The stunning sight of a B-2 Stealth Bomber 3-ship formation.
Filmed on Apr. 4, the video below shows three B-2s over Pittsburg, Kansas. The stealth bombers headed southwest then made a wide left turn and headed back northeast presumably back to Whiteman AFB, Missouri.
Although the Spirit bombers fly over Kansas quite often (3 to 5 times per month, according to our readers who live there), the formation with backlit contrails isn’t very common.
The result is quite stunning.
The B-2s are among the assets that might be involved after the very early stages of an attack on Syria, as happened in Libya or during Operation Allied Force in 1999, when the stealth bombers operated directly from Whiteman AFB, Missouri.
Interestingly, there’s been much speculations about what could be done to to spot an impending B-2 strike mission, for instance by watching tanker movements over the Atlantic. As I’ve already commented on Twitter, it’s really difficult, as the past operations taught: for instance, during the Libya Air War, the B-2 used a REACH callsign, usually allocated to tanker, transport and support aircraft, to remain invisible even to HF, VHF and UHF listeners who were able to listen to radio communications in the clear. This is I wrote back in 2011:
“This gives an idea of how the OPSEC problem was faced by the USAF: keeping in mind that aircraft spotters around the world, virtually interconnected by means of forums, websites, messageboards, Twitter, Facebook and any other social networking tool, are today capable of tracking aircraft movements even before aircraft depart their homebases with the various LiveATC.net, Flightradar24.com, ADS-B, etc., they decided to deceive them not using difficult and “suspect” zip-lip ops (no-radio) but masking aircraft callsigns.
The result was satisfactory as the strikes of the B-2s as well as the TLAM attack were almost unexpected in spite of the technology in the hands of the aircraft enthusiasts meaning that there are still ways to achieve strategical surprise, if needed…..”
Anyway, this video shows B-2’s continuous training over CONUS, operational activity aimed to prepare U.S. Air Force stealth bombers aircrews to strike targets all around the world.
The U.S. Air Force has just deployed three B-2 Spirits stealth bombers to Guam.
Three B-2 Spirit strategic stealth bombers along with approximately 200 Airmen belonging to the 509th Bomb Wing, Whiteman Air Force Base, were deployed to Andersen Air Force Base, in support of U.S. Pacific Command’s (PACOM) Bomber Assurance and Deterrence mission.
The stealth bombers, are due to be involved in what the U.S. Pacific Command defined a “short-term deployment” during which they will conduct “local and regional training sorties, and will integrate capabilities with key regional partners, ensuring bomber crews maintain a high state of readiness and crew proficiency.”
A B-2 Spirit, assigned to the 509th Bomb Wing, Whiteman Air Force Base, taxis on the flightline Jan. 8, 2018, at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam. Approximately 200 Airmen and three B-2 Spirits from Whiteman Air Force Base (AFB), Missouri, deployed to Andersen AFB in support of U.S. Pacific Command’s (PACOM) Bomber Assurance and Deterrence mission. U.S. Strategic Command bombers regularly rotate through the Indo-Pacific region to conduct U.S. PACOM-led air operations, providing leaders with deterrent options to maintain regional stability. During this short-term deployment, the B-2s will conduct local and regional training sorties and will integrate capabilities with key regional partners, ensuring bomber crews maintain a high state of readiness and crew proficiency (Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Joshua Smoot) .
Interestingly, the B-2s have joined the “several” B-1B Lancers deployed to Guam to support the U.S. Pacific Command’s (USPACOM) Continuous Bomber Presence mission. The Bones (using the nickname popular among their aircrews) have been involved in several shows of force around the Indo-Asia-Pacific region, but they can’t carry any kind of nuclear weapon. So, the B-2 deployment in the region brings a nuclear bomber capability closer to North Korea.
Still, it must be noticed that the U.S. Strategic Command bombers regularly rotate through the region to conduct U.S. PACOM-led air operations, providing leaders with deterrent options to maintain regional stability. The B-2s periodically perform round-trip missions from their homebase in Missouri, from where they have already proved to be able to hit targets located anywhere across the world. The last time the B-2s deployed to Guam was in August 2016 when the 509th BW conducted another short-term deployment: exploiting the presence of both the B-52 Stratofortress, B-1B Lancer and B-2 Spirit, on Aug. 17, 2016, the U.S. Air Force was able to launch the bomber trio in an unprecedented coordinated operation in the U.S Pacific Command AOR (Area Of Operations). The three aircraft launched in sequence from Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, performed a flyover and then dispersed to conduct simultaneous operations in the South China Sea and Northeast Asia.
