Stealth Jet a Sight to Behold : Military: B-2 bomber flies in public for the first time during air show at Edwards Air Force Base.

Dave Hopkins and John Murray, a pair of veteran aviation enthusiasts, traveled all the way from England to the Mojave Desert to attend the annual open house and air show at Edwards Air Force Base. They had hoped to see something new.

They weren’t disappointed.

Not only did the B-2 Stealth bomber make its first airborne appearance to close Saturday’s event, but those who arrived early among the estimated 225,000 in the crowd also got to see an unscheduled two-hour performance by two of the bat-winged bombers before the show started.

“It’s just so unusual,” said Hopkins, a computer consultant from London. “To see it fly is really something. It looks like a Klingon warship.”

The open house at Edwards, 90 miles northeast of Downtown Los Angeles, went off without any reported major hitches and drew spectators from throughout Southern California and from countries as far as Japan and Australia.

The weather was near-perfect for the show, with clear blue skies and temperatures in the 80s, cooler than the blistering heat of previous years. Although the large crowd spent more than four hours in the sun on the base’s flight line, officials reported only minor medical problems and no serious cases of heat stroke.

Air Force Brig. Gen. Richard Engel, commander of the base’s Flight Test Center, called the show “a living corporate report to the people” on the service’s activities.

Air Force officials said the show featured more than 40 aircraft on ground display, including a B-2 bomber, a new C-17 transport, the Boeing 747 that carries the space shuttle, and the service’s formerly super-secret SR-71 Blackbird spy plane and its U-2 ancestor. The U.S. Army’s Golden Knights parachute team also performed.

The Edwards show is the only time in the year when the normally secrecy-obsessed base, home of the Air Force’s Test Pilot School and proving ground for most of the service’s cutting-edge technology, opens its doors to the public. The only outwardly visible signs were a handful of guards, with rifles slung over their shoulders, who stood near some of the more sensitive aircraft.

Other planes, such as the C-5 cargo jet, were opened for visitors to walk through.