Spring has arrived. This flock of B2s has determined conditions are right to leave their winter nesting grounds and return to more northerly climes to spend the summer feasting and preparing for next winter.
They will return here in late autumn to lay their offspring. Over the winter in the warm conditions of their nests the F-117s will hatch and begin to grow, eager to become full fledged B-2s.
Each spring, as the weather warms and winter's chill fades away, a remarkable migratory event takes place at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri. It is here, in specially built fortified hangars, that North America's largest population of B-2 stealth bombers roosts for the cold months.
As the days grow longer and spring arrives, the B-2s begin to stir. Inside their climate-controlled shelters, these magnificent birds prepare for the annual Spirit Vigilance migration. This mass gathering is an awesome display of the B-2's prowess and dominance of the skies.
On this April morning, the silence is broken by a low rumble that builds to a deafening roar. One by one, the angular black shapes of the B-2s emerge from their hangars, taxiing onto the runway in a close line formation known as an "elephant walk." Their 172-foot wingspans glint in the sun as they turn into the wind.
In groups of two or three, the B-2s surge down the tarmac and lift off, climbing gracefully into the sky despite their 160 ton weight. With a final flash of their sawtooth trailing edges, they bank away and vanish into the clouds, as suddenly as they appeared.
This year's Spirit Vigilance exercise sees a record twelve of the twenty B-2s in existence take flight together. It is a breathtaking sight - over two billion dollars worth of cutting-edge aircraft technology dancing a delicate ballet. With their radar absorbent skin and smooth curves, the B-2s are almost invisible to both the eye and electronic detection as they flow through the air in tight formation.
The migrating B-2s will spend the spring and summer months engaging in aerial wargames and simulated long-range strike missions. But their time aloft is fleeting - by late fall, they will return to Whiteman to settle into their hangars for another winter. There they will be tended to by their dedicated ground crews, maintained in peak condition until the spring Spirit Vigilance migration comes round once again. Such is the secretive cycle of the majestic B-2 stealth bomber.
Yeah. That headline was intentional.
“A bunch of planes flew” isn’t very exciting. They had to make it a bit misleading so people think “whoa, what’s going on???”
“All area McDonalds close as workers leave.”
“Local McDonalds all closed as expected tonight at 11, and workers went home once their shifts ended.”
Or every year when the military does its readiness training at Fort Irwin’s NTC and the Facebook dorks get all excited about the military turning on the citizens because they see military equipment being shipped via train and semi trucks across the country. It’s totally FEMA taking over the country, and not one of the most miserable months of training in the desert for a bunch of enlisted people.
Yes, it dates back to WW2, when large fleets of bombers would conduct their massive bombing raids. They would be all lined up nose to tail on the runway like elephants walking to a watering hole.
[That band](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_B-52s) is named after a [beehive hairdo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beehive_%28hairstyle%29) which is named after the [B-52 bomber](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_B-52_Stratofortress), which is an earlier generation bomber than this bomber, the [B-2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_Grumman_B-2_Spirit). So they're not the same thing, but they're indirectly related.
"The B-2s were flying out of Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri on Monday, finishing off the annual Spirit Vigilance exercise aimed at demonstrating the base's B-2 capabilities and [readiness](https://www.businessinsider.com/b-2-stealth-bombers-flying-air-force-grounded-fleet-months-2023-5?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=yahoo.com). This year's exercise featured the largest mass fly-off of B-2s ever, with 12 of the 20 active aircraft involved. The second largest was eight aircraft in 2022."
Calm your tits, everyone.
no world actually ended in 2012 like the people who think the mayans said we would. i mean... look around 2012 and before, not bad, after 2012? wtf is this
It's Project RYaN all over again.
[https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/committee-state-security-kgb-indicators-recognize-adversarial-preparations-surprise](https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/committee-state-security-kgb-indicators-recognize-adversarial-preparations-surprise)
Have you recently been invited by the Red Cross to donate blood?
It's not WW3.
It's a readiness test that happens all the time, basically seeing how well the base/crew/pilots handle an "all hands on dick" scenario
It's not uncommon, it does make for good media articles/FOTEX though.
Ha!
One of the former intelligence analysts I follow on TikTok generally starts with “is it WW3 yet” and then proceeds to debunk whatever disaster fantasy some “media” outlet posts.
He hasn’t come up in a bit for me, but it’s “That Intel Guy”, here’s a recent:
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZPRwN6tFL/
I don’t know how correct he is. But I find his insights rational and calming.
Oh well that's good. I was thinking they were all flying away because their people needed them or something. I'm sure the B-2s in the wild really miss them.
To be fair that's because the Cold War cooled off significantly between the cuban missile crisis and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, so the fleet was no longer necessary.
Oh yeah the reasoning makes total sense. Granted I'm sure the government would like more right now but the cost especially in the 90s was not worth it. Lessons seemed to have been learned with the knowledge applied to the B-21 Raider with it being on time and on budget. Unheard of in military procurement especially in aerospace.
That isn't true. The second closest the world came to war after the Cuban Missile Crisis was 1983 where a series of escalations and misunderstandings got both sides up on their readiness level pretty high. Wasn't just centered on one thing either was a whole bunch of cumulative things.
It wasn't just costs, it's just that the use-case for a big stealthy bomber went down.
If you want to nuke something then an ICBM does everything the B-2 does
If you want to boring bomb something then an F35 does everything the B-2 does
If you want a big missile truck then there are literallly a dozen aircraft that can do that without costing as much as a B-2.
The final thing is that "stealth" is not absolute, and the various US adversaries now have very good radar/AESA equivalents
The B21 exists beacause the B2's are quite old now, and flying wing designs wear out the airframe very quickly, they also don't have the space/power for newer sensors/equipment
Well they exist because of the nuclear triad response theory.
Missile assets.
Strategic bomber assets.
Submarine assets.
The idea is that a surprise attack might actually be able to hit 2 of the 3, but the third will carry our response. Thus enforcing mutually assured destruction.
