Gene Fraser, Northrop Grumman’s VP for Long Range Strike tells attendees today at AFA’s Air Warfare Symposium in Orlando that the company has upgraded four USAF B-2 bombers with advanced high frequency material as part of the second phase of a fleet-wide modernization program. Fraser said the new materials give the stealthy aircraft greater reliability, since AHFM reduces maintenance hours from a standard 80 to as few as four. The new materials coating replaces some of the most labor-intensive low observable processes with more efficient ones.
Demonstrating capabilities needed for its Agile Combat Employment concept of operating from scattered locations with a minimal logistics footprint, the Air Force flew an MQ-9 Reaper remotely-piloted aircraft across the Pacific, operating with none of its usual launch-and-recovery gear and with non-expert ground crews. It required only seven people and…