by Dale Brown
“Depends on who you ask, ” Ormack said dryly. “Officially Attack Systems Integration Station. The flight test pilots and B-2 cadre call it something else-in honor of all navigators, of course. “What’s that?” ‘Additional shit inside.” McLanahan laughed again. “Figures.” Slamming navigators was common fare in this fighter pilot’s Mecca in southern Nevada. Still awestruck, he walked toward the huge batwinged bomber sitting inside the brilliantly lit hangar. The Black Knight was designed specifically to attack multiple, heavily defended, and mobile targets around the world with high probability of damage and high probability of survival. To fly nearly five thousand miles unrefueled, the B-2 had to be huge-it had the same wingspan as a B-52 and almost the same fuel capacity, able to carry more than its own weight in jet fuel. In the past, building a bomber of that size meant it was a sitting duck for enemy defenses-a quarter-to-half-million pounds of steel flying around made a very easy target for enemy acquisition and weapons-guidance radars. The B-52, first designed in the 1 940s when it was designed to fly at extremely high altitudes, eventually had to rely on flying at treetop level, electronic jammers and decoys, and plain old circumnavigation of enemy threats to evade attack. The B-58 Hustler bomber relied on flat-out supersonic speed. The FB111 and B- 1 strategic bombers utilized speed, a cleaner “stealthier” design, advanced electronic countermeasures, and terrain-following radar to help themselves penetrate stiff defenses. But, with rapid advances in fighter technology, surface-to-air missiles, and early warning and tracking radars, even the sleek, deadly B-1 would soon be vulnerable to attack. The black monster before Patrick McLanahan was the latest answer. The B-2 was still a quarter-million-pound bomber, but most of its larger structural surfaces were made of nonmetallic composites that reduced or reflected enemy radar energy; reflected energy is dispersed in specific narrow beam paths, or lobes, which greatly decreases the strength of the reflected energy. It had no vertical flight-control surfaces that could act as a radar reflector-viewed on edge, it appeared to be nothing more than a dark sliver, like a slender tadpole. Each wing was made of two huge pieces of composite material, joined like a plastic model-that meant there were no structural ribs to break, no rivets attaching the skin to a skeleton, producing an aircraft that was as strong at the wingtips as it was at the fuselage. Its four turbofan engines were buried within V-shaped wings, which eliminated telltale heat emissions, and engine components were cooled with jet fuel itself to further reduce heat emissions. Its state-of-the-art navigation systems, attack radars, and sensors were so advanced that the B-2 could strike targets several miles before the bomber could be detected by enemy acquisition radars. The cost of the Black Knight bomber program was staggering-a half billion dollars per plane and nearly eighty billion dollars for an entire fleet, including research, development, and basing. A planned total purchase of one hundred and thirty-two B-2s in five years quickly went away, replaced with an extended procurement deal that would bring only seventy-five bombers on-line over ten years. Even that reduced production rate had been compromised-by April of 1992 there were only twelve fully operational B-2 in the inventory, including the initial three airframes used for testing and evaluation and nine more that had been purchased in 1991. The 1992 and 1993 budgets had carried only “life-support” funding for the B-2-just enough money to keep the program alive while retaining the ability to quickly gear up production if the need arose. Because there would only be seventy-five B-2s active by the turn of the century, the B-52-slated for replacement by the Black Knight-would still be in the active strategic nuclear penetrator arsenal well into the twenty-first century. But the B-2, despite charges of being a “billion-dollar boon SK operational, was now a reality and had proven itself ready to go to war in extensive flight testing. The first Black Knight bomber squadronthe 393rd Bomb Squadron “Tigers”the same unit that had dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima during World War Il-had been activated at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri a few months earlier, and when that happened, it had rendered billions of dollars’ worth of the enemy’s military airdefense hardware instantly obsolete. “Got time for a walkaround, sir?” McLanahan asked. “You bet, ” the young Air Force General replied. Ormack let Patrick drink in the sight of the magnificent black bomber before him as Patrick stepped toward it for a walkaround “getacquainted” inspection. The B-2 had no fuselage as on more conventional airplanes; it was as if someone had sawed off the wings of a B-52, stuck them together, and put wheels on it. For someone like McLanahan, who was accustomed to seeing the huge, drooping wings of the mighty B-52, it was amazing to notice that the B-2s, which were just as long and easily twice as wide, did not droop one inch-the composite structures were pound-forpound stronger than steel. The skin was perfectly smooth, with none of the stress wrinkles of the B-52, and it had no antennae attached to the hull that might act as a