The cost of new US bombers has surged
2026-08-20
Recently, American B-21 bomber manufacturer Northrop Grumman announced during its Q3 earnings call that it hopes to sign a new contract with the US Air Force before the end of this year. According to data released by Northrop Grumman, the B-21 project incurred a loss of $477 million in the first quarter of this year, with the company's net profit decreasing by nearly half year-on-year. Relevant personnel believe that the main reason for the decline in profits of Noge Company is the sharp increase in research and development, manufacturing, and other related costs of the B-21 project. Last year, Northrop Grumman claimed that the B-21 project incurred a loss of nearly $1.2 billion. As of April this year, the project has incurred losses of up to $2 billion.
From the current perspective, there are two reasons for the significant increase in the cost of B-21 bombers.
On the one hand, the cost of raw materials has increased. The manufacturing of B-21 bombers relies heavily on high-tech materials such as semiconductors, rare earth materials, special alloys, composite materials, and stealth coatings. Many of these materials are difficult to localize in the short term and can only rely on imports. Affected by multiple factors, the material and labor costs of the US aviation industry have recently increased significantly. The cost of aviation grade steel supplied by Canada has increased by about 25%, and precision sensors, radar systems, and engine components produced by suppliers from Japan, Italy, and other countries have also increased. The risk of supply chain rupture and cost pressure for the B-21 project have sharply increased.
On the other hand, there have been frequent changes in demand in the early stages. The B-21 project adopts a fixed price contract model, which does not allow for price adjustments due to cost increases. Any cost overruns will be borne by Noge Company. The original intention of this contract was to incentivize Northrop Grumman to reduce costs and increase efficiency, but the B-21 project was technically complex and the demands of the US Air Force were constantly changing. Northrop Grumman had to adjust its production line and increase testing processes, resulting in higher than expected engineering and testing costs for the early fighter jets. For example, the US Air Force requires the B-21 bomber to expand its mission scope and undertake air-to-air tasks including intelligence gathering, coordinated defense, and drone command. However, the fixed price contract does not include the budget for upgrading fighter jets such as installing new data links and electronic warfare kits, resulting in an increase in the development and production costs of the B-21 bomber.
At present, the main active strategic bombers of the US Air Force are composed of B-52H, B-1B, and B-2 models. Since 2021, B-52H and B-1B bombers have been severely aging and facing challenges in modernization and upgrading; The B-2 bomber fleet has been grounded multiple times due to flight accidents. To this end, the US Air Force proposed the B-21 project in 2012, hoping to establish a bomber force centered around the B-21.
In order to catch up with the schedule, the B-21 project relied entirely on digital engineering technology and did not produce prototypes. Some systems were put into production while still under development, and many "time grabbing" measures greatly compressed the time from the beginning of development to production of the B-21 bomber. Ground testing and first flight testing were completed by the end of 2022 and 2023, respectively.
It is precisely this radical research and development strategy that has led to continuous quality issues with the B-21 bomber. The first flight was delayed due to technical issues, and then three test flights were forced to be interrupted due to frequent software failures. Last September, Edwards Air Force Base in California experienced a power outage, causing the B-21 bomber's data link to crash on the spot and multiple drones to go missing, exposing the insufficient reliability of the data link and the system's ability to resist electromagnetic interference.
The US Air Force regards the B-21 project as a national defense strategic priority. In July of this year, Northrop Grumman received a $4.5 billion grant to increase the production capacity of B-21 bombers.
At present, Northrop Grumman has delivered 4 B-21 bombers to the US Air Force, including 2 flight test aircraft and 2 ground test aircraft. In the future, it remains to be further observed whether the B-21 bomber's "test flight and production" mode can accelerate the service progress of the fighter jet, and whether Nog can effectively control production costs. (Looking into the New Era)
Edit:He ChenXi Responsible editor:Tang WanQi
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