It was in the mid-1970s when avionics discovered a new way of avoiding and intercepting missiles, other than sheer luck and God's will. We know it today as a plane's "stealth function" but back then, they could've just referred to it as an awesome miracle. Nonetheless, the concept was employed in 1976 when a design for a stealth bomber plane seemed plausible. The pioneering program for this was the Advanced Technology Bomber (ATB) which was introduced in 1979. During the later stages of this design competition, the only companies up for consideration were the Northrop/Boeing and the Lockheed/Rockwell teams. The contract was awarded to Northrop which, through designer Hal Markarian, introduced the design of the first stealth strategic bomber. The competition officially ended in October 1981 and the Northrop design was designated as the B-2 Spirit. In particular, the B-2A Spirit of Missouri was one of the first units that entered service. It was employed in March 1994 and was given the USAF number 88-0329. The Spirit of Missouri was basically similar to the rest of the B-2 units. It was powered by four F118-GE-100 non-afterburning turbofan engines, and was able to carry a considerable amount of bombs and missiles.
Posted by Panzer4F2 on 27th Mar 2015
The U.S. Air Force bought 21 B-2 stealth bombers from Northrop Grumman in the 1980s and 1990s at a price of more than $2 billion apiece, if you count development costs. You ca get a great looking scale replica from Aikens for significantly less.
When you buy one of these, get yourself a TU-160 too. It's also 1:200
scale, and they contrast well against each other.