Posted on 06/26/2014 10:37:53 AM PDT by robowombat
Northrop Grumman Corp has won a five-year contract valued at up to $9.9 billion from the U.S. Air Force to modernize and support the B-2 stealth bomber, the Pentagon announced on Tuesday.
The Air Force is going to make sure everyones favorite bat-winged bomber stays stealth through 2058. The B-2 Spirit will be included in upcoming modernization planning being conducted by the Pentagon.
Northrop Grumman has a contract with the Pentagon to complete a massive upgrade on the nuclear bomber. Its $9.9 billion contract will include new computer processors, avionics, radar warning receivers and communications gear, the defense website military.com reported Wednesday.
SEE ALSO: Putin on notice: Two U.S. stealth bombers head to Europe for first time amid tension Were re-hosting the flight management control processors, the brains of the airplane, onto a much more capable integrated processing unit. Were laying in some new fiber optic cable as opposed to the mix bus cable we are using right now. The B-2s computers from the 80s are getting maxed out and overloaded with data, said Eric Single, chief of the Global Strike division for Air Force acquisition, military.com reported.
Americas fleet of 21 B-2 bombers was first produced in 1989 at a cost of $2.2 billion per plane. Each plane can also carry a payload of 40,000 pounds.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Enola.
Do you really think they will be scared by what we name any of our weapon systems?
Here's a name: Marine!
Yea, I knew it was Enola. You see, there are these new gadgets called “smart phones” that rethink what you spell and assume you meant something entirely different from what you typed. Almost as frustrating as those spell check police who get off on correcting misspelled words.
i ALWAYS am nervous while in the vicinity of a plane being refueled.
CFI impressed “Always be aware, not just of your actions, but those of nature and Bozos”
Tell me about it. Had to mess with you. We’re all good. :)
[ The B-2 has a two man crew for no apparent purpose.
Think about the mission profile. ]
Both pilots may have a set of keys that need to be turned at the same time at opposite ends of the cockpit....
Spook!
They could readily be controlled from a ground station. Take out the space/ weight for humans and their avionics and life support and you have a lot of room for fuel and computer that could accomplish refueling.
The public fuel capacity is 167,000 pounds. That works out to a ~6000 mile combat radius using publicly available data. IIRC a KC-135 can carry in excess of 80,000# of fuel. So refuel it once out, once back, or more ... over 20,000 mile combat radius.
But it is subsonic ... so it is in the air a LOOOOONG time.
I betcha refueling could be done better with on-board electronics. It’s already fly by wire anyways.
Just my opinion.
Maybe so but I think “hands on” is best for those planes.
That’s right. Those planes need pilots.
Gotcha. But Ebola Gay is kinda funny. 8~)
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