B-21 Raider bomber aircraft (photo : USAF)
Marles hints RAAF could buy B-21 Raider Bomber
Defence Minister Richard Marles has given his strongest hint yet that Australia could purchase the in-development B-21 Raider.
In an interview with The Australia yesterday, he was reported to have said the next-generation stealth bomber was “being examined”.
It comes days after US Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall surprisingly said his country would be “willing to talk about anything that there was an interest in from the Australian perspective that we could help them with”.
The B-21 is the ‘sequel’ to the UFO-like B-2 Spirit, which can carry nuclear weapons and costs $2 billion each.
Introduced in the late Eighties, the batwing bomber is seen as the US’ most prestigious and prized aircraft, with only 20 in active service.
It come weeks after five of the originals arrived at Base Amberley for a month of training with RAAF F-35s, in what was certainly its biggest ever deployment to the region.
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