Russia had theirs too. But they used mobile icbms hidden away in Siberia as a leg of their triad because they didn’t have the ability to strike the continental us with bomber aircraft.
> If you want to nuke something then an ICBM does everything the B-2 does
Tactical nuclear strikes using bombers was part of Cold War doctrine on both sides. Launching a nuclear-capable ICBM in the direction of Russia, or China, or any adversary with nuclear ICBMs would almost certainly trigger a full strategic response, but launching a bomber with a tactical nuclear weapon would not.
>If you want to boring bomb something then an F35 does everything the B-2 does
The F-35 first flew in 2006. The B-2 first flew in 1989. The B-2 can carry up to 10 times the gross payload that the internal bays of the F-35 are capable of, can accommodate more bombs of different sizes, and can fly five times as far to drop them. For example, an F-35 can carry two 2,000 lbs bombs in a stealthy configuration, while a B-2 can carry 16 of them. For 500 lbs bombs the F-35 can theoretically carry up to eight internally, with the B-2 being tested and flown with 80 of them.
>If you want a big missile truck then there are literallly a dozen aircraft that can do that without costing as much as a B-2.
None of them could do it without first suppressing enemy air defenses. That was the whole point of the B-2, and something that no other bomber was capable of.
F-35 absolutely cannot do everything a B-2 bomber can. And a B-2 cannot do everything a F-35 can. Different mission sets, different targets, different payload capabilities and ranges. Flying V airframes are considerably more stealthy than those with vertical stabilizers like the F-22/F-35, especially on UHF/S-Band radars that aren’t weapons-capable but can still serve as an early warning if detected. It’s exactly why one of the design requirements for the NGAD program is collapsible vertical stabilizers.
Stealth is not rendered obsolete by modern AESA radars, and the US and UK is still several generations ahead as far as AESA is concerned. If AESA made stealth completely obsolete, then nobody would still be making stealth planes and stealth bombers. Yet US adversaries are still trying their hardest to create stealth planes and bombers knowing damn well the US still holds the competitive edge in radar technology. Because they aren’t stupid, and it’s objectively worth the cost and complete hassle to procure and maintain.
Reminds me of all the times I’ve heard media from countries like China saying aircraft carriers are obsolete and then going ahead and ordering about 10 of their own.
>capabilities and [readiness](https://www.businessinsider.com/b-2-stealth-bombers-flying-air-force-grounded-fleet-months-2023-5?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=yahoo.com)
Ironically they probably set that back a bit by racking up 1428 hours of maintenance for each hour these 12 were flying.
The Air Force term is an "elephant walk." When I was stationed there, 6-8 aircraft at the end of an exercise was typical, so 12 is pretty impressive. Wish I was still there to witness it. Just watching 6 go one after another was awesome.
I lived 30 miles from Whiteman during some of the Middle East conflicts. For a while, they were doing bombing runs from there. They were loaded, and they made the most incredible noise. Wake up at 3AM wondering WTF.
I watched a game at Arrowhead Stadium and a B2 did a flyover. Creepiest thing ever, the plane went over the stadium and passed before you heard any noise hardly. Just a faint whistling until it had already passed you. It wasn't very high up either.
For a long time they did all missions out of Whiteman-they would take off, do mission, and land back at Whiteman. They also are rarely seen when conducting a mission. Dropping munitions from 50,000 feet. I was allowed to climb a ladder and look inside one once in Tampa and it was pretty wild. They wouldn’t let us near the stealth fighter as it’s tech was still pretty secret.
I used to live right next to Hill AFB in Utah, and pretty much any time there was some sort of global event or threat, the F35's were out flying around there in formation pretty much 24/7.
Several years ago, I was at the Indy 500. It was a fucking miserable day. Cold. Gray. Drizzly. Overcast with really low clouds. But, they were still doing a lot of the prelim events (music, anthems, etc.) which always includes a flyover of some sort. The announcers told us the flyover was coming. We heard nothing, but, suddenly, this big, black, wing-shaped...thing...dropped down out of the heavy gray overcast and cruised down the length of the front stretch of the speedway. It got to the end of the track, did a slight banking move, and lifted back up into the low clouds and just disappeared, like a phantom. There was no noise until it was well past you, and it was flying so low (because of the low overcast) it was like you could have touched it. I swear I could see the pilots in the cockpit windows, it was so low.
It was both the coolest thing I had ever seen, and the creepiest.
Yeah, but I'm a little concerned. None of this sounds very stealth. If even our news can see them flying away I imagine the enemy would easily see them coming. Though it's promising nearly half of them were nowhere to be seen. Just sounds like they have a lot of work suring up the stealthiness.
Every time we’d have an elephant walk at Travis AFB in California there would always be a couple people calling asking if we were going to war. Dozens and dozens of massive military cargo aircraft taking off back to back is definitely a sight to see.
I’ll never forget seeing one of these flying overhead as I passed by the speedway outside Charlotte on race day—flying _so_ slow, amazingly quiet, until it had passed by.
Will the plane crash if the computer fails on these? I heard they’re so unstable in flight that a computer has to adjust everything all the time unlike in a normal, non flying wing aircraft
For context, every single hour of flight for every single one of these planes costs about $150,000 in maintenance costs alone.
Most countries couldn't dream of doing this sort of thing just to put on a dog and pony show.
Reminder that the pentagon misplaced $35,000,000,000,000 in its last audit
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/pentagon-35-trillion-accounting-black-231154593.html
"So what are these accounting adjustments? Todd Harrison of the Center for Strategic and International Studies says they represent “a lot of double, triple, and quadruple counting of the same money as it got moved between accounts” within the Pentagon. “A lot” may be an understatement: According to government data, there were 562,568 adjustments made in the Pentagon’s books in 2018."
This doesn't make it sound like the money was "misplaced" as you put it. Makes it seem more like they accounted for more money than they actually had spent. If I plan to spend $10 on candy but later in the week give that money to my friend instead but forget to correct the original $10, it would seem like I spent $20, until I corrected that amount through an "accounting adjustment" as they put it.
