The B-2 stealth strategic bomber, as the only known stealth bomber in the world, has been a "myth" in the US aviation industry for a long time. However, this fighter, which has always been regarded as the most precious fighter by the Pentagon, has recently made the Pentagon bow to reality.
A few days ago, a source from the "Global Times" pointed out that because the maintenance is too complicated and the maintenance cost is high, the US Air Force has been discussing how to face a B-2 strategic bomber that had an accident during this time. In the end, after discussion, the US Air Force decided to retire the accident aircraft directly.
This also means that now there are only 19 B-2 stealth bombers available in the entire United States army, although there are B-21 as a replacement, but except for the first flight last year, B-21 has not moved until now. Many people suspect that at that time, it was for the increasingly tense Sino-US game, and the forced test flight, and a series of subsequent tests and research and development were not completed.
As for the "overly complicated and expensive maintenance" in the official mouth of the United States, it is difficult to say whether the cost of maintenance is really too high, or whether there are too many people in the middle of the "outstretched hand". This "big baby" cost 2.4 billion US dollars, equivalent to about 17.3 billion yuan. The few cases where data has been recorded are when the United States spent $10.1 million on the maintenance of the 2021 B-2 landing failure. The B-2 Guam fire in 2010 cost $105 million. Looking at the maintenance costs of other US fighters horizontally, it is indeed a bit outrageous.
I checked, this time the United States said that it would give up the maintenance of the B-2 that was directly decommissioned, it should be the B-2 bomber that had an accident at the end of December 2022. At that time, a U.S. B-2 bomber made a forced landing at Whiteman Air Force Base in the United States due to a "flight failure", and a fire broke out during the forced landing. But two years have passed, and the US military still has not announced what exactly the "flight failure" was. More critically, in May 2023, the U.S. defense website "Engine" also revealed that internal Pentagon analysis reports seem to believe that there is a connection between the accident and the accidents in 2008 and 2021 in which the B-2 landed off orbit and caught fire. However, the specific reasons have not yet been investigated.
This "connection" is very subtle. This means that there may be a problem with the design of the B-2 bomber itself, not simply pilot error, or internal mechanical failure.
This thing is quite emotional. It was only after the collapse of the Soviet Union that year, and the technological breakthrough at the peak of the United States' national strength led to the emergence of a large number of "black technology" military industries. Now it has fallen to a point where the cause of the accident cannot even be found, and the problem is unclear. In 2021, the United States once engaged in a "reverse engineering" bidding. And the object of "reverse engineering" is actually its own B-2 bomber. That is, in previous years, the United States has already lost the ability to fully repair the B-2. From this point of view, I am very skeptical that the reason why I didn't repair it was because I couldn't bear the cost. Instead, it simply loses the ability to repair and cannot change the problems left over from the beginning of the design. can only endure the pain and turn the most precious fighter into scrap metal, making 17.3 billion go down the drain.