Long Range Strike Bomber News: Multiple Sources Reporting Northrop Grumman has won the Contract

a reply to: Borys

Sure beats getting smashed up by a backhoe and dumped into a hole in the nevada desert, or torched in a burn pit, or being maintained in near-flyable condition, only, the catch is that it's kept under a tarp in the bowels of Hangar 18 and never sees the light of day unless it's once in a blue moon and the brass needs something cool to show off to some VIP with the appropriate clearances.

a reply to: weavty1

Oh this ones easy

By all accounts on this website, the NG bird is flying wing 3.0, B-2 revision alpha.

So ya, when the tarp is removed and we see another subsonic flying wing, congress is going to laugh, then cry, then get really angry and cancel the project. USAF.... you blew it.

Mach 3+ cruise minimum, Mach 4 needed to get people excited. Flying wing, bye bye new bomber, go build drones. You failed.....BIG TIME.

a reply to: BigTrain

Yes, because leaving a blazing trail across hundreds of miles in infrared is certainly stealthy.

Oh wait, I forgot, if it doesn't do mach 50 it sucks.

a reply to: BigTrain

Do you even bother to read the other posts in this forum?

/smh

a reply to: grey580

I read them all.......

Just because I disagree makes me what?

Go ahead, try to get 550M for a re-do B-2. Aint happening, have you seen the rage being thrown at the program right now in congress because the AF cant even figure out the difference between 2 budget #'s?

They havent even seen the plane yet and already saying the cost is a joke.

If the cost is already a joke and then the reveal is a joke, how do you sell that? To me thats 2 strikes. Strike 3 will be when they realize that recession 3.0 is upon us and DOW plummets back to 10k.

No bat wing, mark my words. You guys have to save this post, come back in 3 years and apologize to me. There will be no new flying wing bomber purchased if thats what the USAF reveals. Ill bet my ATS username on it!

a reply to: Zaphod58

You put FAR FAR FAR too much faith in stealth.

Sometimes you just need to hit the gas brother.

a reply to: BigTrain

Tell you what. You go to Boeing, Lockheed, and Northrop and tell them how utterly incompetent and stupid they are because they're not flying mach 50 planes already.

a reply to: BigTrain

After what I've seen in the Congressional inquiry lately I tend to agree with you.

After all, Congress isn't avgeeks or appreciative of the tech details. They will be worrying about re-electability and these major programs are utterly permated with political pressure.

Even if the award is made I see production volume cuts coming...

a reply to: BigTrain

I put realism into stealth. You hit the gasand when you slow down to drop ordnance, good luck with those fighters that know exactly where you are.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Maybe a LASER armed SR71?

a reply to: BigTrain

Which is *exactly* why the moment stealth was proven to work, the USAF/CIA/NRO/etc scrapped all of their plans for airbreathing and boost-glide ISR craft and started a program that would have eventually led to the most expensive and technologically advanced (for it's time) aircraft ever conceived. An aircraft that, *surprise surprise* was a relatively slow, loitering UAV with a flight envelope not unlike a U-2's.

A convincing argument can be made that all of those murmurings about manned hypersonic SR-71 follow-ons in the late 80's and early 90's were the products of a deliberate disinfo campaign to distract people from the fact that the planned SR-71 successor was ACTUALLY a big(gigantic!), slow(relatively), and damn near invisible(and then some) drone.

a reply to: BigTrain

We'll save that post so we can come back in 3 years to laugh at you.

Mark my words.

You just have to see the success of gofast machines in aviation now..Eeerr Concord dead,Sr71 in mothballs,Green Lady built in small numbers,F111 retired,Mig25 well we wont go there,Valkyre prototypes in Museums..Speed aint easy or virtually every nation in the world would be flying Mach 5 superjets by now..Now look at subsonic stealth aircraft..

a reply to: Zaphod58

How about I go to Boeing and tell them theyre a joke because they cant even add a fuel tank to a COTS 767 and make it work.

And you here you with the extreme comparisons, I said Mach 4, you flip and out and claim I said Mach 50....sheesh.

a reply to: Zaphod58

You mean as a backyard jungle jim for Putin's illegitimate bastard kids at his secret retreat north of Sochi?

a reply to: Zaphod58

Green lady already built, make it a bomber. Enough of "oh its soooo hard"....just stop. We would have never went to the moon with your philosophy.

The B-2 Rev a or b whatever is pure corporate theft of the taxpayer. 550M plus per airframe for a new F150 with new computers.

Thats THEFT. If you cant make something new, then just upgrade your existing fleet at 1/10th the cost.

Your theory about stealth, how many B-1s have been shot down? HMMMM. I recall a stealth being blown outta the sky.....interesting.

a reply to: BigTrain

Have you seen the design already? I can't really have an opinion until I actually see whatever details will be made public.

That being said it'll be interesting on the aviation forums to see what people think about what the actual value to the taxpayer is, besides the initial (oh that's cool) factor. Those sentiments will also be expressed by Congress because they are the ones who have to worry about getting re elected.

I'm a huge avgeek myself but an even bigger contracting nerd; I think there will be some interesting analyses to be made after award announcement.

a reply to: BigTrain

I don't think anyone is saying that hypersonic flight is too difficult, it's just a lot of people worked out about 30 years ago that stealth is more important. As Zaph already said, and you promptly ignored, how are you going to avoid the enormous IR signature once the Green Lady slows down to drop any munitions?

And please .... B-1? The levels of stealth possessed by the B-1 are nothing compared to the B-2 or the rumoured capabilities of the RQ-180, how many of those have you seen in pieces?

a reply to: Barnalby

Yeah, I mean who needs Blackswift anyway

I agree a little with Big Train, don't be too confident with stealth for survive, for the instant for exemple the stealthy F-35 don't prove a real advantage on the Russian SU-35 and I'm not confident on the F-35 for air-air role, surely having speed in reserve for going out when fighters start to come in number if you are detected surely can save the pilots life. There is a difference on a supersonic dash speed and a hypersonic one, don't need to go mach 4 to escape but just mach 2 make surely the difference between life or death in a real contested airspace. For the instant stealth prove it work because no major war between 2 big nations and no real war with contested airspace has been made.