Flying the USA's Newest Stealth Bomber (B-21 Raider) - Microsoft Flight Simulator

I'm sure you've heard of 5th gen fighters, but have you ever seen a 6th gen fighter? What's up guys and welcome back to Microsoft Flight Simulator. Today we are going to be hopping in the cockpit of the B-21 Raider. This is the newest stealth aircraft in the US's fleet. It was just unveiled a couple months ago and today we get to fly it. Inside the cockpit here, just a couple of seats and not really a lot of room to work with. This thing is beautiful. So it kind of looks like the B-2 stealth bomber. I'm sure a lot of you guys are aware of that, kind of grew up looking at that thing. But this is basically the next generation. It's the first ever 6th generation aircraft that was just unveiled in December 2022. And this thing will hold any target anywhere in the world at threat without any help from logistical support like fuel tankers and things like that. So this thing could fly to China and get intel or drop bombs or whatever else, which by the way, we can drop bombs with this thing by itself, which is just absolutely incredible. It is so futuristic. Not a lot's known about it yet. I do have some little fun facts and stuff. Of course, you guys know that, but let's get her started up. Before we do that, the side profile, this thing looks so, it looks like a spoon. It looks so silly, but this thing's a monster. Also, I love how we're parked right next to a Cessna over here. So inside here, we are going to flip the battery switch. We're going to flick the APU starter, and then we're going to fire up our left engine. And we should start to see the left engine over here start to fire up. Dude, look at the hump here. This is just such a weird looking air. It's like a little wedge. It's like a wedge salad, you know what I mean? Oh, there she goes. All right, she's firing up. We're going to wait for her to get up to the appropriate RPM, which I'm not sure what that is. I'm assuming if we've got smoke and things happening, that's probably a good start. So now we're going to be able to move this fourth switch over to the right engine, and we should be able to fire up this right engine as well. Oh, she's going. She is going. Also, I mentioned that we can drop bombs with this thing. Check this out. If we go over here, I'm going to open up our left bay. Oh my goodness, dude. Close it. We're going to be able to drop some bombs. There's some bombs in there. I didn't know you could do that in Flight Sim, but apparently we can here. There is an avionics switch, which I try to turn on and off, and nothing on the screens come up. So just pretend there's like a nice futuristic display or something. I'm envisioning this is probably going to be a lot more futuristic than this. Nobody knows anything about it. It was just unveiled. We've seen the outside of it. We've seen photos, but obviously something, this top secret is going to be kept under wraps. I don't know how to call for a pushback. I'm assuming that's what she's here for, but I guess we could probably just release the brake and try to move forward a little bit. There's not really a lot to work with here. We are at the Palmdale USAF. Oh, hello. Okay, we're good. We've got a little taxiway over here. So we're going to see if we could take this. I don't want to go too fast. This thing is obviously very weird about handling. It is a mod. It's not like an official thing in this game. I guess that could be understood. But yeah, so this thing, it first started design in 2011. 2023 this year is expected to be its first flight. It's supposed to be in service by 2027, and then it should replace the B-2 bomber by 2040. Should replace it entirely. It's very obviously a big upgrade. The B-2 bomber has been around for so long. This is going to be the new kingpin in the US air superiority. We'll probably never really hear much about it, but it's definitely going to make a big difference behind the scenes. So we're going to try to line up here on runway seven. She is very, very weird about how she wants to be handled. We're going to see if we could at least line up. And if we can line up, that means we're going to be able to take off. Just get her turns. All right, I think that should be good. We're going to see if we can take off here. Oh my goodness. There she goes. Look at that giant wedge shape, dude. This thing looks ridiculous. It's so bulbous in the middle, but then so flat and long and angular on the sides. I kind of love it. It's kind of silly looking, but in a good way. All right, we should be able to take off at this point, right? Oh yeah, we're up. Let's go ahead and put the landing gear up. Beautiful. There they go. Watch them tuck up in there. And now we are pretty much invisible. Nothing is going to be able to detect us, and we can pretty much fly anywhere we want in the world. And if we want to drop bombs, we can. If we just want to do some reconnaissance, we can. We can do pretty much whatever we want. How's the handling on this thing? Not bad. It looks like something out of like a futuristic space game that you would envision in like a sci-fi film. You know what I mean? This does not look real. Just kind of appreciate the curves a little bit here. Oh my goodness, dude. Look at that. Look at those really skinny intakes. Those are on top, so it's harder to read by radar. Obviously, the