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.
A provision in the fiscal 2025 defense policy bill will require the Defense Department to include the military occupational specialty of service members who die by suicide in its annual report on suicide deaths, though it remains to be seen how much data the department will actually disclose.