Program May Be Revived

There is a growing likelihood that the B-2 Stealth Bomber program, which was a powerful L.A.-area economic force until it was ended last summer, will be put back into production soon, according to Pentagon and aerospace industry officials.

Such a move would represent a significant boon to the local economy, creating several thousand high-pay jobs at Northrop Grumman Corp.’s Palmdale production plant and many more at local subcontracting facilities.

“This would really be the icing on the aerospace cake,” said Larry Grooms, president of the Greater Antelope Valley Economic Alliance. “Our aerospace sector has recovered well from the last recession. The revival of the B-2 program would bring us back to a point we haven’t seen in probably 15 years, in terms of employment and payroll. It would be marvelous for the whole regional economy.”

Indeed, the B-2 program was one of Los Angeles County’s biggest defense employers during the past decade. At its early-1990s’ peak, the Palmdale-based program employed 13,000 workers, who assembled and delivered 21 of the state-of-the-art stealth planes from late 1993 through last summer.

Now, with the Pentagon shifting toward defense of terrorist and other non-nuclear attacks, the B-2 is re-emerging as a “smart weapon” of choice.

“One aspect of the (Pentagon) strategy will be to strike anywhere on the globe in short notice and very, very precisely,” said Paul Nisbet, a partner at Newport, R.I.-based JSA Research Inc., which just completed a study of Pentagon spending priorities. “Probably the only way you can do it well is with the B-2 bomber. It’s the only combat aircraft we have that has the range and speed capability. It will be necessary to buy more B-2s, at least doubling (the existing fleet of 21 planes) and perhaps tripling it.”

Program costs

The study concluded that 21 more bombers delivered between 2007 and 2013 would cost about $20 billion. Each plane would cost $500 million to $700 million to build, with the remainder being spent on upgrade-related research and development.

Definitive word of the B-2 program revival is expected by February. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is currently overseeing the quadrennial review of Pentagon spending priorities. Although that classified study is expected to be complete in late September, its contents likely will not be made public until February, when Rumsfeld submits his wish list for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, 2002.

Meanwhile, approximately 1,000 employees currently remain at Northrop’s Palmdale plant, handling maintenance, repair and upgrades on the existing B-2 fleet.

Economic bonanza

Restarting the production line would mean hiring thousands of new employees, although Northrop officials said the number this time around would be less than the 13,000 who were employed in the original program.

Air Force officials are not hesitant about expressing their satisfaction with the B-2, but they are concerned that costs might derail their efforts to increase the fleet.

The original 21 planes cost a combined $28 billion, but that included a massive planning, research and development effort spanning at least a decade. And while another 21 planes would only cost $20 billion, according to JSA Research estimates, that is still a considerable expense.

“The Air Force really can’t afford it without a rise in the budget,” said a Pentagon source who requested anonymity. “It is a great plane. Nobody’s doubting that. In my personal opinion, we would want more. (But) we live in a financially constrained environment.”

Taking advantage of the B-2’s ability to be refueled in mid-air by tanker aircraft, the Air Force relied heavily on six of the stealth planes for 30-hour missions from the fleet’s home base near Knob Noster, Mo. to Kosovo and back, from March through June 1999.

Although the B-2s’ 45 missions represented less than 1 percent of all U.S. air attacks during the four-month conflict, the planes unleashed 1.3 million pounds of bombs and missiles, or about 11 percent of the military’s total, records show.

Most importantly, every plane returned home unscathed.

“As far as we know, we were never seen (on radar) by the enemy,” said Air Force Capt. Brett Ashworth. “Certainly, (the B-2) is the world’s most capable long-range bomber.”

Officials at Century City-based Northrop, meanwhile, have been careful to avoid making any public pronouncements about the growing likelihood that B-2 program will go back into production. But company officials said they have “briefed” the Bush administration that the production lines are already prepared to start if funding is approved.

“We’re prepared to do whatever the customer asks us to do,” said Larry Hamilton, a Northrop spokesman.

Liberal threat

Possibly posing the biggest threat to the B-2 program’s revival are liberal Democrats, who generally favor lower-cost “tactical” weapons such as the F-18 and F-22 fighter jets over the more-expensive “strategic” weapons like the B-2, said Nisbet.

(Tactical planes have smaller payload, or bomb-carrying, capacity and are designed for smaller-scale attacks, as compared to strategic planes.)

It was the Democrats, after all, who limited the initial program to 21 planes after the Republicans requested 120 of them, Nisbet pointed out.

And the new power shift in the Senate caused by former Vermont Republican James Jeffords’ switch to an Independent won’t help. His stunning announcement meant the ouster of Virginia Republican John Warner as chairman of the Senate Arms Services Committee, with Michigan Democrat Carl Levin now holding the post.

But with a Republican-controlled House, Nisbet predicts that Rumsfeld will restructure spending priorities and find a way to gain approval for the B-2 anyway.

“We can handle the cost,” said Nisbet, of the $2.5 billion-a-year estimate. “It would be one-half to three-quarters of 1 percent of the total defense budget. That’s certainly not too much to spend on a weapons system that you believe is providing a substantial capability that you couldn’t otherwise have.”

And with the military redesigning its “smart weapons,” the B-2 would be able to increase its per-mission payload from a dozen 1,000-pound missiles or bombs to as many as 150 300-pound weapons making the plane even more appealing to the Air Force, JSA analysts concluded in their report.