Posted on 09/21/2013 2:04:31 PM PDT by ClaytonP
One of the most distinctive features of U.S. military power is the Air Force’s fleet of heavy bombers.
....
However, after 80 years of steadily developing better bombers — basically, since it entered World War One — the U.S. ceased spending money on new long-range strike aircraft following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
There aren’t many bombers left.
All of the bombers are old.
No new bomber is waiting in the wings.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
If anyone has any information on why DARPA cancelled the ArcLight hypersonic missile project, I’d be curious to see it. A mach 6 missile barrage launched from numerous VLS tubes by multiple Naval platforms from 3000nm out could be a workable replacement for the manned bomber. Maybe the whole concept went black.
Sounds more like a dividend from good engineering from Long Ago.
Designed with slide rules and drawn on mylar, LOL.
Somebody said doing it all on computers added 5 years to the design cycle.
Things still depend on the competence of those involved.
Here’s a point worth considering: stealth works against fighters because it’s virtually impossible for air defense systems to locate, let along maintain tracking on stealth platforms.
From what I’ve heard, the B-2 briefly appears on (some) radars when it’s bomb-bay doors are open—and the exposure in minimal. Once the weapons are dropped, the B-2 disappears (again).
During my spook days, I used to listen to recordings of Iraqi GCI controllers attempting to vector fighters against coalition aircraft. It was almost comical; the Iraqis, using Russian intercept tactics, were completely wedded to the controller, relying on him to call even the simplest course correction. If the radar was targeted by an anti-radiation missile, or Compass Call was working its magic against the comm links, the fighter pilot was screwed.
I listened to several shoot-down intercepts from the days of the No Fly Zones and those guys literally didn’t have a clue. During engagements with F-15s or F-16s, neither the controller nor the pilot had any real idea where our guys were at, or how close the Flogger or Foxbat driver was to meeting Allah.
Now, put a pilot from that same training system in a scenario where he must find a VLO aircraft, operating well above 40,000 ft. The odds of a “successful” intercept are very, very low. These pilots simply can’t think their way through an intercept without GCI support and in many instances, that “support” is more of hinderance than help.
The Israelis operate drones over Syria on a near-constant basis, but you never hear about the IAF losing one of those platforms. It’s not that the Syrians don’t try to shoot them down—they just can’t find them and coordinate the intercept.
“Fortunately aerodynamics don’t change. The B-52 was apparently a GREAT design, transcending the decades.
I’d suggest that we make some SR-71 based bombers for the future.”
The B-52 was considered nothing more than an interim design: it was an adaptation of the principles first embodied in the B-47, built larger, and with the worst vices of that hot-performing medium bomber minimized. It was intended merely as a stopgap to tide over the strategic air forces until the really revolutionary systems were developed. Great hopes were pinned on the B-70.
The B-52 has succeeded so well in part because of excellent initial design, superior manufacturing, exceptional re-engineering and maintenance, imaginative subsystem upgrades, and better software. The airframe is big enough to be really adaptable; another aerial giant, the B-36, underwent a similar series of upgrades throughout its (shorter) service life (ended 1959).
The rest has been politics and luck.
Much has been internal USAF politics: bombers have always been proportionately more expensive, so proportionately greater resistance to spending money told eventually. Also, fighter pilots took over USAF and have done as much as they possibly could, to phase out manned strike aircraft and erase all traces of bomber leadership and corporate culture.
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The SR-71 would make a ridiculously poor bomber.
It sported very short legs, and only a tiny payload. Such drawbacks can be lived with (to a point) for recce missions of sufficient urgency, and with small numbers of airframes. They would sound a death knell for any bomber.
Every design consideration was sacrificed to the requirement to attain and sustain high altitudes and very high velocities. Therefore, internal spaces very small and equipment positioning was completely inflexible. This made it very, very difficult to design and build systems to fit into little holes, the locations of which was rigidly controlled. So it could not adapt.
It was never more than a quasi-experimental system, struggling to emerge from a trouble-plagued development. It demanded special fuel that was much more costly, and never used in any other system. The vast performance capabilities created a great range of operating conditions (temperature, velocity, air pressure etc), which put unheard-of demands on internal systems and structure, making it dangerously leak-prone, a fault never completely remedied.
Low and slow airborne missile platforms apparently have a continued mission.
Until we have enough Satellite nukes, a high altitude, fast delivery platform provides an initial, selective, credible threat to actual threats (Iranian "leaders").
The youngest B52 is older than me. And I am on my second midlife crisis.
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Understand. I worked at an airline in 1963-65, when I was 21-23, that flew DC-3 aircraft with placards showing mfg. dates around 1935. We had several special flights each day that took military recruits from Dallas to Fort Polk LA, and those little workhorses flew through the violent thunderstorms in East TX and LA. .......There was a lot of turbulence and barfing, but the planes always got them there safely. ....The old aircraft like the DC-3 and the B-52 were built by skilled workmen.
“... old aircraft like the DC-3 and the B-52 were built by skilled workmen.”
“Older” aircraft were overbuilt by today’s design standards.
80 odd years ago, aero engineering was still new, metallurgy primitive, safety less blessed with insight, and manufacturing techniques were inherited from craftsmen of the 19th century. Consequently, designers and engineers added much larger safety margins - on the drafting table.