Two of the three B-2s that are currently in Guam departed on Jan. 7, 2017 and arrived at Andersen Air Force Base on Jan. 8 using radio callsigns MYTEE 21, MYTEE 22. What would’ve been MYTEE23 went tech so it arrived on Jan. 9 alone.
This year, the B-2 was escorted by two F-35s from Edwards AFB during the Rose Parade flyover.
On January 1, 2018, a B-2 Spirit belonging to the 509th Bomb Wing from Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri, performed the traditional Rose Parade flyover. Noteworthy, two F-35 Lightning IIs from the 31st Test and Evaluation Squadron on Edwards Air Force Base joined this year the B-2 during the flyover at the beginning of the annual Tournament of Roses Parade and once again, Mark Holtzman, a California native with over 25 years of experience as both a photographer and pilot, founder of West Coast Aerial Photography, a company specialising in aerial photography based in Los Angeles, was airborne to take some jaw-dropping air-to-air images showing the Stealth Bomber and the F-35s from above.
The B-2 and two F-35s perform the Rose Parade flyover (Photo: Mark Holtzman)
Then, the B-2 opened the 104th Rose Bowl Game at the Rose Bowl stadium in Pasadena.
The 104th Rose Bowl Game is a semifinal for the College Football Playoff (CFP), matching two of the top four teams to compete for a spot at the 2018 College Football Playoff National Championship game. The 2018 Rose Bowl Game pit The University of Georgia Bulldogs against The University of Oklahoma Sooners.
[By the way, you can buy prints of the photos here].
Some unusual activity took place in the skies over Missouri a couple of weeks ago. Including B-2s referring to air strikes on DPKR target on the radio. Just routine stuff or a message to Pyongyang?
What appears to be a medium size exercise, involving several different assets, took place over CONUS (Continental U.S.) in the night on Oct. 19 and Oct. 18, 2017.
Tons of military traffic, including B-2s and B-52s bombers, E-3 Sentry AEW (Airborne Early Warning) aircraft supported by KC-10 and KC-135 tankers were involved in a series of simulated air strikes on little airports all over Missouri. Radio comms over unencrypted UHF frequencies as well as the use of Mode-S and ADS-B transponders allowed milair airband listeners in the area to monitor the operations and to catch some interesting details. Besides the rather unusual amount of traffic (at least according to people who have been monitoring military air traffic through radio scanner for the last 15 years), what is really interesting is the fact that, during one night, one of the aircraft radioed a message about a “possible DPRK leadership relocation site” whose coordinates pointed to a hangar located at the Jefferson City airport.
This is what one of our readers wrote to us:
On the evening of Oct. 17, my wife and I where sitting outside by a fire enjoying the evening.
Around 8pm we saw three B-2s and what appeared to be a KC-135 fly over on a heading of roughly 080 and an altitude of 25,000 or below. It was after dark but at that altitude B-2s are easily identifiable if they have navigation lights and strobes on from directly underneath. We get quite a few military aircraft in eastern Kansas and this was nothing unusual.
I have been monitoring military air-air communications as a side hobby for a number of years so B-2s as well so the overflight prompted me to run and grab a handheld scanner. Shortly after turning on the scanner I heard the B-2s working Kansas City center using “BATT” [a previous version of this article referred to the c/s as “Bat”, however, Spirit pilots pointed out the right c/s is “Batt”] callsigns (most of the time they tend to use REAPER or DEATH).
After about 30min had passed, I picked up the B-2s and other aircraft on another frequency where they where using military brevity. It was clear they where simulating some kind of battle. They where talking to another callsign MOJO getting tasking to drop GBUs on different targets. They read some target Lat/Lon over the radio: quickly plugging one into Google Maps I found they where dropping bombs on a hanger at Jefferson City, MO, airport going as far as discussing the fusing time for best effect on target.
