There has been endless speculation over the past five years as to where America's next stealth bomber would be tested and when. That conjecture was officially put to rest during a fairly obscure regional business conference attended by Brigadier General Carl Schaefer, the boss of the expansive 412th Test Wing at Edwards Air Force Base. During his remarks he made it clear that B-21's testing home would be Edwards Air Force Base, and that the stealth bomber will be heading there sooner than some may have speculated.

In his address made on March 3rd, 2018 at the Antelope Valley Board of Trade and Business Outlook Conference, which was covered closely by the Antelope Valley Press, General Schaefer made the B-21's future basing crystal clear once and for all:

"For the first time ever, I would like to publicly announce that the B-21 will be tested at Edwards Air Force Base... Edwards has been the home of bomber test and now we also can publicly release that the B-21 is coming to Edwards and we will be testing it here in the near future."

Shaefer went on to say that team Edwards will ramp up its push to ready infrastructure and personnel needed to support the B-21 test initiative, both on the ground and in the air.

USAF It has been a couple years since the USAF circulated this cryptic concept art of the B-21 and we haven't seen any additional visuals since.

The last time I was at Edwards, roughly five years ago, it was clear that the South Base installation was undergoing a major transition. The USAF's B-52 and B-1 bomber test units had relocated to the expansive primary apron and South Base had been vacated, aside from the B-2 test unit, so that it could be prepared for a shadowy new program. Not long after my visit similar rumors began to permeate throughout military aviation community—something big was coming to South Base, and it was probably the yet to be named B-21 Raider, previously referred to as the Long-Range Strike Bomber, or LRS-B. It was possible that it could eventually be accompanied by a "family" of new systems that were supposedly in the works clandestinely to gain an upper hand on peer state competitors that had been closing the qualitative gap with the U.S. in recent years.

USAF/Edwards AFB PAO 1 Jul 1997 at Edwards - Upon the completion of the B-2 Engineering and Manufacturing Development phase, the Air Force Flight Test Center assumed control and security responsibilities for the B-2 compound at South Base. (File photo dated May 2000)

Fast forward half a decade and that bomber, now fully named but still highly classified, is moving toward a grand unveiling and the beginning of a formal flight test program. And there is no place on earth with more experience or the unique capabilities needed to support such an endeavor than Edwards AFB.

Google Earth The sprawling Edwards South Base complex offers additional security and unique facilities for high-end strategic programs. It has housed the B-2 program, ongoing test programs for the B-52 and B-1B, and the Airborne Laser program, among other initiatives. Aside from the B-2 test program occupying the smaller, low-slung hangar to the southeast of the massive hangar facility, it has become vacated, at least officially, in preparation for a new high-technology aircraft program.

Northrop Grumman The B-2 was highly active during the early part of its development and has remained active out of both Edwards AFB and Plant 42.

The B-21's planned trials at Edwards Air Force Base is in addition to Northrop Grumman's expansion of its facilities by a million square feet and its workforce by nearly 2,000 people at Plant 42 in Palmdale, California—located just 20 miles to the southwest of Edwards AFB. With the program likely to cost nearly $100B, and possibly much more if the USAF's ends up buying additional units, the B-21 enterprise will be a massive boon for the local "flight test valley" economy. But the big takeaway here is not just that the B-21 will indeed execute its test program out of Edwards AFB, but that it will be rolling out of the shadows to do so soon, at least according to the 412th Test Wing's boss. And this would make some sense timeline-wise as initial testing of pre-production airframes will likely take nearly half a decade before production can begin. This vibes with the basic timeline as we understand it, in which the B-21 will replace both the B-1B and B-2A in active service, an initiative that will start in the mid 2020s and roll through the middle part of the 2030s.

Facebook Gif B-2 makes triumphant very low altitude flyby of Northrop's Plant 42 facility during the early 1990s.