Posted on 09/09/2015 7:09:07 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The Pentagon sank $400 billion into the F-35 stealth jet—only to have it come up way short. So they’re working on a secret new bomber to handle the job instead.
Government officials and aerospace executives have met in secret. Engineers have drawn up blueprints, crafted components, and assembled prototypes, all under strict confidentiality agreements. Lobbyists are prowling the halls of Congress and the Pentagon, smiling, shaking hands, exerting influence.
For the first time in more than three decades, the Pentagon and America’s aerospace industry are uniting to build a big, expensive, high-tech stealth bomber. And that’s a huge deal for the U.S. military as it tries to compensate for another warplane program that has gone outrageously off the rails.
Thirty-four years after aerospace giant Northrop Grumman snagged a lucrative contract to build B-2 stealth bombers for the Air Force, the Pentagon is getting ready to pick a new bomber. The contest, which senior military officials will decide mere months or even weeks from now, pits two teams representing every remaining major warplane-maker in America.
On one side—Northrop Grumman, which lately has been honing its bomber-making skills by developing stealthy drones for the Navy. On the other side, a consortium of Boeing and Lockheed Martin, which together manufacture almost all of the military’s current manned warplanes. The winner gets to build as many as 100 brand-new bombers for as much as $55 billion in total, replacing 1960s-vintage B-52s and B-1s from the ’80s.
The industrial stakes are enormous. “We expect a pretty robust competition,” General Mark Welsh, the Air Force’s top officer, said in a recent speech.
And for the U.S. Air Force, the stakes are even higher. When costs spiraled upward, the Pentagon canceled B-2 production in 1992. Northrop completed just 21 copies at around $2 billion apiece,
(Excerpt) Read more at thedailybeast.com ...
government acquisition managers trained in their own acquisition schools.
We could build a monster plane in Mobile, Al....but it won’t be union so we have to rely on France to keep us employed....Boeing in Washington State will get the deal...UNION!
As always...”Follow the Money”.
“How did America make so many classic planes during WWII and the 1950’s but can’t seem to make a good plane now?”
I’m guessing the bottom line if one digs deep enough; would be lawyers in some way.
Too many procedures and red tape in place. Too much caution.
The A-10 Warthog is the one aircraft that should be rolling off the assembly lines RIGHT NOW, and supplied to the US Marines, the Israelis, and to Jordan’s King Abdullah II, as close air support to the ground troops.
The Warthog is for all practical purposes, a cannon with wings, a virtual flying tank, that can with a very short burst, take out most armored vehicles, and raise havoc with ground troops and convoys. It can sustain what for another airframe would be catastrophic damage, and still limp home, it can work out of forward bases with only limited runways, and it has redundancy built into virtually every control surface of the airplane.
A-10s fly overhead in pairs nearly every week.
Missile Truck Concept ....use stealth drones on point to sparkle the targets and in the ever changing environment of electronic warfare use “less expensive countermeasures Triple Ejector Rack (TER) or Multiple Ejector Rack (MER) hung pods” for Bomber defenses. Stand off delivery IMHO versus gravity bomb over the target idea / plan A
Spend the really big bucks for stealth fighter interceptors and drones.... kill the enemy radar and bring in the neon bombers per se....
My opinion...just my opinion.
How did America make so many classic planes during WWII and the 1950’s but can’t seem to make a good plane now?
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Roman Aqueducts,
Brooklyn Bridge. for an example.
Any bridge built after 1960(??) with all the modern technology, regulations etc etc.
Are all the NEW methods just another way for people to line their pockets?
Look at all the ‘old houses’ from the 17 and 1800s, still standing - yes updates and improving amenities but the basic structure and frame still ‘good’.
Remember, it used to be called “Old World Craftsmanship” when people were actually PROUD of a job accomplished, of course people were ‘reconditioned’ that rather than have someone learn a trade and follow in ones elders footsteps, we need to put everyone behind a desk.
Now ‘they’ have figured out that the desk can be located in Bumf... Whereever.
People would seemingly accept being unemployed or class themselves unemployable than learn a trade that will benefit them forever...plumber, brick/concrete mason, etc etc etc.
How come people who deem themselves too good to drive a delivery truck, cab, work in construction, pick up $hiite with the chickens etc are NOT so good as to let the Govt ‘pay’ them out of the wages of those that will do the aforementioned ‘menial labor’ jobs?
