Arms weekly claims scoop with pictures of new US bomber

Agence France-Presse | June 3, 2003

[HAL9000]

The specialist military review Jane's Defence Weekly on Tuesday published what it said were exclusive images of a radar-evading bomber being developed by the United States.

Jane's said the pictures were of scale mock-ups of a long-range strike aircraft being developed by US firm Lockheed Martin to eventually replace a series of similar "stealth" craft currently in service.

The new plane would have a range of some 4,800 kilometres (3,000 miles) without refuelling and be capable of carrying between six and 18 tonnes of ordnance depending on the version, the magazine said.

The current fleet of stealth bombers includes the B-52H, B-1B et B-2A aircraft, which are expected to remain in service until around 2040, Jane's said.

[jimkress]

The current fleet of stealth bombers includes the B-52H, B-1B

These planes are about as 'stealthy' as the Sears Tower.

[Bogey78O]

Amen to that.

[John H K]

Well, the B-1 was designed with at least a thought to radar cross section, but describing a B-52 as stealthy is like describing Star Jones as "thin."

[Mariner]

Where's the pic?

[RayChuang88]

This is OLD news.

The USAF has been soliciting proposals for a couple of years for future bombers with stealthy features, Mach 2.0+ cruise speed with NO sonic boom, etc. since 2000 or so. Lockheed Martin, Northrup Grumman and Boeing have shown concept drawings of potential bomber designs based on the USAF proposal.

[AGreatPer]

"Where's the pic?"

There so stealthy, you can't even seen them on the ground.

[justlurking]

The B-1B isn't too bad, at least in comparison to the B-52. The estimated radar-cross section of various planes, in square meters:

B-52        1,000.0
F-4           100.0
F-15           25.0
B-1B           10.0 
F-117A          0.01
B-2             0.000001

Source