Air Force Lifts Some Secrecy Shrouding Stealth Bomber

The Air Force Wednesday lifted some of the secrecy surrounding its exotic new stealth bomber, releasing a rough artist’s rendering revealing the plane to be a modern version of a “flying wing” design tried out and abandoned in the early 1950s.

With the picture came the announcement that the controversial plane will make its first flight next fall--a short hop from its assembly facility at Palmdale to the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards Air Force Base. The flight earlier had been scheduled for January and then August.

Air Force Secretary Edward C. (Pete) Aldridge called the maiden flight of the new strategic bomber, officially designated the B-2, as “a dramatic leap forward in technology and the achievement of a major milestone in our nation’s strategic modernization program.”

Absorbs Radar Waves

Planned for initial deployment at Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo., the futuristic plane is designed to penetrate sophisticated Soviet air defenses into the next century. By absorbing radar waves, it is supposed to appear nearly invisible to tracking antenna.

Release of the new information came in the wake of indications that the newest U.S. bomber, the B-1B, may be unable to get through Soviet defenses because of problems with its electronic jamming gear. It also followed a call from Rep. Les Aspin (D-Wis), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, for the Pentagon to release more information on the stealth bomber, which he said had been “too highly classified for too long.”

Appearance of the drastically new design did not come as a great surprise, for there had been speculation for the last two or three years that the Air Force and the Northrop Corp. would turn to the “flying wing” concept.

Northrop pioneered the design in the late 1940s and early 1950s, first building the propeller-driven XB-35 experimental version, then assembling half a dozen others with some variations. The Air Force abandoned the concept after test pilots reported the plane to be “marginally stable,” meaning that it was unable to deliver its bombs with sufficient accuracy.

Control Problems Solved

Tim Wooldridge, assistant director of the Smithsonian Institution’s Air and Space Museum and an authority on the flying wing, said Wednesday that the design is now attractive because control problems have been solved by modern automatic systems. The design, eliminating both the tail and fuselage, leaves the plane shaped roughly like a boomerang and enhances efforts to minimize appearance on radar and to carry heavy payloads over vast distances.

But with the program already under criticism for expensive delays in beginning flight tests, the B-2 itself has also been found wanting by some analysts.

Jeffrey Record of the Hudson Institute contends that it will be able to carry only limited bomb loads and that it is ill-suited for missions such as those carried out by B-52s in Vietnam.

The stealth bomber, initiated by the Administration of former President Jimmy Carter when it put the B-1 program on hold, has been, and is, one of the country’s most secret weapons programs.

$36-Billion Program

Last January, the Pentagon revealed for the first time that it intended to build 132 of the planes at a cost of some $277 million each--a total program of $36 billion.

But during the reign of former Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger, the agency adamantly refused calls for release of more information on grounds that it would tip the United States’ hand to the Soviet Union and open the gates to congressional interference.

Northrop Corp., the contractor, had been among those favoring the release of more information about the project, contending that the extraordinary secrecy put it at a disadvantage because it could not attract favorable attention from the financial community.

In its announcement, the Air Force said that it expects to announce updated figures on the cost of the program later this year.

Costs Escalate

The delay in the beginning of flight tests already has escalated the overall cost by hundreds of millions of dollars, according to some estimates, and the Air Force suspended some of its payments to the contractor.

With the announcement Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) called the stealth bomber a “model” program and an example of fruitful cooperation between Republican and Democratic administrations.

“Technology is the cutting edge of our advantage over the Soviets,” he said in a statement.

Staff writer Melissa Healy contributed to this story.