Like a ‘great man’ once opined - “Maybe we should have picked our own GD cotton” he was probably on the right path.
How many days/years/centuries/milleniums has it been since a wag figured out that a ‘Democracy - as such’ can only last a couple of hundred years as it usually takes about that long for the havenots to figure they actually vastly outnumber the haves and if they band together, EVERYONE can go ‘down in flames’ together.
Hope someone got the name etc of those Germans ‘cheering’ the arrival of the latest batch of ‘refugees’ so we can ask them at a later date how ‘they’ enjoy supporting about 90 percent (I am being nice here) of them AFTER the lower rung of Germans citizens have been ‘knocked out of jobs, wages etc etc’ and the citizenry has to absorb BOTH groups.
Because they were classic. Low-tech, all mechanical, all analog.
And in today's battlefield, THEY WOULD DIE.
Immediately.
That, and the requirements were kept simple and narrowly defined.
The biggest problem, IMHO, in acquiring a new aircraft of any kind is the lack of reality displayed by everyone involved.
First, a military acquisition project is not a Congressional Jobs project. But to gain support (aka money to spend) you need to part out the work to as many Congressional districts as possible. See the breakdown of the B-1’s sub-contractors.
Second, We have known as far back as the mid 1970’s that filling every post-Vietnam aircraft wish list would take two an a fractional companies; one for fighters, one for tankers/bombers/transports, and the fractal company to build helicopters. At that level of effort all companies involved would be economically survivable. Now every company must compete for very project so their cost overheads have exploded.
Third, the childish desire of every project manager/senior officer to put his personal mark (think a dog at a fire hydrant) on the project adds an other whole series of cost overruns.
Fourth. We have repeatedly learned that you can not have one aircraft, normally a fighter, do both the USAF and USN/USMC mission sets. The F-111A and F-111B program from the 1960s proved that point. Thinking that hardware can be replaced by software is a manifestation of this issue.
Fifth. Service desires MUST be subordinated to NATIONAL DEFENSE. I call your individual and collective attention to the USAF’s third attempt to divest itself of the A-10 and its close air support mission. Senior AF leadership continues to view the A-10 funding line as a source of money to build/fund a new fighter aircraft. You would think after getting one Chief of Staff fired for this level of stupidity in 1990 the generals would have learned.
Finally. The bloated bureaucracy of “acquisition professional” needs to totally disappear. Why? Have you ever heard of any “white’ acquisition project that was brought in on time, or at budget, or with the required capabilities? Much less any of the two, or heavens forbid all three goals being met? Yet the “acquisition professionals’ take up resources, time, money, and manpower, and get rewarded for a consistent track record of failure.
The most effective bomber we have had in the last half century was the B-52. They are still in service today. Instead of redesigning the wheel, why not update and manufacture a new series of B-52 bombers?
Boeing doesn't entirely scrap effective aircraft every time they design a new jet for civilian markets they bring out an updated version of the 737, 747(until recently) and so on. Why should the military contractors do any differently.
When has the last B-52 been shot out of the sky by a belligerent, any one, Bueller, Bueller...
I am hesitant to accept the fact that an updated version of the B-52 or even B-2 would be less effective than a designed from scratch product.
Besides the would better spend their money on unmanned aircraft and non nuclear ICBM and missal technology. These could have more capabilities and less chance of losing operators to combat. There is no reason to believe that hundreds of unmanned aircraft can be produced and deployed with significantly less cost than even ONE newly designed manned platform. Add to that the added bonus of less pilot death and we may be looking at the wrong direction for our military.
Just make RODS from GOD.
The lessons of the F-111 have been forgotten.
I just bought a new computer with Windows 7 Professional installed and the ability to upgrade. They even included a new Windows 10 recovery/update disc. Got it about 10 days ago.
I haven’t updated and am not sure I will. After the last unit with Windows 8.1 where I hated the constant opening of unwanted applications whenever I wanted to do something, I am more than happy with 7. As a matter of fact I am completely satisfied.
New isn’t always better. Sometimes it is just the same bad crap in a new package. I have a year. I will take a minimum of eight months to decide.
Yup.
The Aliens haven't been back for a while? I mean how else do you explain the SR-71 8^)
This
Load XPP into a Virtual Machine under Ubuntu or some other flavor of Linux to run any 16/32 bit Windows programs you still like/need.
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