U.S. Air Force Said Poised to Award Bomber Contract Tuesday

a reply to: BigTrain

100%? Really? Name one airframe that has a 100% mission capable rate. The highest the Air Force has are the C-37A and the VC-25's at around 95% and they are the most maintained aircraft of the fleet. Combat aircraft are not that high of rates.

The B-1R is never going to happen.



Deal with it.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Oh IDK, I think a BIIIIG dumb drone with lots of pylons and a big bomb bay for cruise missiles with be a good thing to compliment the LRS-B. A rebuild of the Bone seems like a bad idea.

Call it a clean sheet RoboBUFF.

a reply to: anzha

It's called the B-52. Heh. That's about all they're good for until the defenses are hammered and corridors are kicked open.

a reply to: Sammamishman

We used to have a 97.8% with our two C-135s. That's the best you can get, and that was two aircraft.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Oh I know, hence the name RoboBUFF! But! At some point they're going to need to be replaced.

How do we know there isn't already a stealthy missile truck out there? Tacit Blue proved you can have some stealth and a boxy frame. Lots of room internally that way. Just throwing that out there.

a reply to: Flipper35

IT might be possible, but you really don't need a stealthy platform for this and could save lots of money by NOT making it stealthy.

a reply to: Flipper35

Maybe like an FB-23?

a reply to: Sammamishman

too small.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Its always interesting that theres plenty of money for all the ideas you love, but none for me?

You want to do predictions right here right now? Your B-3 doesnt fly in combat until 2035, thats 20 years im giving you, 20!

Care to counter?

a reply to: BigTrain

The F-22 took 8 years to reach IOC, The F-35A will do it in 10. The LRSB is scheduled to make IOC in 2025 and there's no reason to think it can't with the RCO involved.

Where is the 20 years coming from?

a reply to: anzha

I wouldn't think a large Tacit Blue like planform would be too expensive and it would have a lot of internal volume. I couldn't even to begin to contemplate some of the black projects that never got to the flying article stage, but I bet some are really pretty and others are really ugly but effective.

I also wondered what the payload is on an RQ-180 style airframe but used as an unmanned missile truck. Seems to be almost as big as the LRS-B according to rumor and hearsay so it should have a pretty good payload. May not be mature enough though. The BUFF has the load and range and works well with cruise missiles but how would it do with air to air with another plane designating?

Never mind, just read the F35/Missile truck thread.

We know nothing about the RQ-180 , may be it's not built by Northrop if it exist, and may be it may have nothing to do with a flying wing. A lot of people say a little time ago Lokcheed is sure to have the bomber program and for now they realy lose their bets, I think there is a lot of speculation and realy few concrete information in real.

a reply to: BigTrain

They BARELY have enough money for the new bomber and upgrading the ones we have. And they're not my ideas, they're what's happening. The AF is scraping the barrel for funding and cutting everything they can. And you want to spend billions on an aircraft without need.

They're spending $21B on the new bombers. They don't have unlimited money to but anything they want. If the B-1R cost $530M per airframe, then for just 30 aircraft they'd need to find, at minimum, an additional $16B before testing costs and any overruns.

a reply to: Flipper35

The -180 is too light for much more than sensors. Yes it's a large airframe, but it's as light as they could get away with.

a reply to: darksidius

You know, you're right. We are just speculating and making things up as we go.

a reply to: Zaphod58
In your opinion Zaph , do you think the Northrop Bird could be the better choice for decade to come ? I thing they are in a very good position for the next big futur contest on the F/X , FA/XX. Congratulation to Northrop-Grumman for this big win. Now a picture of a concept will be great

a reply to: darksidius

If you don't mind me jumping in. I do think it was the better choice, regardless of the industry implications. From what I've been gathering its the more versatile of the two submissions and has greater interoperability between theaters.

The LockMart jet is certainly cool, but the brass has grown up a bit. Also, as has been said previously, