Crafting History – B-2 Beginnings transcript

[Music] growing up you know anything that was broken in the house I usually ended up taking apart I had no idea what I was doing but somehow when I put it back together it usually [Music] worked there was this company called northrope and they were building this gigantic facility and there was all kinds of articles in in Popular Mechanics and Aviation leak about you know this top secret bomber program so um we all you know applied for these jobs they brought a whole bunch of us down they're saying hey do you want to work on the coolest airplane ever something you've never seen before my mother worked for Northrup in the treasury Department and uh she called and said hey northr just won a big program we're going to be starting up a big hiring so I went and applied and got the job my mom she said what are you working on Mom I can't tell you what I'm working on it's a program that's classified first day at north of grman we walk into this room through a metal door and there it is a gigantic full scale mockup of a B2 and it's huge an IP is an integrated product team we got challenged to actually do ship 7 in a lot quicker time than what normally took it was named the pirate ship Steve was the air vehicle manager Jolene was the person that was in air vehicle 7 IP every morning I don't know what you guys are going to be doing today we you're not getting anywhere near the airplane wherever you say Jolene cuz you don't say no to Jolene the different thing about the B2 is they are the first ones that go in they knock down the doors allow other planes that are not stealth and do their job we're kind of breaking new ground very complex system so complex it makes defensive management system and offensive management system on the be one to seem rudimentary a lot of naysayers and they all came out of the woodwork oh it'll never fly you guys are going to kill the pilots you know you better get it right because we were responsible for these Pilots lives first flight was July 17th daughter was born July 1st so luckily she came in time my daughter was wrapped up in a little bundle in the back of the camper and then we were up at sunrise waiting for it to fly it's all about first flights cuz you spend years and years and years of working long hours and it wasn't because we had to be we wanted to be cuz there's always something going on on av7 I called my father and I said make sure you bring your camera so he starts filming and uh nothing nothing nothing and I can see a little sliver it comes to the end of the runway and it comes up and it just becomes from barely visible to huge and it flies right over our head it still gives me chills I'll never forget that experience he was he was so proud when it flew over it was one of those Goosebump moments that you just it was awesome you know clearly the effect of that program had on I'll call it that generation of Aerospace workers I'm no different than anybody else you can talk to any one of a hundred people a thousand people that worked on the B2 and they'll tell you the same stories I did I I wouldn't shrade my experience on the V2 for anything [Music]