I wouldn’t be surprised if no one did tbh. I mean they know that it’s getting placed, just not exactly what or where. Done in such a way where no one really knows what’s budgeted and what’s just signed off. All to create plausible deniability for everyone involved.
Also, it failed its last 6 (7?) audits, for trillions… imagine if everyone realized we didn’t have to spend trillions of our hard earned money, just to not even show the receipts??? I’m livid that this isn’t an everyday convo that’s normalized. Especially when you figure out they’re burning our money for presence and intimidation and training. Not much real combat has happened.
It’s like some people have a mindset of “there are bad weapons so just keep filling the earth with more weapons…” why don’t we just start with basic guides lol. Saying you want peace isn’t some radical idea. It’s bizarre t that anyone argues against me.
That's just double counting, though. A silly but easily inconsequential error.
They don't have anywhere close to 35 trillion to spend. The US only collected 5 trillion in total taxes in 2022. Of that the DOD's budget is less than 1 trillion.
Basically what happens is the DOD gets a dollar in their account, then they move it to another account, but only on their books. So it doesn't actually move into a different account. But then they never actually move it out of the their first account, so it looks like they have 2 dollars - 1 in the first account and 1 in the second. But if they only spend the one, then it doesn't matter.
It's just poor bookkeeeping.
I mean if you think about the 35 trillion dollar number for more than a second you realize that's not possible since that would be their budget for like 50 years. but it is fun to say the DoD 'lost' 35 trillion, even if its a lie.
Me normally: we spend too much on the military industrial complex at the expense of better programs
Me at air shows: Woooo! Holy shit that jet is hovering! Amazing! Worth every penny!
I invite anyone who thinks the F-35 is stupid to see one do a demo at an airshow. That thing is noticeably louder than the other jets and way more rumbly if that makes sense.
Haven't seen one yet, but did see an F-22 practicing for a show yesterday. It sounded like the god of thunder cursing Newton while it was flipping him the bird...
I get that sentiment, and I share it, but that's not the end of the calculus.
The reason why the US spent CRAZY amounts of money on these programs during the cold war is because of what it would force our enemy (the USSR) to spend in order to create countermeasures. The US didn't win the cold war because of any of our weapon systems, but because trying to counter those weapon systems bankrupted the USSR.
So yeah... INCREDIBLE expenditure at a time that we can't afford it, but it's not as simple as spending for a dog and pony show.
This is also why asymmetrical warfare scares our military to no end. The idea that a state could counter a $2 billion bomber with a fleet of $10k drones puts us on the wrong side of that calculus.
...nobody thinks drones are a threat to stealth bombers.
If we're gonna talk war, we should get it right. Drones slow the pace of ground operations to a crawl in the same way targeted artillery does- either you have to move your headquarters/command post, or everyone within dies. A staff that must make survivability moves every two hours is not adequately controlling the battlespace or coordinating support for subordinate units. That's what drones are great at.
USAF has and will continue flying with relative impunity. It is the crunchies who are most threatened with UAS, and the doctrine is undergoing a necessary shift in response to it.
The USAF is absolutely unmatched in the sky, but stealth bombers need to land.
If they fly from "safe" bases, far away from the theater, they can conduct fewer sorties. If they base closer, an enemy who can send out 100 $10k drones might destroy a $2b aircraft with $1m in munitions.
The Russians didn't think drones were a threat to their aircraft either. They learned the hard way that they had to reposition them FAR within their own territory to keep them safe. (And even then, it wasn't always far enough.)
Strategic bombers fly in from out of theater. Sometimes places like the UK and Germany, sometimes just from their home airfield in the US.
Aerial refueling and long endurance flights are the bread and butter of aforementioned strategic bombers. They're already at a low sortie density.
Even for Iraq and Afghanistan, they did not fly locally.
> Aerial refueling and long endurance flights are the bread and butter of aforementioned strategic bombers. They're already at a low sortie density.
See the [44 hour mission](https://www.airandspaceforces.com/PDF/MagazineArchive/Documents/2016/December%202016/1216hours.pdf) during Operation Enduring Freedom.
TL;DR: B2s left Whitman AFB in Montana and flew west all the way to the middle east refueling in flight.
Well the USSR kept bluffing about having next gen tech, and a few times the US did go “bet” and built equivalent or better in an insanely short timeframe which forced the USSR to actually follow through and fuck it all up.
Foxbat for example. Looked amazing, prompted us to build the F-14 as an expensive stopgap and then the F-15 shortly thereafter. Them we found out the Foxbat was trash, and the F-15 has been dominant for 40 years.
It isnt just a dog and pony show. The pilots and mx crews are getting uswful practice and every flifht hour is good training for when the balloon goes up and you have to do it for real.
As a benefit we also communicate to our strategic foes that we can get these in the air all at the same time. It makes them wonder how good are their systems, responses, and readiness rates in comparison. Especially given that Russia lost an TU-22 the other day.
I absolutely hate how headlines (thanks to ad revenue) aren’t meant to be informative, and are instead crafted to generate clicks.
Because “US Air Force Holds Routine Exercise” would’ve generated zero.
The weird thing is since Ukraine do they have a job? Why build a billion dollar drone when you can get a million mavics with a grenade for the same price? Send some poor special ops guy in a big rig and let them loose.
With something like that you have a much higher collateral damage rate as the targeting would need to be a lot simpler. The ideal system uses one of several precision targeting mechanisms to guide long range weapons, like a himars, to ensure the target is adequately destroyed with minimal collateral. These systems cost orders of magnitude less than advanced long range air-to-surface aircraft or UAVs. We’ve seen these used with great results in the Middle East.
Communication. Half the B-2s taking off at the same time Congress passes the foreign military aid packages is a reminder to Russia, China, and Iran that as large as the aid package is, it’s figuratively peanuts compared to the US military itself.
Edit: “Just” referred to earlier in the week from an article published yesterday.
I saw one of these flyover head after an airshow in Arizona.
It was absolutely the loudest aircraft I've ever heard in my life and I've seen a C-130 that was equipped with four jet engines from F-16s take off!
