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B-2 Spirit stealth bombers performed a mass flight earlier this week during a major exercise.
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Photos show the bombers taking off from Whiteman Air Force Base.
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The Air Force’s B-2 bombers bring tremendous firepower combined with low observable characteristics.
More than half of the US Air Force’s B-2 Spirit stealth bombers carried out a large-scale exercise earlier this week, performing a massive flight.
The photos show the aircraft – known for its flying wing design and ability to take advantage of its low-observable, or stealth, characteristics to penetrate even sophisticated enemy defenses and unleash a devastating conventional or nuclear strike – taxiing onto the runway before taking off.
The B-2s were flying out of Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri, on Monday, wrapping up the annual Spiritual Surveillance exercise that aims to demonstrate the base’s B-2 capabilities and readiness. This year’s exercise featured the largest mass B-2 flight ever, with 12 of the 20 active aircraft involved. The second largest was eight aircraft in 2022.
According to for the Air Force, the B-2, a two-man strategic bomber manufactured by Northrop Grumman, “brings enormous firepower to strike, in a short space of time, anywhere on the globe through previously impenetrable defenses.” Its stealth capabilities give it the ability to do what other aircraft, such as the B-52 and B-1 bombers, cannot.
Video footage of the recent exercise posted by Whiteman Air Force Base, the only operational B-2 base, it showed B-2 bombers being prepared for takeoff before hitting the runway and taking off.
Decades after it was first fielded in the early 1990s, the B-2 remains relevant today.
The suicide bomber first entered combat in the Kosovo War in 1999, hitting Serbian targets with conventional ammunition, and carried out missions over Iraq, Afghanistan and other conflict zones.
Its stealth capabilities, payload capacity and potential to execute long-range strike missions make it a formidable aircraft and deterrent to US rivals. For a long time it was the only stealth bomber in the worldbut the US is making progress on a new stealth bomber, the B-21 Raider, which has achieved its first flight in November last year.
As a penetrating-strike stealth bomber, the B-21, the U.S. military said, is expected to “form the backbone of the Air Force’s future bomber force.”
For now, however, the B-2 is the ideal stealth bomber, as the aircraft is capable of threatening an adversary’s “most valuable and heavily defended targets.” deterrence and combat strength into the 21st century,” the Air Force said.
Read the original article at Business Insider