The next evening I was ready if the exercise continued with more receivers in place and proper recording software. About the same time (roughly 8pm) they started up dropping bombs on targets with tasking from MOJO and WOLVERINE. One of the targets, consisting of several Lat/Lon sets, was the runway and hangers at Osage Beach, MO airport. At one point they called friendlies in contact and proceeded with a danger close 150m airdrop at the same hangar at Jefferson City airport as the night before.
This is the first time I have heard a exercise of this magnitude over this area.
The first night they tried to use HAVE QUICK frequency hopping and I heard several timing pulses but they couldn’t seem to get all of the members of the net setup properly (that could have been planed to practice contingency plans). They also didn’t employ any encryption that I could hear so the whole exercise was broadcast for the world to hear in plain old analog UHF AM. The most interesting part was when they radioed “a command post possible DPRK leadership relocation site” but when this was said I had not started recording it yet.
My opinion is that the Missouri Ozarks look a lot like North Korea, but we have no way of telling if something is planend or they are just preparing in case things go south.
The amount of money spent and the number of national assets involved sets this far above anything I have heard around here.”
Here below you can hear what this reader has recorded during the above drills. It’s just a 5-min audio file cut from a longer +30min version. However it gives pretty much an idea of what was happening on Oct. 18.
Was the exercise aimed at simulating a raid on a North Korean “VIP”?
Most probably yes. This is something that is being planned for months. Night missions of three-ship B-2 flights (using the very same callsign “Batt”) are standard practice as our recent story of three Spirit stealth bombers refueling over southwest Missouri few days before the above exercise was monitored proves.
What is weird is the fact that radio comms included a clear reference to a DPKR target. Indeed, it’s no secret that thousand radiohams, aviation geeks, aircraft spotters etc. use radio transmission to track military air traffic. For this reason, real ops are always conducted with a strict radio discipline, so that no detail is leaked to the “enemy” (or anyone who should not have the right to listen) and encrypted radio frequencies or frequency hopping techniques are used. However, the whole exercise was carried out on very well known unencrypted frequencies. This could have happened because of a mistake (usually names of enemy nations are never specified during radio comms) or on purpose, to let the word spread that the B-2 are preparing to attack North Korean targets. A sort of subliminal message such as the one sent with a video that showed, for the very first time, a Spirit bomber drop a 30,000-pound MOP (Massive Ordnance Penetrator) “Bunker Buster” bomb or one of the various show of force missions flown from the U.S. (or Guam) to the Korean peninsula.
Dealing with Mode-S transponders, these made some of the aircraft involved in the ops, visibile on flight tracking websites. However, this is far from being unusual: despite the risk of breaking OPSEC with an inaccurate use of ADS-B transponders many aircraft, including RC-135s, Global Hawks and other strategic ISR platforms operate over highly sensitive regions, such as Ukraine or the Korean Peninsula, with the ADS-B and Mode-S turned on, so that even commercial off the shelf receivers (or public tracking websites) can monitor them.
Okie 33 was a KC-135 supporting the B-2s during their simulated air strikes.
An E-3 Sentry also supported the Spirit bombers during their simulated air strikes.
The 14-ton GBU-57 is a 20-foot long GPS-guided bomb said to be able to penetrate 200 feet of concrete before exploding: for this reason it is considered the weapon of choice in case of attack on buried targets (such as the North Korean bunkers).
Whilst there are just a few images showing the GBU-57 carried by or next to a B-2 (we published one of these in 2013, here) you will hardly find any video of the B-2 dropping one of the two MOPs the stealth bomber can carry in its internal bomb bay.
However, we have spotted a clip of a MOP released from the B-2’s bomb bay in a recently published video from the 393rd Bomb Squadron, one of the units that operate the Spirit stealth bomber as part of the 509th Bomb Wing at Whiteman Air Force Base Missouri.
The impressive size of the MOP is pretty evident in the footage (skip towards the end of the video).
The MOP is sometimes mistaken with the 11-ton, parachute deployed, GBU-43B MOAB (Massive Ordnance Air Blast) also known as “Mother Of All Bombs”. The MOAB is the largest conventional air dropped weapon ever employed by the U.S. military: a U.S. Air Force Special Operations MC-130 Combat Talon II dropped the GBU-43B on an ISIS cave complex target in Afghanistan, for the very first time on Apr. 13, 2017.
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