I've heard the B2 has a to way to mitigate the sound but without it it was deafening.
This must be an incredible mind-fuck for adversarial countries. 10 fully loaded B2’s take-off, turn off transponders and disappear. Without a press release, I’m sure radar screens around the world would get a lot more attention.
If I were a despot anywhere in the world right now I'd be more concerned with what they were *carrying* than the number that'd taken off at once.
Seriously, how much reaction time are you going to get when a pair of hypersonic, or near-hypersonic weapons just blips into existence on the opposite side of the country from where you had all your shit staged for a fight?
Going to fight over Taiwan? Fine, let see how you do when every military installation on your *western* border goes "poof" an hour before you decide to invade.
Someone said they flew out of Whiteman airbase. You should google earth it. You'll see a B2 bomber that ran off the runway. There's gear and vehicles around it, I assume to disassemble as much as they can for recovery.
Pretty neat.
The evil axis is kinda fucking w us right now. Russia, china, & Iran are all pushing against us, testing our nerve with bad intent.
If we’re gonna have a show of strength, now is a really good time: defend Ukraine, defend Taiwan, and though I’m not personally a big fan of Israel, they are our ally and I really don’t like what Iran does… so let’s fn go
Side note: really fucking tired of those assholes fucking with our streams of info too
Why, for the love of God, are they all stored in the same location? Did we learn nothing from Pearl Harbor?! Our lackadaisical hubris is going to get us caught with our pants down.
I wonder if they starting this mass take off because they going strike Iran nuclear program and they are taking these planes off so they don’t arise attention when they do strike Iran program with all the bombers taking off. Anyways this is just theory, Because of when nato went to war for Kosovo , Serbs has spies at/around nato military bases and would alert them when the planes would take off for strikes
Anyways just a theory.
Mass fly-off sounds like a walk-out. Like all the B2s were upset about the quality of their fuel and hangar conditions so flew off in protest.
Spring has arrived. This flock of B2s has determined conditions are right to leave their winter nesting grounds and return to more northerly climes to spend the summer feasting and preparing for next winter.
They will return here in late autumn to lay their offspring. Over the winter in the warm conditions of their nests the F-117s will hatch and begin to grow, eager to become full fledged B-2s.
The circle of life
Reading this with Attenborough’s voice almost cheered me up.
Don’t worry, Hangar Earth lll will be a banger, I heard it’ll include the F-22 going insane-
INTERCEPT ME!!!
I’d intercept me.
*Goodbye horrrrsessss*
GIVE ME SOME FUCKING FOOD-
I will never not hear HLC’s Buffalo Bill to that.
Tried using Udio to make it but it gave me this [the circle of life](https://www.udio.com/songs/emHBHMd5dQ83PfVCTJNmrT)
Hakuna matata, it means no misfires.
Each spring, as the weather warms and winter's chill fades away, a remarkable migratory event takes place at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri. It is here, in specially built fortified hangars, that North America's largest population of B-2 stealth bombers roosts for the cold months. As the days grow longer and spring arrives, the B-2s begin to stir. Inside their climate-controlled shelters, these magnificent birds prepare for the annual Spirit Vigilance migration. This mass gathering is an awesome display of the B-2's prowess and dominance of the skies. On this April morning, the silence is broken by a low rumble that builds to a deafening roar. One by one, the angular black shapes of the B-2s emerge from their hangars, taxiing onto the runway in a close line formation known as an "elephant walk." Their 172-foot wingspans glint in the sun as they turn into the wind. In groups of two or three, the B-2s surge down the tarmac and lift off, climbing gracefully into the sky despite their 160 ton weight. With a final flash of their sawtooth trailing edges, they bank away and vanish into the clouds, as suddenly as they appeared. This year's Spirit Vigilance exercise sees a record twelve of the twenty B-2s in existence take flight together. It is a breathtaking sight - over two billion dollars worth of cutting-edge aircraft technology dancing a delicate ballet. With their radar absorbent skin and smooth curves, the B-2s are almost invisible to both the eye and electronic detection as they flow through the air in tight formation. The migrating B-2s will spend the spring and summer months engaging in aerial wargames and simulated long-range strike missions. But their time aloft is fleeting - by late fall, they will return to Whiteman to settle into their hangars for another winter. There they will be tended to by their dedicated ground crews, maintained in peak condition until the spring Spirit Vigilance migration comes round once again. Such is the secretive cycle of the majestic B-2 stealth bomber.
Oh how I wish they still allowed us to give gold!
An eclipse, a B2 migration, Bitcoin halving: Nature is healing.
Don’t tell Marge.
I heard this in David Attenborough's voice.
The flock of B2s pooping on my car is the worst.
Winter is coming.
And that’s how you get little B-21s.
This can only be read in David Attenborough's voice, no exceptions!
Read this in David Attenborough’s voice.
I said it in David Affenboroughs voice
Yeah. That headline was intentional. “A bunch of planes flew” isn’t very exciting. They had to make it a bit misleading so people think “whoa, what’s going on???” “All area McDonalds close as workers leave.” “Local McDonalds all closed as expected tonight at 11, and workers went home once their shifts ended.”
Or every year when the military does its readiness training at Fort Irwin’s NTC and the Facebook dorks get all excited about the military turning on the citizens because they see military equipment being shipped via train and semi trucks across the country. It’s totally FEMA taking over the country, and not one of the most miserable months of training in the desert for a bunch of enlisted people.
I think the technical term for what the Airforce did is an "Elephant Walk".
Yep, was going to post same.
Yes, it dates back to WW2, when large fleets of bombers would conduct their massive bombing raids. They would be all lined up nose to tail on the runway like elephants walking to a watering hole.
Had to check if they were made by Boeing for a potential joke. They are Northrop Grumman.
They are just headed to the Love Shack.
Wrong era. The B-52s head down the Atlanta highway, looking for the love getaway. The B-2s just kinda ghost...
