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 ...
How did America make so many classic planes during WWII and the 1950’s but can’t seem to make a good plane now?
Kelly Johnson died.
This is sounding like Windows 10.
Bingo.
That and today’s engineer is either making the next social media god send or wasting time with some green save sewage for consumption process.
Committee designed bomber. What could go wrong?
Well, the tech was a millionth as complicated. But I take your point.
RE: This is sounding like Windows 10.
At 75 Million installations in just one month, I wouldn’t pass judgment in this one just yet...
It’s simply a reflection of the level of corruption in our political system and in our officer corps today.
And without reform, this same corrupt procurement system is about to build us a bomber. Get ready for the F-35 on steroids.
Just keep throwing money down the rathole, please, I’m long in Defense stocks.
The B-2 was the result of 1990s bomber generals with 1940s brains. It was the wrong plane at the wrong time.
The F-35 was the result of 2000s fighter generals with 1940s brains. It was the wrong plane at the wrong time.
Neither was well thought out. One came from SAC generals who came from bombers and after TAC took over and SAC was eliminated the fighter generals wanted their piece of the pie.
They can’t build a modern fighter anymore. What makes them think they can build a bomber?
Bingo. Ben Rich was no slouch either but unions and Democrats had a lot more power in his tenure. Not that he wanted it.
I LIKE Windows 10. But, its development and release were accelerated because Windows 8 was considered a dud.
I actually used Windows 8.1 for a while, and thought it was very stable, but that the interface was more difficult than it needed to be. Windows 10 seems to have fixed that, and I’ve had no problems with stability. Of course, I had to opt out of all of the data-collection MSFT does as default.
But, back to the F35: Maybe the improved new plane version will fix some of what’s wrong, and not take 20 years to develop.
When costs "spiral upward" for welfare programs the Democrats and their Republican collaborators just keep adding more money to the program. These welfare programs never seen to get canceled. They can't even cancel funds for Planned Parenthood. When was the last time a welfare program was canceled and not replaced with something else?
Seems to be an article that’s based in real journalism, surprising for the source, in my mind at least. The one fact that’s being danced around is they know the system is broken but was able to be worked around/thru at Lockheed’s skunk works to develop the U-2 and SR-71. This success needs to be repeated right now. Who’s going to be this generation’s Kelly Johnson?
I am of the opinion that every generation of generals (20 years or so) that the wheel turns from specialized planes to multi use, platform planes. By that I mean that the Air Force cycles between the specialized role air frame (such as ground attack (A10 Warthog) and air superiority (F22 Raptor) and bombing (B52 / B1) etc) and decides to go with the multi-role airframe to do all of the above (F-35).
A lot of the multi-role attitude stems from the fight over budget dollars.
Unions
Too many pentagon “studies groups” wantign a “perfect airplane” ... (That cost 2 billion dollars per airplane, but can’t carry any more bombs any faster nor further than the 1952 era B-52.
“Best and perfect” means the latest bomber costs more than an entire cruiser. And we aren’t making any more of those either. The cruiser’s are the size of what used to be a destroyer. And we are no longer making more merchants, oilers, ammo carriers and UNREP stores, repair docks, nor amphib’s - because those will be lost as well.
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