Northrop Grumman B-21 Raider (LRS-B)

If a second B-21 production line is funded and set up who would run the production line?
 
EmoBirb said:
Shouldn't an aircraft like the B-21 see many of the assembly processing being automated? I'd expect the utmost precision is required and machines can handle larger individual components. Surely, qualified people are needed here and there, but I'd argue money is more so the issue than manpower.
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It's not just the airframe. A lot of that should be automatable. It's the components, which do need things like CNC machinists.
 
NMaude said:
If a second B-21 production line is funded and set up who would run the production line?
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NG would run it, they would probably moved some experienced current B-21 staff for start up then hire and train personnel and I assume a new facility would be set up at Plant 42-Palmdale, very low-risk. Initial B-21 manufacturing new hires went and go through a training program for exposure to the materials, hardware, tooling, fasteners, techniques, etc to ensure they could and can do the job. In 1986 as a new hire Northrop ASD-Pico employee and even though I was previously in naval aviation and also had worked at AiResearch as a development tech after the USN, I had to go through aircraft familiarization training at El Segundo like all other new hires.

NG as a corporation seems to operate much better currently than LM and especially Boeing.
 
Hydroman said:
NG would run it, they would probably moved some experienced current B-21 staff for start up then hire and train personnel and I assume a new facility would be set up at Plant 42-Palmdale, very low-risk. Initial B-21 manufacturing new hires went and go through a training program for exposure to the materials, hardware, tooling, fasteners, techniques, etc to ensure they could and can do the job. In 1986 as a new hire Northrop ASD-Pico employee and even though I was previously in naval aviation and also had worked at AiResearch as a development tech after the USN, I had to go through aircraft familiarization training at El Segundo like all other new hires.

NG as a corporation seems to operate much better currently than LM and especially Boeing.
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If I was starting a second B-21 production line I would not be locating it near the existing line. A strategically safer option would be to put it on the east coast at for example St Augustine where the E-2 is manufactured and far away from the potential for a large Asian power to interfere with it.
 
Ozair said:
If I was starting a second B-21 production line I would not be locating it near the existing line. A strategically safer option would be to put it on the east coast at for example St Augustine where the E-2 is manufactured and far away from the potential for a large Asian power to interfere with it.
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Could be costly but I see your point, makes sense. Remember, the F-22 went through some bad times during initial production in Georgia, work force not up to snuff however, the majority of aerospace has moved from CA to other states since CA just loves doing business in this state more and more difficult each year, so a facility in FL would be a good choice also due to the current FL political climate.
 
Hydroman said:
Could be costly but I see your point, makes sense. Remember, the F-22 went through some bad times during initial production in Georgia, work force not up to snuff however, the majority of aerospace has moved from CA to other states since CA just loves doing business in this state more and more difficult each year, so a facility in FL would be a good choice also due to the current FL political climate.
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Or Utah. There's a big NG presence here, mostly rockets (formerly ATK, Thiokol, Hercules) but they also do aircraft structures here.
 
Ozair said:
If I was starting a second B-21 production line I would not be locating it near the existing line. A strategically safer option would be to put it on the east coast at for example St Augustine where the E-2 is manufactured and far away from the potential for a large Asian power to interfere with it.
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St. Augustine resident here (48 years and counting).

Parts of the current NG facility, the actual shop floors and hangar doors, are literally less than 20 meters from US Highway 1, a major travel artery here in the US. The E-2 hangar is actually closer and more visible to the highway than any other part of their facility. If they DID elect to open a second line here at their current location at the St. Augustine Reginal Airport, with the security concerns I’m assuming such an undertaking would have, they would have to expand off-site. Without actually razing nearby residential neighborhoods, there is nowhere to go, unless 1) they are okay being that close to heavy traffic and 2) they demolished and rebuilt over the old Fairchild buildings that are still in use.

There is also very good access from the intracoastal waterway on the east side of the property and the Atlantic Ocean less than half a mile to the east of the middle of the intercostal. Security would be a nightmare. Not impossible, but very difficult, and unless I am grossly overthinking this part of the program, I suspect that the second and third order effects of that type and degree of security might not sit well with the local population at large. At the end of the day, we are still just a tiny drinking village with a fishing problem…

Having been part of the local Fire/EMS response to that property for 20+ years, I’m reasonably familiar with where everything is. The E-2s were always built one at a time like an old Ferrari. Between the layout of the property and the local politics and other intangibles, I just don’t see this place being a viable (or wise) place to locate a second B-21 assembly line. But if they were to do so, I’d be switching career paths (or trying to) in a nanosecond.
 
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Back in the Long Range Strike Bomber days, there were rumors going around that the Northrop Grumman facilities in Melbourne, Florida (home of JSTARS), were being expanded to support the new bomber program.

Personally, I doubt there would be a second final assembly line if they wanted to increase production. Moving assembly production out of Palmdale could be a more cost-effective way to increase production. If the do pay for a second line, I would expect another GOCO facility like Plant 4 in Marietta. I don't know if they would want NG to subcontract the contract modification to another company or maintain control themselves - there are positives for both.

