The US Air Force has drafted a new PDM or "Programmed Depot Maintenance" for the small strategic fleet stealth composed of 20 B-2 Spirit. The new maintenance contract signed with Northrop Grumman will reduce the cost of sustaining the bomber.
According to the new contract, maintenance involving the complete restoration of the aircraft's exterior surfaces will take place every nine years and no longer every seven. The new agreement will save around 900 million dollars by making the aircraft more available for aviation. The new nine-year revision cycle will reduce the average duration of a "PDM" to 365 days compared to the expected 400. The B-2 will enter the complete restoration phase at the rate of an aircraft every six months.
Last year, Northrop Grumman installed a new software package called "Flexible Strike Phase-2" on the entire B-1 fleet. The update was necessary to simplify the aircraft's management software for the aircraft. Previously, the aircraft had several programs for specific mission profiles. In the "Flexible Strike Phase-1" package, faster processors, fiber optic network, increased data storage and EHF communications via satellite are also planned.
Beyond the updates, the problem of the American strategic fleet is purely numerical. Twenty B-2 certainly cannot guarantee an optimal presence in all the theaters of war that see the United States engaged. In addition to the numerical problem there would also be that related to the average age of the entire strategic fleet. The average age of a B-52H is fifty-three years. The B-1B is around twenty-eight years old. The B-2A are the most "recent" systems with an average life of about twenty years.
Although in recent years almost every part of these aircraft has been replaced, one wonders how much of the bombers designed in the 1952 (such as the B-52), can be decisive in a conflict against a faction technologically on a par with the USA or with a system latest generation multilevel defense.
It should be remembered that it is the versatility of a weapon system that is decisive in a battlefield and not necessarily the technology guarded. Those twenty B-2A, however, are too few for all the wars fought in the world by the USA and the new bomber stealth it will not be ready before the 2020 / 2025.
The new LRS-B, it should be noted, are not designed to fight terrorists, but to penetrate Chinese and Russian airspace.
(photo: US Air Force)
