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Pentagon Picks Northrop Grumman For Next Gen Bomber (theatlantic.com)
retroworks writes: The B-52s currently in use have been flown by three generations of American Air Force pilots. B1s and B-2 Bombers are also long in the tooth. The Pentagon has been looking for a new model to replace them, and Northrop Grumman has won for the next half-century with a major new order for state-of-the-art bomber aircraft. The bomber will be capable of carrying nuclear weapons, and the contract is worth almost $60 billion. The Atlantic reports, "While the current fleet remains useful, the Air Force wants a bomber that can evade the advancing air defenses of Russia and China—if ever the need arises. The long-range bomber would act as a deterrent against actions designed to keep U.S. forces out of a designated area—what the military calls 'anti-access aerial denial.'"
I'd say it was easily doable if it was a B-52 style 'bomb truck', perhaps even being supersonic like the B-1.
But if it has to survive against modern air defenses that means stealth AND speed. I'm thinking of something like a supersized F-22 or 35.
As such, I'm with Richard - 100 craft delivered for less than the cost of F-35 development? Even if it's just scaling up a F-35, I don't see it happening.
I don't read AC A human right
Actually, its not just speculation - the program is already fairly mature as all competitors have flown demonstrator scale versions and developed their entries to a higher level than normally required to. As an example, both the F-22 and F-35 programs were awarded based off of non-representative demonstrators, and the actual production examples were then developed from scratch after the contracts were awarded - in this case, the competitors were required to fly demonstrators based on the production examples, and were fully funded to that goal. The winner now gets to continue development on to full scale.
Why the change in approach? Because its run by a different office than normal acquisitions - the LRS-B contract competition was run by the Rapid Capabilities Office, which also handled such programs as the X-37 and thus isn't bound to the normal acquisition rulebook.
Firstly, the B-1B only has supersonic dash capability at low Mach - it lost the ability for sustained high Mach flight during its redesign between Carter and Reagan (specifically, it no longer has variable intakes so high Mach airflows are out of the question). Its a fine platform, but its also devilishly expensive to operate, having more than twice the per-flight-hour cost of the B-52.
The B-2 is also a fine platform, but its also very very expensive, and incredibly maintenance heavy. It requires specialist hangars and maintenance routines due to the age of its stealth technology, while more modern techniques means aircraft such as the F-22 and F-35 require much less preventative and ongoing maintenance solely for its stealth capabilities.
When it comes to dropping bombs, the B-52 is still the most cost effective, and has the lowest per-flight-hour cost of any heavy bomber currently in the USAF capability range - the point of the LRS-B contract is to produce a much more cost effective aircraft to replace both the B-2 and B-1B, bringing costs much more in line with those of the B-52.
I thik it's NorthrOp not NorthrUp.
La culpa no es del chancho...
They padded it out with a bunch of paperwork just so everyone could save face; but I'm told that the actual bidding process was "We need a new bomber. Which one of our military aircraft oligopolies isn't responsible for the F-35? Ok, them then."
Yes, we do. Bombers get old. And we no longer have the capability of building B-52's. The assembly line is long since gone to wherever old assembly lines go when they stop making something.
Since the B-52 is pre-interwebs and mostly pre-computer, recreating the ability to manufacture B-52's is likely to be even more expensive than designing a new bomber from scratch, even ignoring that we want stealth and other fun things in a new bomber.
Note that the B-1 and B-2 suffer some of the same problems - not making them anymore means recreating the ability to make them with modern machine tools may be as hard as or harder than starting a new bomber from scratch.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
I guess you could detect a radar shadow of cm waves coming from a satellite.
There are potentially techniques to fight this though. There are the metamaterial invisibility "cloaks", also with lots of phased arrays on the bottom of the plane you might be able to detect the incoming radiation on top and relay it to the bottom.
Not a technology demonstrator, it is a classic boondoggle. Gen. Smedly Butler was right when he wrote that war is a racket. This is about money, and nothing else. The US taxpayer is getting fleeced over and over by these overpriced, unnecessary, unneeded weapons systems. But it is damn good for business, if you prefer your business to be focused on weaponry.
A brain is a terrible thing to waste... Mind? That's debatable.
Just weld some bomb releases on that badboy and let it do it. It will be cost efficient having only one airplane model
Fortunately, there are almost no people like that in the US, despite fabricated horror stories by people with selfish political and economic motives
Do you live in a small town? Or do you live in a city and just never go outside? Or have you actually become blind to homeless people or the parts of cities in shambles?
East Coast, West Coast, all cities have parts that are either in dilapidated housing or have no housing at all. Even Minneapolis and St. Paul up north in MN have huge homeless populations as well as those without adequate housing amenities.
We already have well-funded social programs for those issues. They date back to the 1930s. More money isn't the answer.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
The median hourly compensation has fallen in the last 40 years while productivity has more than doubled.
The rich have doubled their ownership, CEO pay has tripled or more.
A basic education is now out of reach for many, and globalization and rampant immigration have mostly annihilated upwards mobility.
You're right, the safety nets established 80 years ago are now ineffective. Time for something much more disruptive.
We need new military hardware that won't be used? Who are we going to fight, Russia? Please. Not only is the public getting fleeced repeatedly with these useless weapons systems, some of the public apparently enjoy being ripped off and getting nothing for it. How about some repaired bridges?, how about a smart, renewable electric grid? How about funding our public schools? How about tuition free community colleges? How about Medicare for all? How about doing something more productive like going back to the moon, and then to Mars with some of those tax dollars? At least we'd get some good pics, videos and rock samples from that. You get nothing from an unneeded, unused, duplicate weapon systems.
A brain is a terrible thing to waste... Mind? That's debatable.