The B21 Raider

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source:  https://www.af.mil/About-Us/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/2682973/b-21-raider/

Recently the US Air Force and Northrup-Grumman revealed (sorta) the new B21 Raider airplane.  Basically not much was really revealed about the plane (for one thing it was getting dark) other than it will be the bomber of the future and will be capable of unmanned operations.

Put in baseball terms I think the DOD went from trying to hit .400 in the 20th centurey to trying to hit for 755 (or 714 or whatever the record for homers is now) in the 21st century.  They used to develop planes with incrementally better capabilities rather than trying to (as with th F-35) do everything everywhere all at once.  Limiting  the degree of design impossibility freedom to 1 item (like with the F-117) would seem to be the prudent course to me.  The F-117 had stealth - it wasn't super speedy or large, just stealthy.  The F-35 had 3 versions (including vertical take off and landing), was stealthy, fast, Air Force/Navy/Marines versions, blah blah blah.  I'm sure it works well but the cost !  I hope the B-21  will be more like the F-117 than the F-35.

Anyway, I found this picture on Shorpy dot com of the YB-49 flying wing from 1948, the un-produced predesessor of the B-2 and the B-21:

source:     https://www.shorpy.com/node/23609

Here is a promotional film for the YB-49 by Northrup:

source:     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUEp0e3eSVw

Best Regards,
Chuck, WB9KZY
http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm