MISTY 12 and 13 arriving from Lajes today.

As already reported, three B-2A Spirit bombers arrived at RAF Fairford for Bombert Task Force Europe deployment. The first aircraft, 82-1068 “Spirit of New York” arrived in the morning as “MISTY11”, followed, in the afternoon, by 88-0332 “Spirit of Washington” “MISTY 12” and 82-1070 “Spirit of Ohio” “MISTY 13”.

As usual, our friend Ben Ramsay of UK Aviation Movies was there and filmed the cool footage below that shows the two “black triangles” coming to landing on runway 27. Interestingly, the weather was good but also quite windy (250 degrees at 22 knots, gustings at 31 knots) and you can appreciate the continues movement of the elevons that on the B-2 are installed along the trailing edge of the plane. Since the aircraft has no vertical fin, the split rudders and the elevons are used to control the aircraft rotation along the vertical/yaw axis, whereas pitch and roll are controlled by means of (mid and inboard) elevons. The video also shows the Spirit’s peculiar exhaust and the wedge-shaped flap in the middle of the trailing edge, the GLAS (Gust Load Alleviation System), that counters the rolling impact or resonance to smooth out the ride of the B-2 in turbulent conditions and extend the aircraft’s fatigue life. The latter also smooths the ride of the B-2 in low altitude flight, even though the B-2 is predominantly designed for the high-altitude flight regime.