Northrop Grumman B-21A Raider (LRS-B)

overscan (PaulMM) said:
That's pretty conclusive that it isn't 40 degrees though.
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Just you wait: all the whackadoodle conspiracy theories about stealth bombers having "plasma stealth" or "active camouflage" or "cloaking devices" will of course turn out to be bunk, but we'll eventually find out that the B-21 is the first aircraft to be fitted with a Perspective Muddler, and the sweepback is actually 47 degrees.
 
Orionblamblam said:
Just you wait: all the whackadoodle conspiracy theories about stealth bombers having "plasma stealth" or "active camouflage" or "cloaking devices" will of course turn out to be bunk, but we'll eventually find out that the B-21 is the first aircraft to be fitted with a Perspective Muddler, and the sweepback is actually 47 degrees.
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You also have to consider that you're viewing it from the ivory tower of "hwhite Patriarchy" and those with 'other ways of knowing" might not agree with you.
 
flateric said:
Fact they are off during flight doesn't mean you don't need bother of exhaust temps on the ground. And how do you know it's "only one" APU? For example - as it was said above - B-2 has two (in MLG bays).
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Are you sure the B2 has two APU’s? Can anyone please confirm?
 
You can clearly see two APU triangle exhaust doors with warning markings back/outside intake outer lip on both sides on any B-2 refuelling photo.
 

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Q-nimbus said:
Me neither. They’re maintenance hatches for the engines and bombing rack.
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Definitely the back half of those hatches are for maintenance, look at the different shapes in the doors back aft. Those shapes suggest that there's stuff in the bay covered by that hatch.

The doors forward are still long enough to potentially be a bay for SiAW and/or AAMs (or countermeasure decoys), and I can definitely see why you'd want a small bay door to deploy them.
 
We will have to wait and see if the extra bays are really for SiAW or missiles there is just not enough information out on the Web that is not classified to know what they are for.
 
Maybe stand in boost phase bmd? That would explain the 3rd head of the Cerberus
 
Scott Kenny said:
The doors forward are still long enough to potentially be a bay for SiAW and/or AAMs (or countermeasure decoys), and I can definitely see why you'd want a small bay door to deploy them.
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they are not that much long in fact
decoys or something CUDA/SACM-like - still rear edge single cut then looks rather impractical from the design point of maximum volume usage
 

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flateric said:
they are not that much long in fact
decoys or something CUDA/SACM-like - still rear edge single cut then looks rather impractical from the design point of maximum volume usage
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Yes, I was thinking Chaff/Flare dispensers and access hatches. They could also be places for sensors that aren't needed at the moment because the bays are full of test equipment?
 
Scott Kenny said:
I'd expect that to be in the central bay, not the secondary bays.
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Does the missile have to be that fat? If so it would be pretty space inefficient to rack them in rotary config for larger bombs and cruise missiles no?
 
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donnage99 said:
Does the missile have to be that fat? If so it would be pretty space inefficient to rack them in rotary config for larger bombs and cruise missiles no?
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I'm assuming that even a flying ABM is going to be pretty long, too long to fit inside the side bays.
 
Scott Kenny said:
I'm assuming that even a flying ABM is going to be pretty long, too long to fit inside the side bays.
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Ehh not neccesarily. You could do with a fat booster and a small KV. The taper will be atrocious though.
I guess the problem is that why would you want to use a kinematically inefficient platform to deploy ABM. Maybe the F-15EXs which are already qualified with ASM-135.
 
asVAL said:
Ehh not neccesarily. You could do with a fat booster and a small KV. The taper will be atrocious though.
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Sprint or Hybex taper don't easily pack into a launch bay designed around 28ft lengths and 7ft widths.

A ~21" ish triangular prism packs quite nicely into that volume, see ALCMs. So I'd expect the ALABM to have an external mold line about like the ALCM, just packed with some fast burning rocket fuel instead of a turbofan.

asVAL said:
I guess the problem is that why would you want to use a kinematically inefficient platform to deploy ABM. Maybe the F-15EXs which are already qualified with ASM-135.
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Based on the "flying satellite launcher" numbers, extra speed doesn't give you much, 2000kph doesn't give you a lot more than 1000kph. What gives you a lot is being ~20km up in the air. IIRC it's equivalent to some 900m/s Delta-Vee. Plus you don't have to deal with supersonic separation issues and the shockwave beating the crap out of the ALABM.
 
Scott Kenny said:
A ~21" ish triangular prism packs quite nicely into that volume, see ALCMs. So I'd expect the ALABM to have an external mold line about like the ALCM, just packed with some fast burning rocket fuel instead of a turbofan.
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How about a detachable canister?
Something made out of casted polymer parts, shaped like an ALCM, with a timed fuze to detonate tiny separating charges on order. Like 1s after weapon release. The hollow interior would hold the actual missile. If the dimension is in line with ALCM's, then you could probably get a PAC-3 round, or triple pack AMRAAMs, and still have a bunch of spare space left. If you want loiter, the rear part get stuffed with ECMs, comms/navs and a small fuel tank powering a podded TDI-J85.
 
Josh_TN said:
SM-3 would probably fit on a CRL. The bigger problem is the ridiculously large number of aircraft that would be needed for any significant 24/7 capability.
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Yeah, it's only a thing for giving a raised middle finger to someone like Iran or North Korea, and they'd probably have to base out of Okinawa or Japan, maybe Busan, to stay out of IRBM range from the Norks. Probably base out of the same airfield that the F-117s were at in 1991 for Iran.
 
This has happened before, I do hope they can get a grip and do it right now.
 
So if B-21 was exactly the same shape as the B-2 but scaled to 75% weight, you would expect the wingspan to be 0.9 * 172 ft = 154.8ft.

A B-2 scaled to 130 ft would be 75% of the B-2 span, but the volume would be reduced to less than half (43%) of the B-2. This would seem to leave it too small, and overpowered.
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My initial guess isn't looking too shabby.
 
How long is a B-2 bomb bay? I had thought that a simple question but I can’t find any figure. It clearly is long enough for GBU-57 (20.5 feet), but that’s all I can determine. 24’ should allow for a AGM-86 sized weapon (LRSO) on some kind of rotary launcher at any rate. All other B-2 bay payloads should easily fit; if anything B-21s bay seems longer.
 

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