US Air Force Wants To Replace Our $2.1 Billion Dollar B-2 Bombers

[unhappycamper]

unhappycamper note: Since the ‘Pentagon’ (Righthaven LLC?) has ‘requested’ that I only post one paragraph from articles on Army Times, and Airforce Times, I’ve decided to give ya’ll an unhappycamper summary of the article and a link to the OP. To keep in that same (new) tradition, I will also do the same for articles on Navy Times, Marine Corps Times, stripes.com and military.com.To keep in that same (new) tradition, I will also do the same for for articles on Navy Times, Marine Corps Times, stripes.com and military.com.

To read the article in the military's own words, you will need to click the link.

Read all about Fair Use here. It sure is beginning to smell like fascism.

unhappycamper summary of this article: Call me silly, but $2.1 billion dollars is more than I ever thought a bomber is/was worth.

Do you seriously think this new bomber is gonna cost less that $2.1 billion dollars? Really?




Schwartz, Donley press for new bomber
By John Reed - Staff writer
Posted : Sunday Oct 3, 2010 10:11:28 EDT

A new bomber, according to Schwartz, is at the core of a “family of systems” that the service has been discussing since Defense Secretary Robert Gates canceled the service’s next-generation bomber program last year. Schwartz described a new bomber as key to the Air Force’s ability to find and destroy 21st-century threats.

[saigon68]

1. destroy 21st-century threats

Bomb a couple of Mud Huts.

[hobbit709]

4. Yep. Not that B-52s aren't quite capable of doing that.

And they're a lot cheaper.

[saigon68]

21. Lets Rock & Roll

[ixion]

2. A choice 'graph':

Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz is calling for a low-cost bomber that can perform many missions, from precision strikes in an asymmetric environment to full-scale bombing campaigns against heavily defended airspace.

Talk about Quixotic pursuits...

[hobbit709]

5. full-scale bombing campaigns against heavily defended airspace.

You mean like over Germany, Japan and North Viet Nam?

What was our loss ration?

[ixion]

7. yeah, very good point

shows what the 'brass' is thinking... :nuke:

[Historic NY]

3. Outdated before it even hit the assembly line.....

manned bombing missions were supposed to be replaced with all those drones, cruise missles, etc.

[zipplewrath]

8. They don't know what they want

"It more than likely would be “optionally manned” and focused first on conventional strike, with the option to be certified later for nuclear missions, he said."

They're throwing around all manner of ideas at this plane. The reality is that they are mostly just trying to get funding in place for one, then they'll figure out what it will actually do.

[txlibdem]

12. Cruise missiles, drones, and remotely piloted craft

There is no excuse for trying to spend billions on a huge flying target. We need thousands of tiny drones piloted remotely from Nevada or Detroit.

This is just another massive giveaway to the military industrial complex. Fail.

[Swamp Rat]

6. Let us beat B-2 Bombers into plowshares

... so sayeth the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

[MadHound]

9. Ooops, there wanting to sell the B-2 tech abroad,

So we've got to have a newer, more modern plane.

Merchants of Death.

[hayu_lol]

10. Simple answer...build more B-1s...

the big bomber that flies like a fighter.

B-2s are too vunerable due to their low speeds and are visible when it rains.

[SomeGuynTexas]

15. LMAO! Rain....how funny.

Yeah...lots of rain at FL50...where the Spirit is flying....

Remember kids...it's vapor at 212F, water between 32F and 212F and Ice below 32F.

LOL....

[NYC_SKP]

11. What about the Flying HMMWV? Maybe if we build like a really BIG one?

Like these?



http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/09/darpa-moves-a-step-closer-to-its-flying-humvee/

:shrug:

[SomeGuynTexas]

14. It take a monumental ignorance of aerodynamics for ideas like that to exist.

No wonder the ROW is leaping ahead in the sciences.

Allow me to solve the world's energy problems with "Unobtanium" 'cause I saw it in a movie.

(sigh).

[formercia]

17. How about a flying Pinto?

http://www.cookieboystoys.com/mizar/10%20mizar.htm

http://www.cookieboystoys.com/mizar/mizar/pages/The%20Press%20Courier%20Oxnard,%20CA%20Wednesday,%20September%2012,%201973%20001.jpg

'Flying Pinto' Crash Kills 2

By Rick Nielsen

Two developers of an experimental flying automobile were killed and an El Rio man narrowly escaped serious injury late Tuesday when the craft plowed into a parked pickup truck and burst into flames at the side of a roadway in the north Oxnard area. Sheriff deputies reported. The craft was called the "Flying Pinto."

--snip--


"I started to run and got only about 10 feet when it plowed into my truck," he said. He said he was knocked to the ground by the "exploding impact" and was struck by flying and flaming debris. He said he then saw his truck and the plane fully enveloped in fire.

--snip--

The craft, a Mizar Flying Car, was a Ford Pinto powered by a 300-horsepower Lycoming aircraft engine and using the wings of a Cessna Skymaster bolted to braces on the frame.The craft was also equipped with a car engine to drive on the highway. It was completely destroyed, as was Rillo's truck. Valued at an estimated $4,000.


I remember talking to one of these guys at Wiley Post Airport in OKC a couple of months before they crashed it. On it's maiden flight, the gas tank fell off on landing due to cheap OEM steel straps.

They were really proud of their accomplishment.

[msongs]

13. so what are the gonna cut to pay for it, their campaign to impose Jesus on all the recruits? nt

[DavidDvorkin]

16. Fuck them. It's time to replace the US Air Force

with a much leaner, cheaper, and non-religious military force.

[Greyhound]

19. There really has been no need for a separate air service for half

a century. The only reason they exist is because the Army had all the planes in the early days and the inevitable turf war resulted in this bastard child that can't hold anything.

The Navy & Marines already have their own air forces, let the Army have their winged craft back and the whole service is immediately obsolete.

[DavidDvorkin]

22. Or a single, unified force

with the appropriate specialized groups.

And a vastly smaller budget.

[Greyhound]

23. An admirable goal, I'd nominate Gen. Butler's plan as the model.

It might cost 15% of the current budget.
:kick:

[Angleae]

18. Actually, such a plane would replace B-52 & B-1 bombers.

Considering the youngest B-52 is 48 years old. Can they built cheaply? Yes. Will they be? Probably not, the Air Force wants all their fancy toys.

[Citizen Worker]

20. During the building of the B-2 someone calculated that the plane cost more to build

than it was worth in its weight in gold! Now, with the price of gold as high as it is the cost of developing a replacement for the B-2 will be cheaper, no?