If anyone is looking for a good greenfield site (outside existing facilities that could be repurposed and renovated), I would suggest Cecil Field in Jacksonville.
 
Also, primary B-21 detailed design was performed in FL and not Palmdale. I am sure some design elements may have had Palmdale design engineering support.
 
It was Project Magellan, literally Manned Aircraft Design Center of Excellence in Melbourne for NGB/LRS-B
 
sqd5driver said:
St. Augustine resident here (48 years and counting).

Parts of the current NG facility, the actual shop floors and hangar doors, are literally less than 20 meters from US Highway 1, a major travel artery here in the US. The E-2 hangar is actually closer and more visible to the highway than any other part of their facility. If they DID elect to open a second line here at their current location at the St. Augustine Reginal Airport, with the security concerns I’m assuming such an undertaking would have, they would have to expand off-site. Without actually razing nearby residential neighborhoods, there is nowhere to go, unless 1) they are okay being that close to heavy traffic and 2) they demolished and rebuilt over the old Fairchild buildings that are still in use.

There is also very good access from the intracoastal waterway on the east side of the property and the Atlantic Ocean less than half a mile to the east of the middle of the intercostal. Security would be a nightmare. Not impossible, but very difficult, and unless I am grossly overthinking this part of the program, I suspect that the second and third order effects of that type and degree of security might not sit well with the local population at large. At the end of the day, we are still just a tiny drinking village with a fishing problem…

Having been part of the local Fire/EMS response to that property for 20+ years, I’m reasonably familiar with where everything is. The E-2s were always built one at a time like an old Ferrari. Between the layout of the property and the local politics and other intangibles, I just don’t see this place being a viable (or wise) place to locate a second B-21 assembly line. But if they were to do so, I’d be switching career paths (or trying to) in a nanosecond.
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Listen PW also has ops in Florida but no right thinking American who is soberly and seriously considering the question of a second Raider line would ever seriously consider Florida. I love making fun of Florida but this is not even a Florida diss - just geographic reality.

Climate change is real
 
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sqd5driver said:
St. Augustine resident here (48 years and counting).

Parts of the current NG facility, the actual shop floors and hangar doors, are literally less than 20 meters from US Highway 1, a major travel artery here in the US. The E-2 hangar is actually closer and more visible to the highway than any other part of their facility. If they DID elect to open a second line here at their current location at the St. Augustine Reginal Airport, with the security concerns I’m assuming such an undertaking would have, they would have to expand off-site. Without actually razing nearby residential neighborhoods, there is nowhere to go, unless 1) they are okay being that close to heavy traffic and 2) they demolished and rebuilt over the old Fairchild buildings that are still in use.

There is also very good access from the intracoastal waterway on the east side of the property and the Atlantic Ocean less than half a mile to the east of the middle of the intercostal. Security would be a nightmare. Not impossible, but very difficult, and unless I am grossly overthinking this part of the program, I suspect that the second and third order effects of that type and degree of security might not sit well with the local population at large. At the end of the day, we are still just a tiny drinking village with a fishing problem…

Having been part of the local Fire/EMS response to that property for 20+ years, I’m reasonably familiar with where everything is. The E-2s were always built one at a time like an old Ferrari. Between the layout of the property and the local politics and other intangibles, I just don’t see this place being a viable (or wise) place to locate a second B-21 assembly line. But if they were to do so, I’d be switching career paths (or trying to) in a nanosecond.
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Acknowledged. My suggestion was more about an alternative location that NG uses not on the West Coast and geographically dispersed from current ops.

Training_Dummy said:
Listen PW also has ops in Florida but no right thinking American who is soberly and seriously considering the question of a second Raider line would ever seriously consider Florida. I love making fun of Florida but this is not even a Florida diss - just geographic reality.

Climate change is real
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While Florida has climate events it also has a large skilled and growing population with plenty of transport links.
 
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I can assure anyone who has never actually been to Florida that while St. Augustine may not be an ideal location for something like a second B-21 line, there are plenty of other areas of the state that WOULD be almost ideal for such an endeavor.

As long as you stay somewhat inland, you’re more or less immune to the seasonal weather. Our geography and infrastructure really do tend to benefit aerospace. Someone already mentioned Cecil Field in Jacksonville. That would be a superb location for something like this. As close to “ideal” as one could probably hope for, actually, what with it being a former heavy-use military air field that is still in great shape.

Its proximity to two interstate highways and the St. Johns River AND (I’d argue more importantly in some instances) its proximity to rail that can get one to the Cape Canaveral/Space Coast/Patrick Space Force Base in one direction or Pensacola in the other.

One major reason Jacksonville exists as it does today is that major hurricanes just don’t ever seem to be that attracted to the area. We have NAS JAX and Mayport up there and just a little further north (right over the Florida/Georga border) is Kings Bay submarine base. Pretty sure severe weather is always a consideration when storage of thermonuclear weapons is at play

I would love to see a bigger aerospace presence in the state.
 
fair points on the weather. I known Florida is a big state and not at all homogenous in terms of weather.

