Stamina and sunflower seeds: What it takes to fly B-2 bomber for 40 hours straight?
The B-2, designed by Northrop Grumman and costing around $2 billion each, played a vital role in recent strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites.
What it takes to fly a B-2?
Flying a B-2 Spirit stealth bomber isn’t just about pushing buttons and dodging radar. Before each mission, some lasting over 40 hours, pilots go through weeks of preparation, which includes more than just reviewing flight routes.
Food matters when you’re 40,000 feet up
Pilots are trained not just on tactics, but also on sleep cycles and diet. “We go through sleep studies, we actually go through nutritional education to be able to teach each one of us: one, what wakes us up and then what helps us go to sleep,” retired Lt. Gen. Steve Basham, who flew the B-2 for nine years before retiring in 2024 told Reuters. There’s only one small chemical toilet onboard, so what you eat matters. Some pilots turn to Sunflower seeds between meals.
Refuelling without sight
The B-2 can fly 6,000 nautical miles on one tank, but most missions need multiple mid-air refuellings. Because the refuelling boom connects 16 feet behind the cockpit, pilots have no direct view. They depend on lights from the tanker aircraft and reference points they’ve memorised. “At night, especially on moonless flights,” Basham said, this becomes “inherently dangerous.”
'Adrenaline kept you going before'
“Adrenaline kept you going before you went into country,” he added. “The adrenaline goes away. You try to get a little bit of rest and you still got that one last refuelling,” he added.
Coping with the hours
There’s a small area behind the cockpit seats where pilots can lie on a cot, but the rest is limited. Despite its sleek design and stealth features, meant to avoid detection by radar, heat and sound, the B-2’s success still depends on the human inside. Unlike older bombers like the B-52 or B-1B, which had larger teams, the B-2 flies with just two people.
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