For years, one of the more futuristic rumours about America’s new stealth bomber was that it might not need much of a crew at all — that the B-21 Raider could fly with a single pilot, or eventually none. This month the Air Force put that speculation to rest with a decidedly human answer: the Raider will go to war with two pilots in the cockpit.

Air Force Global Strike Command confirmed the crew complement in a statement, ending months of debate over whether the bomber would be flown by a pilot paired with a Weapon Systems Officer, a single aviator, or something more autonomous. Two pilots it is.

Why two pilots, and not a robot

The decision matters because the B-21 was designed from the start with autonomy in mind — it is expected to be capable of flying unmanned missions in the future. But for the manned role, the Air Force decided the workload of a penetrating nuclear-capable bomber, deep inside contested airspace, is a two-person job.

There is a twist that will please a lot of aircrew. Rather than shut out the navigators and weapons officers who have flown bombers for decades, the Air Force is launching a program to send selected WSOs and CSOs to Undergraduate Pilot Training, then on to the Raider — deliberately keeping their hard-won tactical experience inside the fleet.

The bomber America is betting on

The B-21 first flew in November 2023 and is now deep in flight testing, with Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota slated as its first operating base. It is meant to replace both the B-1 Lancer and the veteran B-2 Spirit, and the Air Force wants at least 100 of them — the backbone of the bomber force for the next half-century.

The crew announcement is a small line item in a vast program. But it settles a question that had taken on a life of its own — and reaffirms that, for now at least, the most advanced bomber ever built still puts two human beings at the pointy end.

Sources: The Aviationist; Air Force Times; TWZ; Air Force Global Strike Command; USNI News.