Posted on 02/24/2012 9:09:08 PM PST by U-238
America's new long-range bomber program is "underway," will involve somewhere between 80 and 100 planes and will be delivered sometime in the mid-2020's. "And that's about all we're saying," Air Force Secretary Mike Donley told reporters. It's been known for some time that the bombers will not fly alone but will be part of a family of systems that may include UAVs and other systems.
The really interesting part of all this is the secrecy and why it's so dark. It would seem to indicate several things: that the U.S. does not want potential competitors such as China or Russia to know how advanced a system will be delivered or exactly what capabilities it will involve; that the Air Force is still putting the larger architecture together, deciding which capabilities will be available.
The bomber will almost certainly include an unmanned capability, but no one has made a formal decision yet, an Air Force source told me. Many of the important subsystems have not yet been chosen, this source said. Even presuming that the $4 billion for the bomber in the 2013 budget submission spread over five years is supplemented by a few billion more in the black budget that is not much money to build 80 to 100 planes that will cost at least $550 million each. Even if that is flyaway cost -- which excludes research and development costs -- building a bomber able to penetrate denied airspace and fly thousands of miles to do it without refueling has never been cheap.
(Excerpt) Read more at defense.aol.com ...
Don’t Tell Joe Biden...
Or for that matter...Obama
Given that this is the Obama administration, I’m guessing that this “Bomber” involves lots of helium, kite string, and a large (recycled) rubber band.
But, we'll need to look to the future.
What I hear now days is the concept of "clusters". A big bomber with a few small craft in company. One of those craft will have a pilot, weapons officer and a "cluster controller" which can be backed up via Satellite comms or another "cluster" if in range. The bomber itself will be unmanned.
The other smaller vehicles will be "threat suppression"...similar to fighters, though they will not supplant Raptors etc.
Of course this could all be drunks talking and I could be a chronic liar.
“will be delivered sometime in the mid-2020’s”
Hell, we won’t last that long with obama in charge.
Loose lips sinks ships. Let’s hope 0bama’s people don’t blow this one like they did the aftermath of the OBL raid..
I guess the real important thing will be the ability to run them from Riyadh, the Emirates and Tehran.
Or maybe 9 if the price get out of control. We were once going to have 32 next generation Destroyers. Current projection: 3.
Assuming that Obama doesn’t let Russia and China know what is beinf built.
Can the president ask for plans or anything?
Oh great.. Another military program for 0bama to unilaterally cancel simply because our adversaries want us to.
You are correct about those cost over runs.A comprehensive study of cost overrun published in the Journal of the American Planning Association in 2002 found that 9 out of ten construction projects had underestimated costs. Overruns of 50 to one hundred percent were common.Three types of explanation for cost overrun exist: technical, psychological, and political-economic.
Yep...”Oh boy, who can I sell our secrets to? My campaign coffers need an infusion.”
Thanks Josh for the article. The designs for the proposed bombers are great.
The USAF is planning to extend the B-52 life span until the year 2040. Its ridiculous to extend a bomber to that length of of time. They money the USAF is spending to extend the lifespan of the B-52 they could have a new bomber.
No problemo...Obama will refill with algae, or cow barf, or corn, or...does it matter? Obama will take care of the problem
Problem is, we found out how risky this UAW thing is over Iran.. I’d like to think it was a ‘Trojan horse’ mission but who knows..
Provided civilization makes it to 2040 (doubtful), lasers are going to be a force to be reckoned with.
The problem was that the Iranians used a GPS spoofing technique. There are GPS spoofing countermeasures out there which were not deployed by the CIA.Given the lack of attacker models, the proposed countermeasures
range from simple measures to constant monitoring of the channel.In consistency checks based on inertial sensors, cryptographic authentication, and discrimination based on signal strength, time of arrival, polarization, and angle-of-arrival are proposed
They’ll run on algae.
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