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By Jon Jackson
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Footage has emerged of the first reported flight of the U.S. Air Force's new nuclear stealth bomber.
The Northrop Grumman B-21 "Raider" was captured on video flying outside an aircraft manufacturing plant in Palmdale, California, on Friday. The test flight comes less than a year after the Raider was introduced to the public and less than a month after it was seen carrying out taxi tests on a runway.
On its website, the U.S. Department of Defense wrote the B-21 Raider "is expected to serve within a larger family of systems for conventional long-range strike, including intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; electronic attack; communication; and other capabilities."
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The Pentagon noted the design of the nuclear-capable aircraft allows it to be manned or operated remotely, and it is capable of employing "a broad mix of stand-off and direct-attack munitions."
Perhaps most notable about the B-21 Raider is that it's considered a "stealth" aircraft, which are often referred to as being "invisible" due to the bombers being hard for adversaries to detect on radar.
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Reuters reported there are six test B-21s in production now, and the Air Force is expected to buy at least 100 of the aircraft to replace B-1 and B-2 bombers.
The Raider's maiden flight on Friday was not announced by the Air Force, but spectators on the ground captured it in the air and posted images and videos on social media.
Among those that recorded the Raider was Matt Hartman, a freelance photojournalist, who posted a clip on X (formerly Twitter) of the B-21 soaring overhead.
Moshe Schwartz, a reporter for the website Yeshiva World News, also posted a clip on X of the B-21 flying near Palmdale.
"The B-21 Raider is in flight testing," Ann Stefanek, a U.S. Air Force spokesperson, told Newsweek in a statement. "Flight testing is a critical step in the test campaign managed by the Air Force Test Center and 412th Test Wing's B-21 Combined Test Force to provide survivable, long-range, penetrating strike capabilities to deter aggression and strategic attacks against the United States, allies, and partners.
Newsweek reached out to Northrop Grumman via email for further comment.
When the Raider was unveiled in a December 2022 ceremony, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin delivered remarks about the new bomber.
"It can handle anything from gathering intel to battle management to integrating with our allies and partners," Austin said. "And it will work seamlessly across domains, and theaters, and across the joint force."
Speaking about the Raider's stealth capabilities, the defense secretary said that "fifty years of advances in low-observable technology have gone into this aircraft, and even the most sophisticated air-defense systems will struggle to detect a B-21 in the sky."
Austin added: "The B-21's edge will last for decades to come."
Update 11/13/23 11:40 p.m. ET: This story has been updated to include a statement from a spokesperson for the U.S. Air Force.
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