AEROSPACE AND DEFENCE NEWS

摘要

THE FIRST B-21 RAIDER TEST AIRCRAFT IS ABOUT HALFWAY THROUGH AN EXTENDED PERIOD OF loads calibration testing, during which the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) Northrop Grumman is stressing a production-representative bomber to avoid risk during production. This intensive process has pushed back the aircraft's first flight plan to 2023 from its original schedule that was for late 2021. As per Northrop Grumman, the initial flight test aircraft has completed the first and most critical of three major loads calibration conditions as part of the process in a fixture at its Plant 42 facility in Palmdale, California. The OEM says that there are a number of 'major' conditions, a combination of stress on the airframe from zero to 100 percent to represent different flight and manoeuver conditions that the aircraft must meet before moving on to a roll-out and then first flight. The company has not yet provided the exact specifications of these metrics. "Northrop Grumman has put significant emphasis on production readiness as one of the many priorities and risk reduction efforts we have employed on the B-21 programme," says Doug Young, Vice President and Programme Manager of Northrop Grumman for its strike division. "From Day One, we have aggressively worked to seek out discovery early and to burn down as much production risk as early as possible." The B-21 is unique compared to other newly built military aircraft because the programme is intended to use the same production and manufacturing process for the initial aircraft as it will use for the entire production run. "In normal programmes, you do not typically build the test aircraft the same way you build a production aircraft. We did that differently on the B-21," Walden says, adding that the goal is to achieve an operational capability earlier.