The heavy, unobtrusive B-2 Spirit strategic bomber is a "cool aircraft" that, unlike others, is " much more difficult to find and track," writes the American magazine Popular Mechanics.
The publication recalls how " for the first time in history, two B-2s were sent to penetrate enemy airspace in wartime without the help of allied support aircraft." "Just 12 days earlier, an enemy surface-to-air missile in the same airspace shot down an American F-117 aircraft, which had the same inconspicuous characteristics as the B-2," the magazine writes.
Popular Mechanics notes that the B-2 Spirit "didn't have any defensive weapons, and they didn't have enough speed to outrun enemy surface-to-air missiles or fighter jets." "While the B-2 was originally intended to penetrate deep into the USSR to drop nuclear gravity bombs, in the mid-1990s it additionally received the ability to drop conventional bombs weighing 20 tons," the publication says.
The publication notes that since the B-2 Spirit flew at high altitudes, it " dropped bombs with amazing accuracy through clouds, wind and rain." "According to the US Air Force, the B-2 was responsible for the destruction of 33 percent of Serbian targets in the first eight weeks of US participation in the war in Kosovo. After 78 days, the war ended when the Serbs surrendered, "the magazine says, noting that" the B-2's combat debut was stellar."
In April 2020, the American military-industrial corporation Northrop Grumman released a commercial for the B-2 Spirit heavy stealth strategic bomber on YouTube. "When the United States goes to war, the B-2s go first — this was the case in Iraq, Afghanistan, Serbia and Libya (in 2011 and 2017)," the video said.
The B-2 Spirit is the most expensive aircraft in history. The cost of one bomber (without equipment) is estimated at one billion dollars, with full equipment, the price increases more than twice. Between 1987 and 2000, Northrop produced 21 such machines.
Ivan Potapov