radar reflector. The plane’s “flying wing” design had no vertical flight control surfaces that would create a radar reflector; instead, it achieved stability by a series of split flaps / ailerons on the wing’s trailing edges, called “flaperons, ” which would deflect in pairs or singularly in response to a triple-redundant laser optic flight computer’s commands. The unique flaperon flight-control system, plus a thrust ejector system that directed engine exhaust across the flaperons to increase responsiveness, gave the huge bomber the roll response of a small fighter. To prevent any radar image “blooming” when the flaperons were deflected in flight-even the small flaperon deflection caused by aS-degree turn would increase the radar image size several times-the trailing edge of the B-2’s wings were staggered in a zigzag pattern, which prevented any reflected energy from returning directly back to the enemy’s radar receiver. Patrick ducked under the pointed nose on his way back to the double side-by-side bomb bays, the natural part of such an aircraft that would attract any SAC bombardier. The lower part of the nose section on either side of the nose gear had large rectangular windows protected by thick pads. “Are these the laser and IR windows?” Patrick asked Ormack. “You got it, Patrick, ” Ormack replied. “Miniature laser spotters / target designators and infrared detectors, slaved to the navigation system. The emitter windows and the cockpit windows are coated with an ultrathin material that allows radar energy to pass through the windows but not reflect back outwards, much like a one-way mirror. This reduces the radar reflectivity caused by energy bouncing off the crew members or equipment inside the plane itself. If allowed to reflect back, the radar return from the pilots’ helmets alone can effectively double the B-2’s radar signature.”
“Where’s the navigation radar? Is there one on the B-2?”
“You bet. The Black Knight has an AN/APQ-181 multimode radar mounted along the wing leading edges, with ground-mapping, terrain-following, targeting, surveillance, and rendezvous modes-we can even add air-to-air capability to the system. “Air-to-air on a B-2 bomber?” McLanahan whistled. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Not after what we did on the B-52 Old Dog, ” Ormack replied. “After our work in Dreamland putting antiair missiles on a B-52, I don’t think there’ll ever be another combat aircraft that can’t do a dozen different jobs, and that includes heavy bombers carrying air-to-air weapons. It makes sense-if you can take sixteen to twenty weapons of any kind into battle with you, you have the advantage. Besides, the B-2 is no slouch of a hot jet any way you look at it-the B-2 bomber has one-one hundredth the radar cross-section of an F-15 Eagle Fighter, one-twentieth the RCS of an F-23 Wildcat fighter-which means it could engage targets before the other guy even knows the B-2 is out there-and at high altitude it has the same roll rate and can pull as many Gs as an F-4 Phantom.” The underside of the B-2 was like a huge dark thunder cloud-it seemed to stretch out forever, sucking up every particle of light. Patrick was surprised by what he found-two cavernous weapon bays. “It’s a hell a lot bigger than I thought, General, ” he said. “Each bomb bay carries one Common Strategic Rotary Launcher filled with eight SRAM short-range attack missiles, ” Ormack replied. “Sixteen S
RAM missiles-it packs quite a wallop. Putting B61 or B83 gravity nuclear bombs on board is still possible as well, although using standoff-type weapons instead of gravity bombs makes the B-2 a much greater threat. The Black Knight can only carry four cruise missiles, so there are no plans to include AGM-129A cruise missiles although we modified the weapon-delivery software to do so. “It’ll make a great battleship escort, ” McLanahan said. “I think the boss is right-it’s a waste to have these babies sitting on the sidelines with nukes on board while we’re getting hammered in some non-nuclear dogfight. Air Force talks about ‘global reach, global power, ‘ but they don’t talk much about how long-range bombers can defend themselves in a hostile environment without an initial nuclear laydown. They talk about sending B-52s from Guam, Diego Garcia, or Loring to anywhere else in the world in twelve hours, but they don’t explain how the bomber is supposed to survive its attack. With the Black Knight configured as a counterradar escort, it can do it. It has the range to fly just as deep as the strike bombers, and it carries as much firepower as a B-52. We’ll put that new PACER SKY satellite data stuff on it, maybe an ISAR radar, smart bombs…” “We’ve tested every possible weapon on a B-2, ” Ormack acknowledged, “from AGM-130 Striker glide-bombs-your personal favorite, I know-Harpoon antiship missiles, sea mines, MK 82 iron bombs, AMRAAM missiles, Sidewinder missiles, the TACIT RAINBOW antiradar cruise missiles, Durandal runaway-cratering bombs, AGM-84 SLAM TV-guided missiles, hell, even photoreconnaissance pods. At half a billion dollars a pop, Congress didn’t want to buy a nuclear-only plane, so we’re going to demonstrate that the B-2 could be flexible enough for any mission.” Ormack shrugged, then added, “I’m not convinced myself that the B-2 can make a good defensive escort plane. If a fighter or ground missile site gets a visual on this thing, you’re dead.”
