Anyone Here Like Vulcans?

[Mossie]

You're right Nev, but the reaction from the Northrop guys speaks volumes, also it would make it vulnerable during take off & landing if someone was to get close to the airfield.  I remember at the time there was a lot of negative publicity about the RAM degrading in rain.  Also, at a later airshow (I forget when & where, think it was the UK could have been Paris the following year) the USAF made a bad situation worse by flanking the B-2 with two F-15's.  The USAF said it was to 'protect' the still very secret bomber, yet it at wingtip seperation it was obvious that they could do nothing to help it from the malign intentions of the Hampshire Liberation Front.  It was damn obvious they were trying to mask the B-2 with the signature from the F-15's.  They could have said that at operational altitudes & distances that the radar interception was insignificant but instead they produced a PR disaster.  Rods & backs.

[Captain Canada]

If it had been flying @ 60,000ft+, 50 miles away, and they didn't know where it was

..and escorted by a flight of F-22s !

[nev]

You're right Nev, but the reaction from the Northrop guys speaks volumes, also it would make it vulnerable during take off & landing if someone was to get close to the airfield. 

ANY aircraft is vulnerably during take-off and landing - just ask Me262 pilots  

The B-2 isn't meant to be invisible to radar, its meant to reduce the detection range of enemy radars, such that the overlapping radar coverage in an IADS instead has big gaps in its coverage, through which the B-2 can fly.

[Mossie]

Nev, the point I'm trying to make is that it's probably not quite as stealthy as the manufacturers & USAF would like us (& maybe themselves, or at least the budget holders) to believe.  RAM degredation, possibly a bit of number fudging, means there are probably a couple of chinks in it's armour twenty odd years after it entered service.  The B-2 isn't entirely invulnerable, (especially during take off & landing) but it's supposed to be a heck of a lot less vulnerable than B-52 wearing a tinsle wig!  Being tracked by three different types of radar doesn't bode well.  I sometimes just think that some people in power have the Titantic mentality with the B-2, that's all!

[K5054NZ]

[Weaver]

Given that I work at Woodford, I shall be severely disappointed if I don't get to see this, even fleetingly, sometime soon.

Of course, that depends on someone at BAe actually remembering to tell us it's coming......