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200 New B-21 Raider Bombers Could All Fail Thanks to a 1957 Tanker the U.S. Air Force Is Still Using

GSR Staff1 week ago1 week ago2 Mins Read

200 New B-21 Raider Bombers Could All Fail Thanks to a 1957 Tanker the U.S. Air Force Is Still Using
By Andrew Latham

B-21 Raider. Image Credit: U.S. Air Force.

B-21 Raider: America’s Most Advanced Bomber Has a 1950s Achilles’ Heel: Look at the photograph the Air Force dropped this week. Not at the B-21. At the other plane. A KC-135 Stratotanker hangs in the frame, boom extended, feeding fuel into the most capable strike aircraft the United States has ever built. That tanker entered service in 1957. Eisenhower was president. The Soviets had just put Sputnik in orbit. The aircraft keeping America’s sixth-generation stealth bomber airborne was already flying when tailfins were still standard equipment on family sedans — and nobody in the Pentagon’s press release felt the need to mention that.

B-21 Raider Taking on Fuel. Image Credit: U.S. Air Force.