{"id":63672,"date":"2023-03-16T20:46:14","date_gmt":"2023-03-16T20:46:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2023\/03\/16\/b-21-first-flight-running-a-few-months-behind\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T00:50:39","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T00:50:39","slug":"b-21-first-flight-running-a-few-months-behind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/air\/2023\/03\/16\/b-21-first-flight-running-a-few-months-behind\/","title":{"rendered":"B-21 first flight running \u2018a few months\u2019 behind"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">WASHINGTON \u2014 The first flight of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/air\/2022\/12\/03\/deterrence-the-american-way-the-new-b-21-bomber-debuts\/\" target=\"_blank\">B-21 Raider stealth bomber<\/a> will occur a few months later than the Air Force anticipated, the service\u2019s secretary said Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIt\u2019s slipped from the original schedule \u2014 that we were using as a schedule to manage by \u2014 by a few months,\u201d Frank Kendall said at the McAleese &amp; Associates conference in Washington, before noting he is recused from making decisions on the program due to his previous consulting work with B-21 manufacturer Northrop Grumman. \u201cIt\u2019s still within the baseline [schedule] that we originally had for the program.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In a statement to Defense News, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/air\/2023\/01\/26\/northrop-eyes-low-rate-production-contract-for-b-21-this-year\/\" target=\"_blank\">Northrop Grumman said<\/a> it still expects to conduct the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/air\/2022\/05\/25\/b-21-first-flight-to-come-in-2023\/\" target=\"_blank\">B-21\u2032s first flight in 2023<\/a>, \u201cinformed by events and data.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe program remains on track to the government baseline for cost, schedule and performance,\u201d Northrop Grumman said. \u201cThe program continues to focus on system maturity, production readiness and sustainment preparedness to best position the B-21 for first flight and an effective flight test campaign, leading to initial operating capability.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/air\/2023\/01\/10\/building-a-better-bomber-how-the-stealthy-b-21-subverted-bureaucracy\/\" target=\"_blank\">first B-21 was unveiled to the public<\/a> Dec. 2. The Air Force and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/industry\/techwatch\/2022\/11\/28\/northrops-b-21-is-almost-here-whats-next-for-the-stealthy-bomber\/\" target=\"_blank\">Northrop Grumman never publicly provided<\/a> a date for this <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/industry\/techwatch\/2022\/03\/04\/first-b-21-bomber-enters-ground-testing-on-track-for-first-flight\/\" target=\"_blank\">bomber\u2019s first flight<\/a>, only saying it would follow the rollout, occur this year and be \u201cdata and event-driven.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The first flight of the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber, the last bomber the Air Force introduced to its fleet, took place in July 1989, about eight months after its November 1988 rollout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In a press conference with reporters after the McAleese conference, Kendall declined to say what caused the schedule to slide. He said the delay was with the internal schedule the Air Force had set, and did not indicate a more serious problem with the program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cYou manage to a schedule, which you tend to make a little bit aggressive to try to keep pressure on people to move fast,\u201d Kendall told reporters. \u201cThere\u2019s a baseline schedule, which is on the books \u2026 but there\u2019s been no breach of that. But with the internal schedule, there\u2019s been a slip of a few months.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Kristyn Jones, the Air Force\u2019s top finance official who is now serving as the department\u2019s interim undersecretary, said in a budget briefing Monday the service has six B-21s in various levels of production at Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California. That confirmed number is unchanged from about a year ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In a roundtable with reporters last week at the Air and Space Forces Association\u2019s conference, Kendall pledged that the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/air\/2023\/03\/13\/us-air-force-pursues-major-aircraft-retirements-in-2024\/\" target=\"_blank\">B-21 program would not repeat the \u201cexcessive concurrency\u201d problems<\/a> of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Concurrency is what happens when an aircraft moves through development and into procurement at the same time; if problems are discovered in testing, those problems then have to be fixed in already-built or under construction aircraft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Kendall noted he once called the F-35\u2032s concurrency problems \u201cacquisition malpractice,\u201d and said the B-21 would not repeat those mistakes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Kendall said at the McAleese event he and William LaPlante, now undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, structured the B-21 program during the Obama administration \u201cto be aggressive, but not crazy.\u201d At the time, Kendall held the job LaPlante does now, and LaPlante was the Air Force\u2019s assistant secretary for acquisition, technology and logistics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cGiven the threats that we face, we need to take some risk,\u201d Kendall said. \u201cThere\u2019s no such thing as a risk-free program. But there\u2019s prudent risk, and there\u2019s crazy risk.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Because the B-21 is a completely new aircraft design, Kendall said, it\u2019s wise to conduct some flight testing and make sure \u201cthe hard things to do\u201d are successful before committing to production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cBut that doesn\u2019t mean you want to do all the flying program before you start production,\u201d Kendall said. \u201cYou want to do enough to feel comfortable that the design is stable, and that what you take into production isn\u2019t going to have to have major modifications after you\u2019ve made that commitment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In January, Northrop Grumman executives said in an earnings call the company expected the Air Force to award the first production contract for the B-21 later this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But at the AFA conference, Kendall and Air Force acquisition chief Andrew Hunter declined to say whether they were planning to award such a contract in 2023, and said the service is focused on the bomber\u2019s first flight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The first B-21, which is numbered 001, has been undergoing ground tests in recent months in preparation for its first flight to Edwards Air Force Base in California, where the Air Force will conduct further flight tests.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Air Force says the B-21 is still on track for its first flight later this year, and that its internal schedules have been &#8220;aggressive.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":117265,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":7,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":{"2":{"categories":["home","left-column","news","your-military"],"primary_category":"your-military"},"4":{"categories":["newsletters","daily-news-roundup","left-column","news","your-air-force"],"primary_category":"your-air-force"},"8":{"categories":["contracting","govcon"],"primary_category":"govcon"},"9":{"categories":["home","battlefield-tech","industry"],"primary_category":"industry"}}},"categories":[7,160,36],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3412],"class_list":["post-63672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-air","category-daily-news-roundup","category-newsletters"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"DHULXGNFMFED5CE4KFVZIZU3HI","arc_canonical_url":"\/air\/2023\/03\/16\/b-21-first-flight-running-a-few-months-behind\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented 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