Free Republic

Say you own a 20-year-old car and intend to drive it beyond the year 2050. It will need some fixing. A challenge similar to that continually faces Whiteman Air Force Base, home to the B-2 stealth bomber. Many aircraft parts made in the 1980s, when the first of 21 B-2s rolled out of a Northrop Grumman Corp. hangar, are as obsolete today as the floppy disk. Yet the plan is to keep those bat-winged bombers flying, and eluding the latest in radar technology, until 2058. The Pentagon is moving forward with a $2 billion, 10-year effort to modernize the fleet’s...

Northrop Grumman has returned to service with the U.S. Air Force a freshly painted, completely overhauled B-2 stealth bomber known as the "Spirit of Pennsylvania." The aircraft lifted off from Air Force Plant 42 here early in the morning on Jan. 26 for its return flight to Whiteman Air Force Base, operational home of the Air Force's 509th Bomb Wing and the nation's fleet of B-2s. "The Spirit of Pennsylvania is the latest B-2 to complete a comprehensive overhaul process called programmed depot maintenance (PDM) that we perform in Palmdale on every B-2 every seven years," said Dave Mazur, vice...

It is among the U.S. Air Force’s most finite resources, but the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber is still growing in capabilities, and it’s an aircraft America is happy to allow an ally to use. A long-standing exchange program that has seen USAF personnel trade places with those from the Royal Air Force was extended to the B-2 in 2004. The offer to open up the secretive B-2 mission to a key ally was made by then-President George W. Bush in an e-mail to then-Prime Minister Tony Blair. Among the achievements of the first British pilot, Sqn. Ldr. David Arthurton, was...