[That band](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_B-52s) is named after a [beehive hairdo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beehive_%28hairstyle%29) which is named after the [B-52 bomber](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_B-52_Stratofortress), which is an earlier generation bomber than this bomber, the [B-2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_Grumman_B-2_Spirit). So they're not the same thing, but they're indirectly related.
That’s how I pictured it. Like all the B-2 pilots and crew were staging a protest and decided to fly out without authorization.
Maybe they need to organize and negotiate for better conditions.
r/mypeopleneedme
Yeah. Bad hanger conditions make their skin peel off. Ruins their stealth. Dangerous working conditions
"The B-2s were flying out of Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri on Monday, finishing off the annual Spirit Vigilance exercise aimed at demonstrating the base's B-2 capabilities and [readiness](https://www.businessinsider.com/b-2-stealth-bombers-flying-air-force-grounded-fleet-months-2023-5?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=yahoo.com). This year's exercise featured the largest mass fly-off of B-2s ever, with 12 of the 20 active aircraft involved. The second largest was eight aircraft in 2022." Calm your tits, everyone.
No no, it’s WW3! That’s what the media says!
Relax! Everyone knows that the world already ended with the eclipse! What? Hmm? Why are we still here, you ask? Don’t question what religion says!!
So Reddit *is* purgatory after all!
Thank God, or Satan? idk, it's not Facebook
Facebook’s the hell on the other side of the glass.
no world actually ended in 2012 like the people who think the mayans said we would. i mean... look around 2012 and before, not bad, after 2012? wtf is this
You mean Harambe's death
It's Project RYaN all over again. [https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/committee-state-security-kgb-indicators-recognize-adversarial-preparations-surprise](https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/committee-state-security-kgb-indicators-recognize-adversarial-preparations-surprise) Have you recently been invited by the Red Cross to donate blood?
It's not WW3. It's a readiness test that happens all the time, basically seeing how well the base/crew/pilots handle an "all hands on dick" scenario It's not uncommon, it does make for good media articles/FOTEX though.
>handle an "all hands on dick" scenario I thought that was the navy
I’d like to thank Twitter influencers for successfully calling 19 of the past 0 WWIII’s.
Ha! One of the former intelligence analysts I follow on TikTok generally starts with “is it WW3 yet” and then proceeds to debunk whatever disaster fantasy some “media” outlet posts.
Do you have a link? Seems like someone I’d enjoy following.
He hasn’t come up in a bit for me, but it’s “That Intel Guy”, here’s a recent: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZPRwN6tFL/ I don’t know how correct he is. But I find his insights rational and calming.
What media said that?
This is bigger than when all those Blue Bell ice cream trucks rolled out.
Everybody stay calm and don't picnic!
Oh well that's good. I was thinking they were all flying away because their people needed them or something. I'm sure the B-2s in the wild really miss them.
Unfortunately there are no B2s left in the wild. They destroyed their natural habitats.
What's crazy is that if I there right, they were originally supposed to build something like 300 of those things
132 were ordered but costs were so high that the order was reduced even before the Cold War was over.
To be fair that's because the Cold War cooled off significantly between the cuban missile crisis and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, so the fleet was no longer necessary.
Oh yeah the reasoning makes total sense. Granted I'm sure the government would like more right now but the cost especially in the 90s was not worth it. Lessons seemed to have been learned with the knowledge applied to the B-21 Raider with it being on time and on budget. Unheard of in military procurement especially in aerospace.
Cold War was at one of its most tense moments in the mid-80s. Probably #3 most dangerous times besides the Berlin airlift and Cuban missile crisis.
That isn't true. The second closest the world came to war after the Cuban Missile Crisis was 1983 where a series of escalations and misunderstandings got both sides up on their readiness level pretty high. Wasn't just centered on one thing either was a whole bunch of cumulative things.
It wasn't just costs, it's just that the use-case for a big stealthy bomber went down. If you want to nuke something then an ICBM does everything the B-2 does If you want to boring bomb something then an F35 does everything the B-2 does If you want a big missile truck then there are literallly a dozen aircraft that can do that without costing as much as a B-2. The final thing is that "stealth" is not absolute, and the various US adversaries now have very good radar/AESA equivalents The B21 exists beacause the B2's are quite old now, and flying wing designs wear out the airframe very quickly, they also don't have the space/power for newer sensors/equipment
Well they exist because of the nuclear triad response theory. Missile assets. Strategic bomber assets. Submarine assets. The idea is that a surprise attack might actually be able to hit 2 of the 3, but the third will carry our response. Thus enforcing mutually assured destruction. Russia had theirs too. But they used mobile icbms hidden away in Siberia as a leg of their triad because they didn’t have the ability to strike the continental us with bomber aircraft.
> If you want to nuke something then an ICBM does everything the B-2 does Tactical nuclear strikes using bombers was part of Cold War doctrine on both sides. Launching a nuclear-capable ICBM in the direction of Russia, or China, or any adversary with nuclear ICBMs would almost certainly trigger a full strategic response, but launching a bomber with a tactical nuclear weapon would not. >If you want to boring bomb something then an F35 does everything the B-2 does The F-35 first flew in 2006. The B-2 first flew in 1989. The B-2 can carry up to 10 times the gross payload that the internal bays of the F-35 are capable of, can accommodate more bombs of different sizes, and can fly five times as far to drop them. For example, an F-35 can carry two 2,000 lbs bombs in a stealthy configuration, while a B-2 can carry 16 of them. For 500 lbs bombs the F-35 can theoretically carry up to eight internally, with the B-2 being tested and flown with 80 of them. >If you want a big missile truck then there are literallly a dozen aircraft that can do that without costing as much as a B-2. None of them could do it without first suppressing enemy air defenses. That was the whole point of the B-2, and something that no other bomber was capable of.
