Inside the B-2 bomber pilots’ mammoth Midnight Hammer raid on Iran

Washington: In the years before they flew their 37-hour mission to strike Iran’s nuclear site at Fordow, the US Air Force pilots spent at least 24 hours straight in a B-2 bomber flight simulator.

In the days or weeks leading up to the mission, they most likely ran simulated runs on a target made to look like the heavily fortified site buried deep in a mountain.

A B-2 stealth bomber being refuelled at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri.Credit: USAF

Almost everything about the mission, flown from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, would feel the same – with just a couple of big differences, said retired Lieutenant General Steven L. Basham, who flew the plane in training and combat missions for nine years.

In the real mission, flown in the early hours of Sunday morning in Iran, the pilots would “feel the clunk” of their weapons bay doors opening, briefly changing the shape of the stealth plane and potentially exposing it to enemy radar.

The B-2s that attacked Fordow were each carrying two Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs designed to disable the deeply buried target. When the two-person crews released their payload, weighing a total of 60,000 pounds, their B-2 most likely surged briefly upward, Basham said.

For the pilots, it was almost certainly a new feeling.

Other bombers in the American arsenal, such as the B-1 and B-52, played big roles in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, dropping huge numbers of bombs in support of ground troops. But the B-2 – the most expensive plane in history, at $US2.2 billion each – played a much more specialised role.

For some of the pilots, Sunday’s mission was possibly the first time that they flew the B-2 in combat and dropped bombs. The strikes also marked the first use of the GBU-57 bunker-buster bombs in combat.

A US Air Force image shows a B-2 bomber being prepared for Operation Midnight Hammer, which struck Iran’s key nuclear sites.Credit: USAF

In the hours after the strike, US military and intelligence officials were still assessing the damage both to the site at Fordow and to the Iranian leadership’s psyche.

“Our hope is that the lesson that the Iranians have learned here is look, we can fly a bunker-buster bomb from Missouri to Iran completely undetected without landing once … and we can destroy whatever nuclear capacity you build up,” Vice President JD Vance told Fox News in an interview on Monday.

“I think that lesson is what’s going to teach them not to rebuild their nuclear capacity.”

The first 30-plus-hour B-2 missions took place during the 1999 war in Kosovo. At the time, the idea of flying a combat sortie and returning home in time to pick up the kids from soccer practice was still novel and a bit surreal for those flying.

“It is kind of weird to get dressed in your own bathroom and then go into combat,” one B-2 pilot told The Wall Street Journal in the early days of the Kosovo War.

Since then, B-2 pilots have flown combat missions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. The B-2 bombers, which were built to carry nuclear weapons, regularly fly deterrence missions in Europe and Asia from their Missouri base.

A B-2 bomber takes off on its 37-hour mission to strike Iran.Credit: USAF

The past 25 years have taught the Air Force and its pilots a lot about flying long missions. Today, staff doctors and physiologists at Whiteman Air Force Base specialise in helping B-2 pilots prepare their bodies to spend long stretches in the cockpit.

If they have sufficient notice, the pilots will try to adjust their sleep schedules so that their body clocks will be in sync with their mission.

Each B-2 is flown by a two-person crew. The small cockpit has room for a toilet and space behind the plane’s seats where a pilot can stretch out on a cot or a camping pad and take a brief nap. Both pilots are required to be in their seats during take-off, landing, aerial refuelling and for the duration of their time over enemy territory.

The planes are also equipped with small heaters to warm food, but many B-2 pilots prefer simple meals such as sandwiches on long missions. “You learn to drink a lot of water,” said Basham, who flew combat missions into Kosovo.

A B-2 prepares to land following Operation Midnight Hammer.Credit: USAF

The missions most likely played out in a similar fashion to the sorties that B-2 pilots flew in earlier wars. In those earlier missions, pilots saw anti-aircraft guns and missiles in the sky beneath them. This time, Pentagon officials said the Iranians did not get off a shot at the B-2s or their F-35 fighter jet escorts.

In earlier conflicts, the B-2 pilots were dropping, at most, 2000-pound precision-guided bombs. This time, the B-2s each dropped two 30,000-pound munitions over their target.

Basham could not help but wonder what it felt like to shed that kind of weight.

“It’ll be interesting to hear from the pilots,” he said.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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