The History Behind The New U.S. Long-Range Strike Bomber

X-45. Ron Bookout photo.

New Bomber’s Drone Origins -- War Is Boring

The U.S. Air Force’s new Long-Range Strike Bomber will be less complex and cheaper than the flying branch’s last bomber, the Northrop Grumman B-2. That’s the vow service leaders have been making in Washington, D.C., in recent months as the potentially $55-billion bomber program gets off the ground. (Congress approved the first $300 million in development funds last fall.) “The program will leverage mature technologies” to keep the per-bomber cost to under $550 million, according to Lt. Col. Tadd Sholtis, an Air Force spokesman.

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My Comment: The U.S. Air Force’s new Long-Range Strike Bomber must come in at a cost under $550 million .... hmmmm .... I have my doubts.

Gates Sees Funding For New Bomber In Fiscal 2011

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton talk with NBC's "Meet the Press" host David Gregory in Washington, D.C., Dec. 5, 2009. DoD photo by Cherie Cullen

From The Reuters:

KIRKUK, Iraq (Reuters) - The Pentagon's fiscal 2011 budget and five-year defense plan will probably include funding for a new long-range bomber for the Air Force, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Friday.

Gates delayed funding a new bomber in fiscal 2010, which began October 1, saying the program should be scrutinized in the Defense Department's Quadrennial Defense Review, a major review of weapons programs conducted once every four years.

That review, which is now wrapping up, pointed to the need for both manned and unmanned long-range strike capabilities, Gates told U.S. troops on Friday during a visit to the contested northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk.

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My Comment: Another billion dollar bomber to develop. My bet .... since everyone is excited about the developments that are occurring in unmanned drones .... this will be the excuse to develop an unmanned bomber.

In form The Cold has more information. The link is here.

Next Generation Bomber Stopped For Start?

Stealth and Hypersonic Bomber (Photo form Urdu Poetry Forum)

From DoD Buzz:

Did the Obama administration effectively drop the Next Generation Bomber as part of its arms control strategy? That is the theory posited by Lt. Gen. Robert Elder, the Air Force’s top Global Strike commander and 8th Air Force chief, at a breakfast meeting yesterday.

Defense Secretary Gates had indicated the bomber’s fate was uncertain back in late January. Gates told Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh (D-In.), that an earlier speech he had made in support of the bomber was delivered “at a time when the economic outlook was rather different than it is now and the prospects for the defense budget perhaps different. We need to look at all of the aspects of our strategic posture, the role of a next generation bomber, along with some of the other systems we’ve been talking about, clearly have to be a focus of the Quadrennial Defense Review.” So Gates was pretty clearly signalling that money and the country’s strategic posture would both play a role in delaying the bomber.

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My Comment: I think the issue is money .... not what a future Start Treaty may look like.

Top General: Next-Gen Bomber Ain't A Bomber At All

From The Danger Room:

Northrop Grumman just unveiled its design patents for the military's Next Generation Bomber. But one of the Air Force's top generals is hoping you'd call it something else. Because this aircraft, slated for a possible 2018 takeoff, is going to do much more than drop warheads from on high.

The Air Force has faced resistance to its plans to build a new, stealthy, long-range, supersonic bomber almost since the day the project was announced. "Fielding a penetrating bomber by 2018 is probably not doable, because the technology is not mature enough, and almost certainly not affordable, because the cost of trying to field immature technology will lead to skyrocketing costs," Center for Strategic and International Studies senior fellow Clark Murdock wrote last year. The White House now reportedly wants to shelve the program, to save cash. After all, the current fleet of bombers are holding up pretty well.

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My Comment: This project is going to be on the drawing board for a very long time.