B-2 Spirit at the 2005 Edwards AFB Air Show

With no tail the stealth bomber relies on the control surfaces along the rear of the wing to minimize side-to-side yawing motion; you can see one of those control surfaces deployed here.   During a mission these control surfaces would make the aircraft more visible to radar, so it's thought that yaw is then eliminated by the onboard computer systems applying differing thrusts from the engines on either side.   The funny looking "beaver tail" at the tail end of the aircraft is called the GLAS or "gust load alleviation surface", an on-board computer uses it to smooth out the ride when sensors at the front of the plane detect vertical gusts.

The four non-afterburning engines are buried within the wing.   Apart from everything else, this makes the aircraft very quiet, it just whispers past you even at low altitude.

The B-2 might look futuristic, but the basic design isn't new at all, the same manufacturer Northrop did two very similar designs just after world war two, the propeller driven B-35 shown on the left and the jet driven B-49 on the right.

As I mentioned, Edwards is just about the only airshow in the world where you'll actually see a B-2 doing a banking pass at a public display.   The air force's preference for very tame demonstrations is largely due to the high cost of each aircraft - somewhere between $2.2 and $2.4 billion apiece, making it by far the most expensive plane in the world.   This price tag is primarily due to the small number built, only 21 rather than the 132 which were originally planned.   It's fortunate that any entered service at all, the cost of the programme and the reduced need for it in a post cold war era could have meant that it never got into operation - where would we aviation enthusiasts have been if that had happened!   Still, it's sobering to think that this plane is actually worth about twice its weight in gold, a pretty penny if ever there was one! 

    The previous banking shots were taken from the crowd side, but this one was taken from the south side of Edwards, as were all of the runway shots. 

    The dark spot to the left of the cabin is a glass port for the astro-inertial navigation system, which locks onto stars to determine location.   At high altitude this system works even in daytime, and is similar to a system which was used on the SR-71 Blackbird.   All B-2s now incorporate GPS receivers to make navigation even more precise, but the astro-navigation system is retained because it can't be jammed.

    The "D" shape on the cabin roof behind the cockpit houses the aerial-refueling receptacle, which gives the B-2 a range limited only by the endurance of its crew.

    Here's something else you won't see at a regular B-2 display - a pass with the two bomb bay doors open.   You can just make out the zig-zag panels at the front and rear of the doors which bounce radar energy away.   Still, with the doors open the plane is more visible on radar, so the bombing systems are designed to minimize the amount of time they stay like this.

    This shot also shows one of the bright red navigation beacons lit up under the wing, allowing the aircraft to operate safely in regular airspace; in combat these beacons are withdrawn to make the plane stealthier.

    The old and the new flying together during the mass flyby at the end of the show, a 1990s B-2 Spirit with a 1950s B-52 Stratofortress.

    Despite its unrivalled ability to penetrate heavily monitored and defended airspace, the B-2 is actually inferior to the B-52 in a number of ways, especially in its bomb carrying ability - the B-2 can only take 40,000 pounds (18 tonnes) of weapons compared to the B-52's 70,000 pounds (32 tonnes).

    However, the Spirit has excellent range - 6500 miles (12000 kilometers) without refueling, and it was sometimes flown on round trip bombing missions over Iraq from Missouri.   These missions took over 30 hours, and apparently one flight of 50 hours was done, which certainly would have required in-flight refueling.   There are only two crew members and not many amenities on board, though apparently a chemical toilet and roll-up mattress are usually taken, and there are even reports of fold-up deck chairs being carried.

There is no drag chute, but one of the B-2's design criteria was the ability to operate from any airfield useable by a 727 airliner, so the rudders are used as air brakes to slow the aircraft down.   This design feature was also used on Northrop's earlier flying wing bombers, and it's referred to as a "rudderon" or "deceleron" because the same panels which are deflected apart to decelerate the plane are also moved in tandem to act as rudders or ailerons.