America’s B-2 stealth bombers, which carried out the weekend attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, are among the most secretive aircraft in the nation, with few glimpses ever shown of its interior.
The US Air Force has only given a handful the opportunity to take a look inside the cockpit, where B-2 Spirit pilots are trained for their long-haul trips to carry out top secret bombing raids.
Documentary filmmaker Jeff Bolton was allowed to step inside a B-2 back in 2019 as it took off from the Whiteman Air Force Base outside Kansas City, Missouri — the first time a civilian journalist was allowed inside the bomber.
Whiteman Air Force Base — the home of the B-2 fleet — is also where all seven bombers launched for the 37-hour round-trip strike on Iran’s Fordow nuclear enrichment facility on Saturday.
A short clip of the Bolton’s B-2 experience shows the pilot maintaining a steady hand as he flew over US airspace, with the filmmaker’s camera panning across the aircraft’s intricate dashboard.
Bolton’s video harkened back to the first time America got a look inside a B-2 during a 1997 PBS episode with the late Huell Howser.
The episode featured a giddy Howser marveling at the aircraft and surprised at just how small the cockpit was, as it was barely able to accommodate him and both pilots he was interviewing.
Even though the military allowed Howser inside the plane, the bomber’s dashboard was turned off and windshield covered for security reasons, with the pilots reiterating the B-2’s need for secrecy above all else.
The bombers — which were originally designed to slip undetected into the Soviet Union and drop nuclear bombs — entered service in 1997, and each one costs more than $2 billion.
The US Air Force has a fleet of 19, and it’s the only US aircraft capable of dropping the 15-ton GBU-57 bunker buster bombs, which were needed to breach the Fordow nuclear facility, which is buried 300 feet under a mountain.
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