bottom side of this thing, I mean, it's made to absorb and deflect radar waves, so you can't pick it up. You can fly at like 60,000 feet, get way behind enemy lines, and they'll never even know you're there. So if you want to drop nukes, you can. If you want to drop normal ordnance, you can. If you just want to get behind the scenes, take some photos, take some video, report back where enemy troops are moving, and things like that, you can. So like I said, the name is the B-21 Raider, and that comes from the Doolittle raid back in World War II. I had never heard of this, but apparently there was this raid where there were 80 airmen and I think 16 bombers. They set off on a mission that changed the course of the war, and it was kind of like a catalyst of just how important it is to be dominant in the air, in the land, in the sea. You know, you can kind of control all of it if you have that air superiority. So it was, you know, from that point forward, the U.S. really focused on stealth bombing and, you know, obviously building the air program and things like that. And now here we have stuff like this today. Now, again, we don't really know much about it, and we probably won't ever know much about it, at least not for hundreds and hundreds of years. Obviously, this aircraft is going to have the most incredibly advanced systems and materials known to man, like things that have been in development for decades and decades and decades that we know nothing about. And it's hard to even say what it's going to have because we don't know. All we really know is that quote that I said earlier. Air Force, like, leaders, senior leaders said that it will hold any target anywhere in the world at threat with no logistical support. And that's a really big deal because currently with like the B-2, it can go do these things, but it's got a limited range. And if you've got limited range, that means you've got to bring tankers with you. You've got to be able to refuel in the air and those tankers are not stealthy. So it kind of gives the aircraft the way. Whereas this thing, through a mix of being able to hold more fuel, being more fuel efficient, having, you know, more efficient systems, it's going to be able to go out, do its mission and then come back or at least come back most of the way before it has to refuel, which is going to be a complete game changer. They've also set a cost cap on this thing. So it has a max price of $600 million. Their contract says that each unit can only cost $600 million, which honestly seems just absolutely unreasonable. The current B-2 bomber costs like $2 to $4 billion per unit when you calculate, like, not only the cost of the airframe, but also all the technology and, you know, research and stuff that went into it. So if you could get something out the door at $600 million, it's a quarter of the price or better. That's pretty good. And I think they've said they want to order about 100 of them, which right now there are only 20 B-2 bombers in service. So a lot of bombing going to be going on, for better or for worse. They've said that we just, we need a sixth generation new bomber to protect our freedom. So I guess that's what we're getting. The other big part about it, I found this really fascinating in my research. Apparently the Air Force really wants to focus on kind of like modularity going forward with its aircraft. So like the F-22 came out, but it took so long to manufacture and develop and get in their hands that by the time that you could get enough, it was obsolete. Technology just moves so fast that it works against it. You know, the F-22 was a great thing when it first came out, but they couldn't make them fast enough to make it worthy enough to keep up with other, you know, fighters that were coming out from other countries. So they've said going forward, they really want to focus on this concept of being able to upgrade, making sure that like the base of the aircraft is solid, but you can keep tinkering with it and upgrading it and it's modular and you can change pieces out and you don't have to completely restart the project from fresh every time. And apparently that's what this can do. So, you know, over the next 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years, this thing is going to ebb and flow and develop and, you know, add functionality to it. And you're not going to have to restart with a brand new airframe every single time. Dude, look at this. Oh my goodness. Imagine you were in one of these houses and you saw this flying over you. I wouldn't believe it. This looks like a spaceship. It truly does look like something out of a sci-fi movie. Like this doesn't make sense. Honestly, it kind of looks like an F1 car. When you look at these channels here, it looks like some big old side pods or something. You know what I mean? Wow, this thing is so cool, dude. Like a giant slice of pie flying through the sky. I can't put my finger on what this reminds me of. It's just, it's so weird. Just a giant cheese wedge flying through the air. How far are we from LA? Where's Palmdale? Oh, we're flying the wrong way currently. LAX is up here. Yeah, we're a long ways. Let's fast travel real quick. Okay, so we're kind of over by Disneyland right now. We're above Anaheim and we are headed towards LAX. I mean, it feels wrong, but it also feels right. I kind of wanted a