The B-2 Steath Bomber
The Stealth bomber, or the Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit, is shown in the pictures below: The B-2 flew at the California Capital Airshow over Mather Airport on September 12th, 2009.
About the B-2
The Stealth bomber is know for its state of the art technology to avoid detection by radar and for a design that buries it’s engines in its wings to reduce exhaust. The design is called a with “low observable” stealth technology aimed at fooling anti-aircraft defenses of other countries. The plane is a “heavy bomber” built to deploy both conventional and nuclear weapons. The B-2s, amoung other missions, were used to drop bomps in Serbia in the late 90s and deployed during Operation Iraqi Freedom early 2003. You can see them at air shows like the California Capital Show in Sacramento. The B-2 is the only stealth plane capable of carrying air to surface standoff weapons. It has been controversial since the beginning for its’ high cost of operation which has been estimated at over 2 billion dollars per plane. Each plane costs well over 700 million dollars to make. There were initial plans to make over 132 bombers, but the funding was cut down and 21 have been made.
Statistics:
- Size: The B-2 is 17 feet tall, has a length of 659 feet, and a wingspan of 172 feet.
- Capacity: It can carry a payload of 40,000 lbs and has a maximum take off weight of 336,000 lbs.
- Altitude: It can obtain an altitude of up to 50,000 feet.
- Crew: The B-2 has 2 crew membvers
- Manufacturer: Northrup Gumman
- Engine: The B-2 has four General Electric F118-GE-100 turbofan engines.
- Number built: There are 21 of these planes.
