Air Force to earmark billions for new bomber

[deadparrot]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Air Force will earmark billions of dollars in its next five-year budget plan to help meet the Pentagon's goal to develop a new long-range bomber by 2018, a defense official told Reuters on Thursday.

The official said the timetable was aggressive but achievable, given the new bomber would likely include technologies already under development by the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the U.S. aerospace and defense industry.

"Substantial resources will be dedicated across the future years defense plan from 2008-2013 to get there," the official told Reuters, speaking on the condition of not being further identified. "It will be billions."

Defense analyst Loren Thompson of the Virginia-based Lexington Institute said it would cost around $20 billion to develop and build a new bomber, unless it was based on an existing aircraft such as the Lockheed F-22 fighter jet.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060720/ts_nm/arms_bomber_dc

[msongs]

1. welfare for the war industry - the US doesnt need a new bomber nt

[TexasProgresive]

3. I agree with you but

Those who think that we need to be able to defend outselves would argue that the B-52 is so very old (over 50) and needs to be replaced. The B-1 is a failure as a weapons platform (Carter knew, Reagan didn't), The B-2 is for specialized missions and can't carry a big load.

[longship]

5. Why don't they reengine the B-52s

Replace the eight hungry TF-33's with four more efficient large duct, high-bypass fanjets, When I worked at Boeing in the early 1980's there was a lot of talk about this. The answer was that the B-52 is at the end of its lifetime and here we are two whole decades later and people are saying the same damn thing. Meanwhile, the B-52s continue to fly.

[davepc]

11. how many years do those airframes have left?

[longship]

16. They can do just like they did with the KC-135R Stratotanker

Reskin the airplanes. And then put new nacelles and engine mounting hardware. Replace the eight engines with four high bypass engines. This means revisions to the wing spar and other parts near the nacelled attachments. More robustness in other parts of the airframe and repairs where necessary. It's expensive, but way cheaper than designing and building a whole new airframe.

Some of those KC-135's were pretty old, too, but in the mid-1980's they did some real magic to them. The measure should be similar to the KC-135, the airframe has proven reliability and longevity--exploit that.

[meldroc]

15. I think they are considering it, but...

Last I heard, the Air Force plans to continue flying the B-52 for several more decades, possibly into the 2040's. They have very tough airframes that will last virtually forever. And reengining them is a good idea - gives them more horsepower, greater fuel efficiency, better range, etc.

Unfortunately, the B-52 is absolutely not stealthy. Granted, this isn't much of a problem for the moment given our current military pissing contests - the other guys don't have much in the way of an air force or anti-aircraft capability.

But depending on the moods of King George and his successors, we may very well end up in a military conflict against an enemy with a decent airforce and SAMs and such. In that case, the B-52s would be sitting ducks, which is why we need a more modern bomber.

We have lots of B-52's, they're tough and last forever and carry a huge load, but you have to have total air dominance to use them. Then we have the B-1's, which are supersonic, but only slightly stealthy, meaning they'd last longer than the B-52s in an actual fight, but are still vulnerable. The B-2's are great in that they're incredibly stealthy - the enemy doesn't know they're there until things start blowing up, but since they're so insanely expensive, we only have 16 of them. And they're notorious hangar queens, so it's not possible to use them to conduct a long bombing campaign.

So I'm guessing the Air Force is looking for a bomber that's stealthy enough to do what the B-2 does, but hopefully for much cheaper. Of course, that's not likely to happen, given your typical defense contractor cost-spiral.

In the end, the Air Force will probably continue what it's doing today - have a few high-tech stealth bombers that can do things like hitting enemy radar sites, command centers, etc. to shut down their air defenses. Then the B-52s can take over and do mass bombardment. Of course, using JDAMs and other precision munitions so we don't kill as many babies... Don'tcha love war?

[BrotherBuzz]

2. Let the damn generals hold a bake sale

It'll be a great day when education gets all the money it wants and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy bombers. ~Author unknown

[Benhurst]

4. What enemy are we facing makes this expenditure necessary?

None.

The U.S. is already close to spending more on "defense" (yeah, it sure did a good job of that against 17 civilians with box cutters on 9/11) than all the rest of the nations of the world combined --and most of the other big spenders other than the United States are allies!

The World's Only Superpower. No national health. Crappy schools. A crumbling infrastructure. We're on our way to being the next Soviet Union, which at least had the excuse -- but not much of one -- of having a very powerful perceived enemy.

Yeah, let's bankrupt the nation for more military crap. They are doing such a fantastic job with the "limited" resources we are already giving them.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

6. Heh heh heh.... these people are in charge of

"the greatest show on earth".... the death spiral of a once good nation.

[saigon68]

7. I wonder if it can deal with a guy holding a grenade ?

Or an IED

Or a sniper with a deer rifle in a tree?

Ass Clowns

Its good for this tho I'm sure It will blast those black and brown children to SHREDS



and guys like Pierce Bush will dance on their graves

[ladjf]

8. It would be cheaper to send the bombs by either FedEx or UPS.

Why bother with a billion dollar airplane?

And somewhat changing the subject: Israel doesn't need to use supersonic f16's to bomb Lebanon. Any old transport airplane would do. Lebanon has no air force or even anti-aircraft weapons. In fact, they could more or less transport their bulldozers in and do the jobs on the ground. (takes too long for them)

[daleo]

9. No wonder New Orleans isn't being helped

Not to speak of the lack of health care in the U.S., or the pressures on Social Security. It seems like the country is beggaring itself for new weapons systems.

[davepc]

10. There are only 60 B-1B's in service

and the average age of the B-52 fleet is over 40 years old.

The B1 was designed as an intercontinental nuclear bomber and is only mildly successful as a conventional one.

The air force needs a plane that can perform intercontinental conventional bomber missions. The B-52 is too old, and the B-1 was never meant to do the job.

[ShortnFiery]

12. War Pigs at the Trough while our Country's falling apart from within.

:puke: I despise the Military Industrial War Machine. :thumbsdown:

[Thor_MN]

13. A freaking 747 equipped with bombs would be a hell of a lot cheaper

Why the hell to they have to engineer a new airframe? Modify commericial aircraft of build new B-52s with updated technology. If we could get the GOP to quit acting out their wet dreams of empire we wouldn't need new bombers.

[leesa]

14. Excellent!! We certainly need another bomber!

[Bosso 63]

17. carrots and sticks

If the US is hell bent on being an empire, we should try to control people with bribes too. I gota think 20 billion would buy a lot of "goodwill". Drug cartels know you can get what you want by offering gold or lead. Oh sure, some people will say bribery is wrong, but I think blowing up children from 40,000 feet is wrong, but maybe thats just me. The empire may be evil, but does it have to be stupid too?