Originally when I posed the question of a second line I very much was considering how you exploit the geography of the rest of CONUS that might be relatively less developed or even semi-remote not too far from the Western flight ranges. Perhaps silly, but I was thinking about using sheer room and volume to improve the defensibility of key sites like a second Raider line against drone and hypersonic attacks vs current and future US bomber and fighter production sites.
 
Training_Dummy said:
fair points on the weather. I known Florida is a big state and not at all homogenous in terms of weather.

Originally when I posed the question of a second line I very much was considering how you exploit the geography of the rest of CONUS that might be relatively less developed or even semi-remote not too far from the Western flight ranges. Perhaps silly, but I was thinking about using sheer room and volume to improve the defensibility of key sites like a second Raider line against drone and hypersonic attacks vs current and future US bomber and fighter production sites.
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And every single point you brought up was good (and very well made).

I just wish I had a better understating of the type and degree of security that goes into a program like that. I can only just BARELY graze the surface of imagining about speculating about what security of that sort would entail...

Geography is one of the biggest strengths we have in the United States. The Louisiana Purchase was the single greatest return on investment in the history of modern civilization. The navigable waterways alone… But the US today? Where to begin? Natural ports and harbors, only two enormous yet relatively stable borders to the north and south and two even more enormous oceans on either side, the Gulf of Mexico, and tens of thousands of square miles of very flat, very traversable land that made it easy for us to build rail and highway systems that made the waterways even MORE valuable. What’s not to love? The fact is that we have so many superb options with respect to where we COULD potentially put a second B-21 line that we’re almost overwhelmed by choice. Not a bad problem to have.

All of that said, the fact that we could and did spread out our wartime industry so far and wide during WWII was one of the biggest reasons we were able to scale up so much so quickly. No one region was overwhelmed by demand for any one thing. We really should be applying some effort and energy now into what we may have to do if things ever perk up in the Pacific again.
 
Forest Green said:

Celebrate The Air Force’s Newest ‘Flying Dorito’ With This T-Shirt​

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Celebrate The Air Force's Newest 'Flying Dorito' With This T-Shirt

The B-21 Raider and America's most popular heavily-seasoned tortilla chip collide to make this "Waritos" tribute t-shirt.
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But if the chips are coated, may not be able to find them. Where did you leave the bag, I don't know. Would love to see and have this swag available at Amazon. Would be great to purchase a couple tee shirts to add to my IRN BRU and Moog Music shirts among others.
 
Josh_TN said:
That kinda hints at USAF trying to rush the IOC, yes? Kinda shocking how tight lipped USAF has been concerning production rates and dates.
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B-21 is an important asset which needs to get into service ASAP. B-21 may be farther along in a lot of different areas more than all of us realize and for good reason, I see why USAF is being tight lipped about the program. This is probably the case with F-47 and possibly F/A-XX even though the USG may want to convey F/A-XX may be slipping and be delayed or even cancelled. All three of these program are recipients of the Rapid Capabilities Office (RCO) and I am sure there are other high priority, classified mission platforms as well. Remember how NGAD was in the same boat as F/A-XX in regards to indecisiveness and then, "SURPRISE" here comes F-47 being unveiled. Disinformation is practiced freely in the Pentagon and USG and I understand this when it comes to our potential adversaries and what's going on globally, something to think about.
 
Scott Kenny said:
It's not just the airframe. A lot of that should be automatable. It's the components, which do need things like CNC machinists.
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The documentaries I've seen on aircraft manufacturing (Airbus, Eurofighter come to mind) show very little automation on the assembly line. It's the components where automation is feasible. CNC drills putting thousands of rivet holes into panels, for instance. But even on A320 which has huge production numbers for an airplane, assembly is all done by hand.
 
Hobbes said:
The documentaries I've seen on aircraft manufacturing (Airbus, Eurofighter come to mind) show very little automation on the assembly line. It's the components where automation is feasible. CNC drills putting thousands of rivet holes into panels, for instance.
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That's still airframe, and that's where you can automate a lot.

By components I'm talking about hydraulic actuators, fuel pumps, avionics, etc ad nauseam.
 
Nothing about aviation production is "high volume". Yes, we may now use CNC to churn out detail parts and some structural subassemblies (skin panels, wing skins) may be auto drilled and riveted, or laid up by CNC tape laying, but the final assembly still needs people (your auto riveter can't get reach inside like a small person with a bucking bar) and almost all of your systems* need to be installed by people. And probably almost all of those components are manually assembled with manual QC inspection at every major step.


*everyone forgets about systems. Every time someone talks about restarting production, it's always "do we have The Tooling?" when the real question should be "how much will it take to redesign and/or requalify all the thousands of system components that are no longer available and the suppliers went under?"
 
Josh_TN said:
At the altitudes it would normally operate at I cannot imagine color or visual detection are major concerns. This also might not be the final production coating.
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Oh, the survivability/vulnerability community worries about color and contrast a great deal. Unfortunately, they are almost always overruled by generals, who are more concerned with the "cool" factor. On the ATB, the S/V folks did a study and concluded that baby-shit brown was the most survivable color. Let's just say the SAC folks were not pleased with this, and went their own way. I'll attach Alan Brown's story of how Senior Trend came to be painted black, which is pretty typical of how these things go.
 

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