#CLOUDBURST BOMBER SKIN#

Its tailless, horizontal design, radar-absorbing plastic composite skin and other features make it very hard to track with radar. The sleek plane, shaped like a boomerang, has a wingspan of 172 feet and a length of only 69 feet. The PentagonвЂ™s objective was to acquire a heavy nuclear bomber that, barely visible to radar, could penetrate Soviet air defenses to destroy elusive mobile nuclear missiles. The $70-billion F-22 program, as envisioned, would produce 339 planes that can fly faster and stealthier than existing fighters, making it possible to destroy enemy planes at a greater range.Дevelopment of the B-2 began in 1981 in the early days of President ReaganвЂ™s arms buildup. The Air Force leadership, dominated by fighter jocks instead of bomber pilots, wants to focus its buying power on the next-generation stealth aircraft, the F-22 fighter plane. But even with the success in Yugoslavia, there appears to be almost no chance the Pentagon will expand the existing fleet of 21 planes. Though some technical questions remain, the B-2 in many circumstances can strike with more speed and punch than the cruise missiles that have become the hallmark of the Clinton administrationвЂ™s approach to warfare.ДЄbout 16,500 people worked on the B-2 in California, including 13,000 at Northrop, making it the largest California defense program of the era.ДЄt one point, the Defense Department had planned to procure 132 of the aircraft, which could have driven down the cost per plane considerably. The B-1 bomber is faster and the 37-year-old B-52 can carry more bombs, but the B-2вЂ™s stealth qualities give the Air Force, for the first time, the ability to strike anywhere before the enemy knows an attack is under way. With only 24 hoursвЂ™ notice and apparently minimal risk to its crew, the B-2 can accurately drop up to 16 2,000-pound bombs on heavily guarded targets in any corner of the world. With its radar-evading capacity and huge payload, the bat-winged bomber is suddenly looking like the answer to the kind of military emergencies that the United States has encountered in the Balkans, the Persian Gulf and the terrorist training camps of Afghanistan. The most expensive and controversial warplane ever built, the B-2 has undergone a stunning reversal of fortune with its combat debut in the air war against Yugoslavia. These days when the B-2 emerges from its shelter at Whiteman Air Force Base, onlookers ponder a far different question: Is a plane once mocked by critics as the PentagonвЂ™s ultimate gold-plated boondoggle about to become AmericaвЂ™s weapon of choice in the early 21st century? Two years ago, an Air Force ground crew rolled a B-2 Stealth bomber from a hangar here and hosed it down before a skeptical civilian audience to settle a question: Would an afternoon cloudburst melt the bomberвЂ™s delicate skin and knock the plane out of the sky?

Cloudburst bomber