The B-21 Raider: steeped in stealth lessons learned for maintenance and support – Breaking Defense Breaking Defense

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Photo B-21, courtesy of Northrop Grumman.

The B-21 bomber program has so far received high marks for demonstrating advanced strike capabilities and performance in flying test beds, in numerical experiments, as well as through modeling and simulation. At the Air Force Association’s Air, Space and Cyber ​​conference, Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall applauded the B-21 program for its “good progress towards a real capability on the ground” which Continually deter and eliminate threats on a global scale.

With five test planes in production at Northrop Grumman’s facility in Palmdale, Calif., The B-21 is poised to usher in an unprecedented era of stealth and lethality for the Air Force’s bomber fleet. . However, when it comes to developing a new stealth bomber, it is not out of the question to question the maintainability of the advanced materials and coatings used for the Raider, given the well-documented challenges associated with stealth aircraft from first generation as the B-2 stealth bomber or the F-117 stealth attack aircraft.

Stealth aircraft have always had maintainability challenges due to the need for specialized personnel, equipment, materials, and facilities. The B-21 Raider will not require the same level of resources. It features more durable, low observation level (LO) treatments and coatings, as well as maintenance facilities that are less expensive to build and maintain. Additionally, the early use of digital design and modeling / simulation capabilities for B-21 systems and structures was applied to sustainment and maintainability, leading to a more robust aircraft, ready to fly every day. .

Earlier this year, the Air Force Procurement Officer for the B-21 program commented on the Air Force’s efforts to address the traditional drivers of lifecycle sustainment costs as early as start of the program.

“From the start, we codified robust requirements for durability and maintainability, and continue to keep them at the forefront throughout the design and development phase of the B-21 Raider program,” said said Colonel Jason Voorheis, program director of the B-21 system and acquisition program. responsible for the bombing program in the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office (DAF RCO). “Throughout the development phase of engineering and manufacturing, sustainment and maintenance personnel have been incorporated into every design decision we make to ensure that technical solutions do not inadvertently result in suboptimal sustainment results once the weapon system is deployed. “

Even with its unobservable treatments and coatings, the B-21 does not require the full phalanx of specialized hangars and other facilities that earlier stealth aircraft required. In this Air Force photo, the prototype of the B-21 Raider environmental protection shelter at Ellsworth Air Force Base.

Unobservable treatments that are also maintainable

With a revolutionary shape and LO treatments, the B-2 Spirit set the standard for building stealth aircraft in the 1980s. At the time, the primary focus of the B-2 and other early stealth aircraft was survivability; maintenance would later require significant resources, specialized training and tightly controlled facilities. Almost three decades later, maintenance and sustainment is a top priority, and the challenges of maintaining stealth aircraft were addressed early in the design process.

“Through the application of lessons learned on the B-2 and other stealth aircraft, and the use of digital engineering techniques, not only do we have a design that has improved significantly over the B-2 from a survivability and aerodynamic performance standpoint, we also now have a coating system which is as revolutionary in its ease of maintenance as the original B-2 systems were in their stealth performance ”, said Steve Sullivan, who recently retired from Northrop Grumman as vice president of the Strike division.

A recent example of the evolution of stealth aircraft maintenance was the release by the Air Force of a prototype B-21 Environmental Protection Shelter (EPS) being tested at the Ellsworth Air Force Base (AFB), South Dakota. Ellsworth AFB was chosen as the site to test the B-21 EPS prototype as it offers the most extreme and diverse weather conditions to test the temporary structures. [Ellsworth will be the main operating base (MOB) for the first operational B-21 bombers, as well as the location of the formal training unit. Later deliveries of the bomber will go to Whiteman AFB, Missouri, and Dyess AFB, Texas.]

Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC) and the B-21 Program Office are testing various shelter prototypes to identify the most efficient and affordable design for use in the three B-21 MOBs, the depot and even on the advanced operating sites. Over the next several years, varying amounts of data will be incorporated into a final design that will facilitate maintenance of the B-21.

As the former AFCSC B-21 System Integration and Management Office Director Col. Derek Oakley said, “Major maintenance activities will still be carried out indoors in hangars, but the design of the B-21 Raider will also provide us with the flexibility to perform routine tasks. maintenance directly on the track. Environmental protection shelters help extend aircraft life and reduce required maintenance by limiting UV exposure, limiting snow accumulation and melting, and limiting ground operations. icing / de-icing experienced by the aircraft over time. These shelters also help us generate sorties faster by eliminating the need to move planes in and out of hangars. “

This is not to say that the maintenance facilities and hangars envisaged for the bomber will not have specialized functionalities related to operations that are not very observable. Earlier this year, the Air Force Civil Engineering Center and the US Army Corps of Engineers briefed the industry on the types of structures needed to support the B-21 fleet at Ellsworth and elsewhere. The military construction requirements associated with the B-21 beddown include LO hangars and general maintenance as well as other operations and maintenance structures.

Understand when LO coatings need repair and when they don’t

Decades of experience and lessons learned on the B-2 program have infused best practices into the B-21 program regarding the maintenance and support of LO airframe, systems and functionality. The goal is to eliminate the long maintenance requirements that modern military aircraft require between missions.

When it comes to the B-21, the Air Force has a head start in building maintainability into the aircraft through the resilience of the construction process and materials over the long term. While other aircraft require close monitoring of their performance and an ongoing effort to identify and address the items that consistently cause maintenance actions across the fleet, “you will not see the need for similar actions to the B-21, “Sullivan said, adding that the company has supported the use of existing common support equipment during the design phase to save the cost of designing new Raider-specific equipment.

The experience with the B-2 also influenced Northrop Grumman’s approach to the coatings of the B-21. “Specifically, we’ve learned from the B-2 that every little scratch or missing piece of material doesn’t affect the overall signature of the platform,” Sullivan explained. “It turns out that the coatings are very resistant to minor imperfections; the challenge is to understand which imperfection is large enough to require repair and how many in total can be cleared before any maintenance action needs to be taken.

Virtual maintenance for a 21st century bomber

The digital capability, originally developed by Northrop Grumman for manufacturing, provides extensive maintenance and sustainment opportunities, and the company is leveraging these technologies in partnership with the Air Force to prepare for the operation and maintenance of the B-21 Raider.

Northrop Grumman’s highly immersive virtual environment (HIVE), for example, allows engineers and maintenance managers to walk through a digital representation of the B-21 to ensure their designs are achievable during the manufacturing process and help identify and mitigate items that could cause maintenance problems.

“Integrating our digital design capabilities with our advanced manufacturing technologies means we are working smarter and faster to bring next-generation technologies to life,” said Chris Daughters, vice president of aerospace engineering. . “Our ability to continuously reduce risk across EMD using these transformative digital capabilities will pay off throughout the aircraft lifecycle. “

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