“I don’t know about that, ” Patrick said. “I think it’d be tough to kill in a tactical battle.” “Yeah? Most of the Air Force would disagree, ” Ormack replied. “Look at these wingsthis thing is huge, even when seen from several thousand feet up. It’s subsonic, which makes it a more inviting target and less elusive. No, I think the Air Force would forgo risking B-2 on a conventional raid.” He looked at McLanahan for feedback and was surprised when the young navigator gave him an unsure shrug in reply. “You still disagree?”
“I haven’t flown fighters as long as you, sir, ” McLanahan said, “but I have a tough time finding an airport from five thousand feet in the air, much less a single plane. At five thousand feet, a pilot is looking at almost four hundred square miles of ground. If he’s flying, say, eight miles per minute on a low combat-air patrol, forty square miles zip under his wings every ten seconds-twenty on each side of his cockpit. If he can’t use a radar to at least get himself in the vicinity, his detection problem is pretty complicated.”
“If a combat air patrol always had that wide an area to search, I might agree with you, ” Ormack said. “But the field of battle narrows down rapidly. One lucky sighting, one squeak of a radar detector or one blip on a radar screen, and suddenly the whole pack’s on top of you.”
“But I might have my missiles in the air by then, ” Patrick said. “If not, I sure as heck will not stay high over a target area. I’ve got an infrared camera that can see the ground, and the pilots have windows-those boys better be flying in the dirt with fighters on my tail. Even the F-23 advanced tactical fighter can’t fight close to the ground-they have to rely on taking ‘look-down’ shots from higher altitudes. That’s where a stealthy plane has the advantage.” Ormack didn’t have a reply right away-he was thinking hard about McLanahan’s arguments. “You bring up a few good points, Patrick, ” Ormack admitted. “You know what this calls for, don’t you?”
“RED FLAG, ” McLanahan replied. “No-better yet, the Strategic Warfare Center. General Jarrel’s little playland up in South Dakota.”
“You got it, ” Ormack said. “We’ll have to put an EB-2 up against a few fighters on Jarrel’s range and see what happens. Maybe even have them fly along with other aircraft on the range to see if our escorts can be effective with other strike aircraft.” He smiled at McLanahan and added, “I think that can be arranged. We can send you out to the Strategic Warfare Center for some operational test flights when the 393rd Bomb Squadron goes to the SWC in a few months. I’ll bring it up to General Elliott, but I think he’ll go for it. You might have just found yourself a new job, Patrick-developing penetration and attack techniques for Black Knight stealth escort crews.”
“Throw me in the briar patch, ” McLanahan said as they moved forward to the entry hatch. McLanahan’s new bird was AF SAC 90-007, the seventh B-2 bomber built. He found the plane’s nickname, “License to Kill, ” stenciled on the entry hatch as he and Ormack walked to it and opened it up to climb inside-it was a perfect nickname. Patrick checked that the “Alert Start” switch was off and safed-the B-2 had a button in the entry hatch that would start the bomber’s internal power unit and turn on power and air before the pilots reached the cockpit. With this system, the B-2 could have engine started, the inertial navigation system aligned, and the plane taxiing for takeoff in less than three minutes, without any external power carts or crew chiefs standing by. Ormack did activate the “Int Power” switch in the entryway, which activated internal power on the plane. Unlike the B- 1 bomber, whose offensive and defensive stations seemed to have been put in reluctantly, almost haphaz ardly, the B-2’s cockpit was massive. There was almost enough room for McLanahan to stand up straight as he slid into the right seat and began to strap in. Ormack looked at the young navigator with amusement as he set his seat and even put on a pair of flying gloves. “Going somewhere?”
“You want a redesigned cockpit, sir, then you gotta do it with the crew dog strapped into position, ” McLanahan re plied. “The reach is much different. If I had a helmet, I’d put it on.” Ormack nodded his agreement and smiled-as usual, McLanahan was getting right down to business. The bomber’s left instrument panel was like a television director’s console. Four color MFDs, or multi-function displays, dominated the instrument panel; each MFD was encircled with buttons that would change the screen’s function, allowing hundreds of different displays on each screen. The bomber used small sidestick controllers, like a fighter plane, with throttle quadrants to the left of each seat and the buttonfestooned control stick to the right. Each seat also had a wide, oval-shaped heads-up display, or HUD, that would project flight and attack information on the windscreen. “Where’re all the instruments?” McLanahan exclaimed with obvious surprise. “There’s hardly anything installed in here. Did they give us a stripped-down test article or what?”