Stealth Bomber Flying Over My House

Yeah, you should be jealous . . . there’s a super awesome B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber flying all around my house!  I knew the Thunder Over Michigan air show was going on at Willow Run Airport all this weekend, but I wasn’t quite expecting to see an aircraft this unusual.

I was sitting inside my house when I heard the sound of jet engines, noticeably louder than the normal commercial jets that pass by high overhead.  I jumped up out of my chair and ran out into the backyard, and soon a very dark, angular, sinister looking airplane came into view, looking like a UFO or something that Darth Vader might fly.  I’m a big military aviation aficionado, and recognized the B-2 Spirit right away.

The B-2 is a four engine, nuclear capable heavy bomber operated by two crewmembers, with a 6000 mile range and a 50,000 foot ceiling.  The aircraft shape causes radar signals to be reflected away from their source, and special coatings absorb radar signals weakening their reflected strength.  However, the flying wing shape makes it inherently unstable; onboard computers must constantly make adjustments to the control surfaces just to keep the B-2 from literally falling out of the sky.

Production of the very expensive Spirit was stopped after 21 aircraft since the cold war was ending at the time.  The B-2 Spirit can carry many types of nuclear & conventional weapons including up to eighty 500lb bombs.  The Stealth Bomber has served in combat over Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

I saw the Stealth Bomber coming in from the southeast, the direction of the air show many miles away.  The sky was overcast with some nasty looking blue-gray storm clouds rolling by on high winds, & the B-2’s altitude was just beneath the cloud deck.  He made a very wide, sweeping, 360 degree turn around my house while in a very steep bank.  And then the B-2 Stealth Bomber made another wide 360 degree orbit around my house, before heading back in the direction of the air show.

My guess is that he flew up to the Hamburg/Whitmore Lake area to kill off some time, just to make sure he didn’t arrive too early for a scheduled flyover at Willow Run.  B-2 Spirit bomber crews are very highly trained to hit their Time-On-Target at the exact second.  The Stealth Bomber was just an awesome sight to behold, and the first one I’ve ever seen in person.

“Jet Noise . . . it’s the Sound of Freedom!”

(Picture from Bluedharma at Flickr Creative Commons)

Labels: Home and Garden, Thoughts