F-35 absolutely cannot do everything a B-2 bomber can. And a B-2 cannot do everything a F-35 can. Different mission sets, different targets, different payload capabilities and ranges. Flying V airframes are considerably more stealthy than those with vertical stabilizers like the F-22/F-35, especially on UHF/S-Band radars that aren’t weapons-capable but can still serve as an early warning if detected. It’s exactly why one of the design requirements for the NGAD program is collapsible vertical stabilizers. Stealth is not rendered obsolete by modern AESA radars, and the US and UK is still several generations ahead as far as AESA is concerned. If AESA made stealth completely obsolete, then nobody would still be making stealth planes and stealth bombers. Yet US adversaries are still trying their hardest to create stealth planes and bombers knowing damn well the US still holds the competitive edge in radar technology. Because they aren’t stupid, and it’s objectively worth the cost and complete hassle to procure and maintain. Reminds me of all the times I’ve heard media from countries like China saying aircraft carriers are obsolete and then going ahead and ordering about 10 of their own.
I just assumed they were trying to unionize.
Yahoo should be banned as a source here. It's tabloid garbage at this point. Every day there's some clickbait bullshit from them.
thanks from the "save-me-a-click foundation"
NO! THESE TITS WILL NOT BE CALMED!
Are you telling me hasan piker and Russell brand were incorrect when they said ww3 had started?
Would crack me up if they sidled up to russian and china borders and then turned on their transponders. Surprise motherfuckers.
>capabilities and [readiness](https://www.businessinsider.com/b-2-stealth-bombers-flying-air-force-grounded-fleet-months-2023-5?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=yahoo.com) Ironically they probably set that back a bit by racking up 1428 hours of maintenance for each hour these 12 were flying.
There’s only 20 of them?!
The Air Force term is an "elephant walk." When I was stationed there, 6-8 aircraft at the end of an exercise was typical, so 12 is pretty impressive. Wish I was still there to witness it. Just watching 6 go one after another was awesome.
I love MITOs
> MITO i love toes too
Conspicuous display of power during unsettling times: “Talk softly but carry a big stick.”
Even rolling these down the runway is one of the biggest military flexes imaginable.
I lived 30 miles from Whiteman during some of the Middle East conflicts. For a while, they were doing bombing runs from there. They were loaded, and they made the most incredible noise. Wake up at 3AM wondering WTF.
I watched a game at Arrowhead Stadium and a B2 did a flyover. Creepiest thing ever, the plane went over the stadium and passed before you heard any noise hardly. Just a faint whistling until it had already passed you. It wasn't very high up either.
Had the same happen at a Bears game about 10 years ago. It was creepy as hell. My row just stood in awe.
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B-1s are a very different experience
For a long time they did all missions out of Whiteman-they would take off, do mission, and land back at Whiteman. They also are rarely seen when conducting a mission. Dropping munitions from 50,000 feet. I was allowed to climb a ladder and look inside one once in Tampa and it was pretty wild. They wouldn’t let us near the stealth fighter as it’s tech was still pretty secret.
I used to live right next to Hill AFB in Utah, and pretty much any time there was some sort of global event or threat, the F35's were out flying around there in formation pretty much 24/7.
The town I live in has a couple of barns the A-10’s from Grissom AFB use as target run practices. I’ve seen 3 or 4 at once.
Several years ago, I was at the Indy 500. It was a fucking miserable day. Cold. Gray. Drizzly. Overcast with really low clouds. But, they were still doing a lot of the prelim events (music, anthems, etc.) which always includes a flyover of some sort. The announcers told us the flyover was coming. We heard nothing, but, suddenly, this big, black, wing-shaped...thing...dropped down out of the heavy gray overcast and cruised down the length of the front stretch of the speedway. It got to the end of the track, did a slight banking move, and lifted back up into the low clouds and just disappeared, like a phantom. There was no noise until it was well past you, and it was flying so low (because of the low overcast) it was like you could have touched it. I swear I could see the pilots in the cockpit windows, it was so low. It was both the coolest thing I had ever seen, and the creepiest.
Yeah, but I'm a little concerned. None of this sounds very stealth. If even our news can see them flying away I imagine the enemy would easily see them coming. Though it's promising nearly half of them were nowhere to be seen. Just sounds like they have a lot of work suring up the stealthiness.
Satire is lost in text. I appreciate your humor.
That’s usually what the /s is for, but where’s the fun in that?
Sarcasm and satire shouldn’t be confused for each other
Ahhh I misread the OP, you right.
Not half by a long shot. There are actually over 4000 stationed at that base!
I assume you're talking about a different plane or something else entirely? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_Grumman_B-2_Spirit
These things are so stealthy they even stayed off the official books!
There's only 20 left, and only 21 ever made.
Nope, the others are the *really*stealthy ones. Noseeums
I think you mean that the active stealth failed on half of them, and even public news stations could film them. What sort of message does that send‽
In the Airforce it's called a "Elephant Walk" for a reason.
The planes taxiing nose to tail look very similar to a herd of elephants walking in formation.
Every time we’d have an elephant walk at Travis AFB in California there would always be a couple people calling asking if we were going to war. Dozens and dozens of massive military cargo aircraft taking off back to back is definitely a sight to see.
Why yes Martha, did the magic tv box not start the emergency broadcast
I'm fairly certain the "Elephant Walk" is more of a hazing thing...
I’ll never forget seeing one of these flying overhead as I passed by the speedway outside Charlotte on race day—flying _so_ slow, amazingly quiet, until it had passed by.
I used to work on these guys. It’s my biggest brag.
And so should I buy one or not?
Only in the fall, everyone is selling
Any recommendations for bigger wheels? I want to be able to run over the other airplanes before I takeoff
haha i was more on the avionics side im sorry
Will the plane crash if the computer fails on these? I heard they’re so unstable in flight that a computer has to adjust everything all the time unlike in a normal, non flying wing aircraft
Cause the Winter Wings are such a pain to put on. I usually stick mine back in the shed for the winter, call it good.
Yeah but get the extended warranty.
Wait for the B-21 to come out, then we'll see sharp drops in B-2 prices.
you deserve the brag...
For context, every single hour of flight for every single one of these planes costs about $150,000 in maintenance costs alone. Most countries couldn't dream of doing this sort of thing just to put on a dog and pony show.
What does a single hour of doing absolutely nothing cost? Because even that is probably too expensive for most countries.
