Posted on 07/20/2006 5:16:22 PM PDT by Aussie Dasher
THE US 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.
The timetable was aggressive but achievable, given the new bomber would be likely to include technologies already under development by the Pentagon's Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency and the US aerospace and defence industry, an official said today.
"Substantial resources will be dedicated across the future years defence plan from 2008-2013 to get there," the official said.< "It will be billions."
Defence analyst Loren Thompson of the Virginia-based Lexington Institute said it would cost around $US20 billion ($26.7 billion) to develop and build a new bomber, unless it was based on an existing aircraft such as the Lockheed F-22 fighter jet.
The air force began a formal analysis of the alternatives for long range strike last October that could help shape the requirements for a future bomber competition.
Officials now plan to split the analysis into separate sections addressing the need for new long-range missiles, which could hit targets within a few hours, and the requirements for a next-generation bomber, which would be able to loiter over a given area for a longer time.
Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman have already expressed interest in the bomber competition.
The idea of developing an F-22 bomber variant, first championed by former Air Force Secretary James Roche, was still being considered, Mr Thompson said.
The aircraft's radar-evading characteristics and its supersonic speed could be attractive features for a new bomber.
He predicted that the new bomber would be manned, despite increasing speculation about an unmanned aircraft that could be remotely piloted like the Predator flying missions over Iraq daily, or fly autonomous like the Northrop Global Hawk, which has also been used extensively in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"No amount of software is going to allow you to cope with all the things that come up in combat. You need a real pilot," Mr Thompson said.
Despite the protestations in the article I'm betting it will be unmanned.
Those parts from the 1947 Roswell UFO crash are coming in handy!
But I'm a sailor...what do I know.
Somehow I think all these prognostications will come for naught.
It will be unlike anything flying today.
My beloved B-52 cannot go on forever, even though it has already outlived everybody's expectations. I always thought Carter killing the B-1 program (or limiting it severly) was a mistake and I still do.
That's 1.6 million tons of bombs.
Well, if the Democrats achieve power and draw our forces back to Okinawa, then we'll definitely need this baby for aftermath, when the Dems are nuked and dead and patriotic Americans, Aussies and Brits and maybe India are reestablishing order in the world.
Maybe India and Japan will have waded in by then, too.
More toys for our boys who protect the
And to Liberals:
It would probably look like a flying saucer, and not make any noise. ;o)
we need a bomber with scramjets... like the X43 :)
How about a stealthy ramjet powered space plane.
Able to take off in the midwest, climb directly into space then either drop back into the atmosphere or stay there until needed. Could even have an anti-satellite ability?
Additional capability - effective rapid global pinpoint delivery of whatever, whenever from a 100% standing start.
Triangular, silent........could it be?
Where did you buy your weed?
I wonder if they can pull that off.
How about Mach 7-10? :D
LOOK :P
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