane even harder to see on enemy radar screens and improvements to the cockpit's computerized computerized adapted for analysis, storage and retrieval on a computer. computerized axial tomography see computed tomography. instrument display and software. Another upgrade planned for the fleet is the system called Link-16, intended to improve an air crew's ``situational awareness'' by providing information to pilots in flight, such as changes in targets and locations of other aircraft in the sky. The system would link the B-2 with command centers on the ground, other airplanes and orbiting satellites. ``You can argue how long it will last,'' said John Cashen, another of the B-2 pioneers whose name appears on the bomber's patent. ``My opinion is it is going to be 40 to 50 years.'' CAPTION(S): Photo PHOTO (Color--Ran in AV Edition only) The B-2 stealth bomber takes off on its first flight on July 17, 1989, from Air Force Plant 42. |
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