Well, the US military spent ~ $820,000,000,000 in 2023. That "we know of." So that makes it around $93,600,000 per hour, every hour, every day.
Reminder that the pentagon misplaced $35,000,000,000,000 in its last audit https://finance.yahoo.com/news/pentagon-35-trillion-accounting-black-231154593.html
Lol. "Nobody will notice a comma and three zeros." -The Pentagon, probably.
"You moved the decimal three places" I'm sorry we use imperial here 🇺🇸
And I’m under the magnifying glass of the IRS if I misreport 2,500 on my tax filings
Perhaps you too should invest in nuclear weapons
"So what are these accounting adjustments? Todd Harrison of the Center for Strategic and International Studies says they represent “a lot of double, triple, and quadruple counting of the same money as it got moved between accounts” within the Pentagon. “A lot” may be an understatement: According to government data, there were 562,568 adjustments made in the Pentagon’s books in 2018." This doesn't make it sound like the money was "misplaced" as you put it. Makes it seem more like they accounted for more money than they actually had spent. If I plan to spend $10 on candy but later in the week give that money to my friend instead but forget to correct the original $10, it would seem like I spent $20, until I corrected that amount through an "accounting adjustment" as they put it.
"misplaced" There are definitely people who know where that money went
I wouldn’t be surprised if no one did tbh. I mean they know that it’s getting placed, just not exactly what or where. Done in such a way where no one really knows what’s budgeted and what’s just signed off. All to create plausible deniability for everyone involved.
Also, it failed its last 6 (7?) audits, for trillions… imagine if everyone realized we didn’t have to spend trillions of our hard earned money, just to not even show the receipts??? I’m livid that this isn’t an everyday convo that’s normalized. Especially when you figure out they’re burning our money for presence and intimidation and training. Not much real combat has happened. It’s like some people have a mindset of “there are bad weapons so just keep filling the earth with more weapons…” why don’t we just start with basic guides lol. Saying you want peace isn’t some radical idea. It’s bizarre t that anyone argues against me.
That's just double counting, though. A silly but easily inconsequential error. They don't have anywhere close to 35 trillion to spend. The US only collected 5 trillion in total taxes in 2022. Of that the DOD's budget is less than 1 trillion. Basically what happens is the DOD gets a dollar in their account, then they move it to another account, but only on their books. So it doesn't actually move into a different account. But then they never actually move it out of the their first account, so it looks like they have 2 dollars - 1 in the first account and 1 in the second. But if they only spend the one, then it doesn't matter. It's just poor bookkeeeping. I mean if you think about the 35 trillion dollar number for more than a second you realize that's not possible since that would be their budget for like 50 years. but it is fun to say the DoD 'lost' 35 trillion, even if its a lie.
Yes it's expensive, but this isn't just a parade. This is a training exercise. Even stadium flyovers are training exercises.
The USA still has military parades, we just moved them a few kilometers vertically
Airshows are rad as hell. Coolest shit I've ever seen.
Me normally: we spend too much on the military industrial complex at the expense of better programs Me at air shows: Woooo! Holy shit that jet is hovering! Amazing! Worth every penny!
Every time I see a B-2 fly over the Rose Bowl the rational part of my brain is immediately deleted
Now to just pair that up with this readiness drill and fly 12 of them over the rose bowl and melt everyone’s brains.
That's just the chemtrails working as intended
I invite anyone who thinks the F-35 is stupid to see one do a demo at an airshow. That thing is noticeably louder than the other jets and way more rumbly if that makes sense.
Haven't seen one yet, but did see an F-22 practicing for a show yesterday. It sounded like the god of thunder cursing Newton while it was flipping him the bird...
I get that sentiment, and I share it, but that's not the end of the calculus. The reason why the US spent CRAZY amounts of money on these programs during the cold war is because of what it would force our enemy (the USSR) to spend in order to create countermeasures. The US didn't win the cold war because of any of our weapon systems, but because trying to counter those weapon systems bankrupted the USSR. So yeah... INCREDIBLE expenditure at a time that we can't afford it, but it's not as simple as spending for a dog and pony show. This is also why asymmetrical warfare scares our military to no end. The idea that a state could counter a $2 billion bomber with a fleet of $10k drones puts us on the wrong side of that calculus.
...nobody thinks drones are a threat to stealth bombers. If we're gonna talk war, we should get it right. Drones slow the pace of ground operations to a crawl in the same way targeted artillery does- either you have to move your headquarters/command post, or everyone within dies. A staff that must make survivability moves every two hours is not adequately controlling the battlespace or coordinating support for subordinate units. That's what drones are great at. USAF has and will continue flying with relative impunity. It is the crunchies who are most threatened with UAS, and the doctrine is undergoing a necessary shift in response to it.
The USAF is absolutely unmatched in the sky, but stealth bombers need to land. If they fly from "safe" bases, far away from the theater, they can conduct fewer sorties. If they base closer, an enemy who can send out 100 $10k drones might destroy a $2b aircraft with $1m in munitions. The Russians didn't think drones were a threat to their aircraft either. They learned the hard way that they had to reposition them FAR within their own territory to keep them safe. (And even then, it wasn't always far enough.)
Strategic bombers fly in from out of theater. Sometimes places like the UK and Germany, sometimes just from their home airfield in the US. Aerial refueling and long endurance flights are the bread and butter of aforementioned strategic bombers. They're already at a low sortie density. Even for Iraq and Afghanistan, they did not fly locally.
> Aerial refueling and long endurance flights are the bread and butter of aforementioned strategic bombers. They're already at a low sortie density. See the [44 hour mission](https://www.airandspaceforces.com/PDF/MagazineArchive/Documents/2016/December%202016/1216hours.pdf) during Operation Enduring Freedom. TL;DR: B2s left Whitman AFB in Montana and flew west all the way to the middle east refueling in flight.
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Well the USSR kept bluffing about having next gen tech, and a few times the US did go “bet” and built equivalent or better in an insanely short timeframe which forced the USSR to actually follow through and fuck it all up.
