$2 billion update for Whiteman’s B-2 bomber

Kansas City Star ^ | 3/29/2012 | Rick Montgomery

[U-238]

Say you own a 20-year-old car and intend to drive it beyond the year 2050. It will need some fixing.

A challenge similar to that continually faces Whiteman Air Force Base, home to the B-2 stealth bomber. Many aircraft parts made in the 1980s, when the first of 21 B-2s rolled out of a Northrop Grumman Corp. hangar, are as obsolete today as the floppy disk.

Yet the plan is to keep those bat-winged bombers flying, and eluding the latest in radar technology, until 2058.

The Pentagon is moving forward with a $2 billion, 10-year effort to modernize the fleet’s defensive capabilities. Digital equipment will replace analog, antennas will be upgraded, communication systems and pilot displays will be enhanced — all needed to address “emerging and proliferating 21st century ground and airborne threats,” according to an Air Force report last year to Congress.

Col. Rob Spalding of Whiteman’s 509th Bomb Wing called the coming enhancements “the biggest and most complex update of the B-2 in its history.”

Washington’s commitment to the B-2 is a no-brainer, experts say, given the plane’s lethal legacy. It has been involved in every combat action since NATO’s 1999 bombing of Serbia in the Kosovo War.

“The B-2 is a door opener,” said John Pike of GlobalSecurity.org, a think tank on weapons systems. “It has the unique ability to fly unescorted into hostile airspace and blow up a lot of stuff — without us first having to take out the other guy’s air defenses.” Maintaining the fleet — now down to 20, following the wreck of a B-2 flying out of a Guam air base into heavy rain in 2008 — is job one at Missouri’s Whiteman. Scheduled overhauls happen every seven years, and replacement parts are increasingly difficult to find, Spalding said.

[TwoSwords]

Appreciate your posts, sir, as a civilian. Well done.

[U-238]

Too bad Whiteman AFB removed all of their Minuteman missile and Peacekeeper missiles.OSCAR-1 is now a museum.

[U-238]

Thank you.

:)

[superfries]

I thought I read somewhere that there is a rfp out for a new bomber.....is that new bomber not going to be operational before 2058?

In your opinion is this a waste of $$ or an essential and needed spend to modernize the air vehicle?

[catbertz]

I appreciate your posts as well. Always something interesting to read as I drift off to sleep.

[onona]

SWEEEEET !

Time to dust off my wrenches and head west.

I’m goin to Kansas City, Kansas City here we come
They got some crazy little wimmen there, and I’m gonna get me one.....

[MSF BU]

$2B isn’t much in the grand scheme of things. The DoD is likely spending more on the “I love Sodomy and you better too” training given to accomodate the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”.

[U-238]

The new program has started.Long-Range Strike Bomber is supposed to be out by 2020.The Air Force wants 80-100 of the new bombers with the option to be unmammed. The USAF wants to strech out the B-52 until 2040 but I doubt it will complete its missions due to the ever improving of the Russian and Chinese Air Defense Network. Do I think its a waste of money? No I do not. The B-52 is a relic of another time period and needs to be replaced.

[U-238]

Thank you very much the compliment.

:)

[norton]

Long-Range Strike Bomber is supposed to be out by 2020

RFI/RFP/R&D??

[U-238]

B-52s and B-1s have to fly through all this just to get their primary objectives:

[Jonty30]

It is still an amazing technology. 60 years old and still flying.

[U-238]

I should of said the plane would be ready by the mid 2020s.Most of the plane supposedly will be from “off the shelf” technology.I did not include all the cost-overruns. HASC did give a $100 millionn grant to start the project.

[U-238]

It is but how can you compete with Russia and China developing new AAA technology everyday with better command and control.

[superfries]

So has the contract been awarded? Lockmart or NGC?

[superfries]

Do you really need to dodge all the AAA ? Why can’t you hit the same target with cruise missiles?

[U-238]

NGC got the contract.

[superfries]

Figures NGC got it....they built the B-2 and it keeps the wealth spread around the defense contracting community. Plus Lockmart has it’s hands full on JSF.

[alfa6]

I was a college student at Central Missouri State U, just 10 mile to the west of beautiful downtown Knob Noster:-) back in the early 70s. I took a few flying lessons and it was intersting to see the silos from the air.

In ground school one of the kids asked the instructor about what he should do if he saw a silo opening.

Basically Mr Instuctor said one was no big deal but more than one and you could kiss your...

Regards

alfa6 ;>}