Not one of these airframes has been ignored in the interim.
USAF used DC-3s until 1975, and the H model B-52 (and many Boeing 720-based airframes) soldier on. Avionics have captured most of the public’s attention (when there is any), but a very thorough-going structural maintenance program was concocted decades back and has been followed rigorously since. Boeing pioneered many technical aspects of structural analysis and testing, and Congress has (to date) deigned to fund USAF requests in this budget category. Repairs and major component replacement have been approved and carried out.
Thus USAF enjoys far longer service lives from combat aircraft than does USN. Much of it is due to institutional culture (whim) also. With the inactivation of Strategic Air Command in 1992, USAF at large was forced to adopt the more flippant approach that dominates the fighter community.
It’s not at all clear that success will continue.
“Low and slow airborne missile platforms apparently have a continued mission.
Until we have enough Satellite nukes, a high altitude, fast delivery platform provides an initial, selective, credible threat to actual threats ...”
Low and quick crewed penetrators still have a mission, as would high/quick ones if the country had bothered to develop any.
Standoff missile launch platforms are merely the last manned systems still operating. The nation (nagged and prodded by the likes of Robert Strange McNamara) simply lost the inclination to build anything more capable.
The entire arc of development and deployment of crewed aircraft has been highly contingent on politics (the non-germane sort) and over-application of operational “lessons learned” from USAF ops in Southeast Asia have been enshrined, set in stone like religious dogma, unalterable laws of physics, or Marxist-inspired Historical Inevitability: hence the dominance of relatively nimble single-seat fighters, which are in reality only a little more maneuverable than bomber aircraft, but with all the constraints little airplanes can never escape: low payload and embarrasingly short legs.
Pop culture now believes without question that aircraft like F-16, F-15, F-18, F-22, and F-35 are the only machines capable of surviving the modern combat environment, so the rather weak offensive capability each does embody must be accepted.
The results were never so inevitable, the tradeoffs not nearly so direct nor simple.
Had design and development not taken a different track over 50 years ago, the situation might be very different now.
Interested forum members should research Project Pye Wacket.
I don’t dispute most of what you’ve said there, but do take exception to your singling out the USAF as being the only service to maintain an ongoing maintenance program, etc.
As a management retiree of Bell Helicopter, I feel the continuing upgrades of the AH-1 Cobras, OH-1 Kiowas and the UH-1 Hueys for the Army, Navy, AF and Marines since the 1950-60 era of their development indicates those aircraft have all been modernized and are in use by the services. ....Additionally, the AF and Marine versions of the V-22 are highly valued and successful in their deployments; spawned from the early XV-15s of the 1970s.
Just trying to point out that it’s not only the AF that continues to try to upgrade and improve. The other military services also do the same.
“From what I’ve heard, the B-2 briefly appears on (some) radars when it’s bomb-bay doors are open—and the exposure in minimal. Once the weapons are dropped, the B-2 disappears (again).”
Same with the F-22. Off-platform targeting for A/A engagements help reduce exposing your location by reducing emissions.
When dropping a JDAM, shooting a missile or the gun, the F-22’s doors open for a brief time and then close again.
The F-117 (before it was retired) had the same problem regarding doors. . .and that was how it was shot down that ONE time. That and the fact ROE prohibited a change in attack direction/time night after night after night. Heck running the same attack axis at the same time each night, even Ray Charles can see it coming.
ROE was the biggest reason we lost that F-117 over Serbia. After the conflict, we tracked down the Serbian SA-3 battery commander and brought him to the states for extensive debriefing. A couple of points:
First, that Serbian AD officer was easily the “Top Gun” of their SA-3 force; years as a SAM commander and he knew how to employ his battery for full effect.
Secondly—and most importantly—our unchanging ingress routing made his job easier. After a couple of days, the Serbs figured out that our aircraft would follow the same corridor into Serbian airspace, and they adjusted accordingly. Heck, they even had HUMINT guys outside Aviano and the other bases in Italy, who reported takeoff times for departing aircraft, along with type and weapons loadout. With those bits of information, the Serbs could predict (quite accurately) the time the same jet would enter their engagement zones.
Luckily for us, the Serbs were using SA-2s and SA-3s, not the S-300 or S-400. It’s also worth noting that much of the Serb air defense system was still intact after 88 days of bombing. To this day, I’m still not sure why Milosevic gave up; he was in a position to hold out for months, if not years, and force NATO to seek a settlement on his terms.
However, I do remember that one of Milosevic’s closest political allies tried to defect a few days before the Serbs waved the white flag. Milosevic apparently thought that if he’d lost the inner circle, his days were numbered.
“...Just trying to point out that it’s not only the AF that continues to try to upgrade and improve. The other military services also do the same.”
Delighted to defer to octex on rotary-wing aircraft maintenance/SLEP/upgrades.
I wrote only of fixed-wing programs, and some related systems.
Not that USAF pursues any such family of programs for its fixed-wing inventory with steadiness nor balanced enthusiasm. But most operators in USAF have only the sketchiest idea of the agencies and personnel supporting them. To the lasting embarrassment of some of us.
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