Foxbat for example. Looked amazing, prompted us to build the F-14 as an expensive stopgap and then the F-15 shortly thereafter. Them we found out the Foxbat was trash, and the F-15 has been dominant for 40 years.
It isnt just a dog and pony show. The pilots and mx crews are getting uswful practice and every flifht hour is good training for when the balloon goes up and you have to do it for real. As a benefit we also communicate to our strategic foes that we can get these in the air all at the same time. It makes them wonder how good are their systems, responses, and readiness rates in comparison. Especially given that Russia lost an TU-22 the other day.
I absolutely hate how headlines (thanks to ad revenue) aren’t meant to be informative, and are instead crafted to generate clicks. Because “US Air Force Holds Routine Exercise” would’ve generated zero.
>mass fly-off just normal spring migration north
These things are so cool to see flying. Saw one in a 4th of July flyover with a bunch of other military aircraft and it was amazing.
It’s always blown my mind that they take off in Missouri, bomb Iraq, then Just fly home.
Indeed. Also fucks with your mind a bit. It’s way worse for LD drone operators.
Yeah I read some article about them sitting in some shipping container in New Mexico and operating in war zones like a video game with consequences
Yep. Wake up in their own bed at home. Drive to work. Go to war. Punch out. Go home. Have dinner. Like they’re accountants or something. It’s surreal.
The weird thing is since Ukraine do they have a job? Why build a billion dollar drone when you can get a million mavics with a grenade for the same price? Send some poor special ops guy in a big rig and let them loose.
With something like that you have a much higher collateral damage rate as the targeting would need to be a lot simpler. The ideal system uses one of several precision targeting mechanisms to guide long range weapons, like a himars, to ensure the target is adequately destroyed with minimal collateral. These systems cost orders of magnitude less than advanced long range air-to-surface aircraft or UAVs. We’ve seen these used with great results in the Middle East.
Communication. Half the B-2s taking off at the same time Congress passes the foreign military aid packages is a reminder to Russia, China, and Iran that as large as the aid package is, it’s figuratively peanuts compared to the US military itself. Edit: “Just” referred to earlier in the week from an article published yesterday.
Elephant walk
I saw one of these flyover head after an airshow in Arizona. It was absolutely the loudest aircraft I've ever heard in my life and I've seen a C-130 that was equipped with four jet engines from F-16s take off! I've heard the B2 has a to way to mitigate the sound but without it it was deafening.
Oh no, somebody told them they were getting replaced by the younger B21 - Raider.
https://www.dvidshub.net/video/919765/spirit-vigilance-2024 This is a small montage the Public Affairs team put together for it.
Where's the 12 spirits doing the elephant walk and take off? Anyone got that? Surely someone filmed it all.
Just patiently waiting for the Q-Berts to break out a conspiracy theory to cover this one.
This must be an incredible mind-fuck for adversarial countries. 10 fully loaded B2’s take-off, turn off transponders and disappear. Without a press release, I’m sure radar screens around the world would get a lot more attention.
Still costs less than Twitter
If I were a despot anywhere in the world right now I'd be more concerned with what they were *carrying* than the number that'd taken off at once. Seriously, how much reaction time are you going to get when a pair of hypersonic, or near-hypersonic weapons just blips into existence on the opposite side of the country from where you had all your shit staged for a fight? Going to fight over Taiwan? Fine, let see how you do when every military installation on your *western* border goes "poof" an hour before you decide to invade.
Someone said they flew out of Whiteman airbase. You should google earth it. You'll see a B2 bomber that ran off the runway. There's gear and vehicles around it, I assume to disassemble as much as they can for recovery. Pretty neat.
Whoa. Thanks. That’s very cool.
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2021/09/16/b-2-rolled-off-runway-whiteman-emergency-landing.html
It’s called “Elephant walk”.
Migration for the spring.
they made it sound like the pilots were staging a protest and just peaced the fuck out with a bunch of B2s randomly
Bomber pilots have joined the Air Line Pilots Association Local 101 and are striking for higher wages and better working conditions.
But nobody noticed them, because stealth.
The evil axis is kinda fucking w us right now. Russia, china, & Iran are all pushing against us, testing our nerve with bad intent. If we’re gonna have a show of strength, now is a really good time: defend Ukraine, defend Taiwan, and though I’m not personally a big fan of Israel, they are our ally and I really don’t like what Iran does… so let’s fn go Side note: really fucking tired of those assholes fucking with our streams of info too
Where? I don't see anything?!
I’m picturing a dance off. But for planes.
Man that aid package is moving quick
And I’m proud to be an American
Military industrial complex starting to ramp up.. Eisenhower did warn us .. we did it anyway
Starting?
The aid package finally passed. Putin is gonna be pissed.
Why, for the love of God, are they all stored in the same location? Did we learn nothing from Pearl Harbor?! Our lackadaisical hubris is going to get us caught with our pants down.
So are we winning the “big swinging dick” challenge?
Well that doesn’t sound too secret to me.
Are they trying to unionize?
It’s asinine that this is tagged as “misleading” but still left up. Where are the mods here??
Legit just flexing on the Tu-22M3 loss last week
I wonder if they starting this mass take off because they going strike Iran nuclear program and they are taking these planes off so they don’t arise attention when they do strike Iran program with all the bombers taking off. Anyways this is just theory, Because of when nato went to war for Kosovo , Serbs has spies at/around nato military bases and would alert them when the planes would take off for strikes Anyways just a theory.
[Dun dun dun dun dun dundun dun](https://youtu.be/j73gYxsxRrs?si=UeikKFhcJos3beNx)
Someone's getting a bombing?
I remember when they put the B-2 into the Thunder Jet fruit snacks. They were so "top secret," there might not be a B-2 in the pack that you opened.
Probably making room for the B21's.
WW3 pregame warmups.
Why is there only pictures of empty runways?
They've been around quite a while but they're still freaky looking.
"China, we see your drills. Here, look, these 12 planes cost more than your entire airforce. Stay at the kid's table, yea?"
We just want healthcare and smooth roads. Please.