target for these bombs. So we're, you know, instead of bombing an enemy, let's just bomb ourselves. You know, this is the peak of human innovation. It's really great if it helps protect us. It's also really sad what's capable with this. So let's maybe try to showcase a little bit of that. So we're going to go inside the cockpit here and these are our bombing things. You've got to open up the covers. So yeah, this is our left bay door here. When I click this, this bay is going to open up and you can see we've got some business down here. Right bay, open it up. We've got a lot of business down here. You guys see downtown Los Angeles off in the distance there. I mean, I think it's got to be done. This is taking a GTA server to a whole new level, dude. This is like GTA Unreal. I actually kind of feel bad about this, but we're going to do it. I'm not really sure how we're, you know, how early to deploy this. Obviously in real life, you're going to have a bunch of, you know, targeting systems and stuff to help you out. But all right, here we go. Open up left bay. It's open, sir. Open up right bay. It's open, sir. Let's go ahead and drop them. GBU release. Oh my God, dude, what? So these are like guided bombs. They've got little wings on them. These are the old school, you know, these aren't your grandpa's bombs that just fell to the ground. These things fly themselves and run into stuff. I don't think we actually have any explosions to work with. No, they're just going to disappear into the wind. But yeah, I'm sorry, Los Angeles. We had to do it. Going to take another strafing run on these guys just because they deserve it for making such great movies. Oh my goodness, dude, that is so insane. I don't know why pressing a button and pretending like I'm dropping bombs is so fun. Oh, we've got LAX. Do we want to go? Let's go land at LAX. Landing gear is going down. Beautiful. Trying to slow this thing down. We might've put that out a little bit early, to be honest, but it's going to be fine. LAX is over yonder. I mean, it's kind of like, you know, it's like Modern Warfare 2 when the enemies came in and, or Modern Warfare 3, sorry. When the enemies came in, they took over our home. That's just basically what happened there. We had to take care of business and make sure that our homeland was safe. Coming in here. I just feel like this thing is really, really fast. We're going to see if we can, if we can slow this down. Yeah, we're, we're coming in. We're coming in hot. I don't, I don't know if we're going to be able to, if we're going to be able to stop in time. I mean, a pretty easy landing. Pretty smooth landing, that is. Love it, dude. Look at that. Welcome. Welcome to the West Coast, baby. And with that, I think that concludes our flight. So I hope you guys enjoyed. Kind of a weird one because I can't say much about the plane because we don't really know much about it, but honestly, I had no clue it existed until I saw this mod. And I was like, wait, there's a new stealth bomber. We got to check this out. Now, before we head out, we're going to fly along the coast of California here. And I had to give a little shout out because this is actually really, really cool. And one of the most special things I've ever received. So a couple of weeks ago, I got an email from Bobby, who's in the Air Force. And it turns out that Bobby works on the F-35, like seat and canopy systems, the ejection seats. In his email, he said that they have almost 100 ejection seat and canopy systems that they work on. And every two years, the seats are pretty much fully replaced with new components and things. Obviously, that makes sense. These things see a lot of wear and tear. You want to make sure that ejection seat is working properly. So a lot of it gets trashed. And he takes these print straps and he makes key chains and little like lanyards and things for friends and family. And he sent me them. He said he really enjoyed the F-35 flight sim video. And since he works on the F-35A, he wanted to send me something from the jet. So these are literally straps out of a real F-35, which is just like, bro, that is incredible, Bobby. This is so cool. I find all of this stuff so fascinating. PIRD stands for Powered Inertia Real Device. The straps are really small. You can see here, they're not very wide. But apparently, they're pretty much like the seatbelt. They allow the pilot to move around in the cockpit. But if he's jerked really quickly, they'll lock in place kind of like a car seatbelt. And then also, if he does use the ejection, then these will pull the pilot straight back into his seat, which keeps his spine straight so that when you're shooting out of your cockpit with that much force, it's not going to break your back or anything. So these were in a real F-35 at one point, protecting the brave men and women that protect our country in those badass airplanes. And Bobby, you're a badass as well, dude. Thank you. This is so cool. I love this. I would give away one of the keychains, but I have a friend who's going after his PPL license, and I feel like he's really going to appreciate that. So I'm going to pass one of them on to a friend and keep one for myself. So thank you guys so much for watching. Just thought that was really cool. Thank you, Bobby. You're the man. I'll see you guys later. Let me know what we should fly next. Peace out.