The Air Force carried out the largest B-2 Spirit fly-off in recent history when 12 aircraft—the majority of the nation’s stealth bombers—took off one by one on April 15 from Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo.
The event also created a massive elephant walk as the aircraft taxied to and took off from the base’s lone runway.
“Visual displays of power can serve as a reminder to potential adversaries of the overwhelming air power that the B-2 can bring to bear,” a spokesman for the 509th Bomb Wing, which operates the Air Force’s combat B-2 fleet, told Air & Space Forces Magazine.
The mass gathering of the iconic flying wing aircraft was a capstone of Air Force Global Strike Command’s annual Spirit Vigilance readiness exercise, spanning from April 8 to April 12. The last mass fly-off of B-2s saw eight bombers take off from the base during the 2022 iteration of the exercise.
“Exercises are both critical to our readiness and a powerful tool to demonstrate to the world that the B-2 is a credible and reliable strategic deterrent,” Col. Keith Butler, 509th Bomb Wing commander said in a release.
Col. Geoffrey Steeves, the 509th Operations Group commander, further highlighted the bomber’s unique capabilities as part of the nation’s nuclear triad of nuclear-capable B-2s and B-52s bombers, land-based Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles, and Ohio-class submarines. The air and land legs both fall under AFGSC.
“As the world’s most strategic aircraft, the B-2 has an outsized effect on great power competition,” Steeves said in the release. “The B-2 is the only aircraft on the planet that combines stealth, payload, and long-range strike.”
The display of the service’s bombers is also a reminder of the stealth bomber capabilities following months of fleet-wide stand-down after two separate accidents involving two Spirits at Whiteman. In September 2021, a B-2 was involved in an incident after an issue with the landing gear, followed by another accident in December 2022. Both bombers were damaged in the incidents, which prompted a months-long safety stand-down of the fleet until May 2023 after the 2022 mishap. The service officials said that despite the pause in flight, the B-2s could deploy if ordered during that period.
Since then, the B-2 has been deployed to Europe for NATO-related missions, flying across the North Sea alongside the U.K.’s Royal Air Force fighters. The Spirit’s highly anticipated return was highlighted when a single B-2 soared through the skies of southern California for the Rose Bowl in January, reinstating the football game’s tradition after missing the flyover in 2023.
The B-2 jets entered service in the early 1990s as the Air Force’s first stealth bomber, and fewer than two dozen were produced. After a crash in 2008, the fleet was reduced to just 20 aircraft. Whiteman is the home base for the nation’s combat B-2s, though the service also typically has a test aircraft assigned to Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. The service has outlined plans to retire the fleet once the B-21 Raider, another flying wing produced by Northrup Grumman, enters service in substantial numbers in the 2030s.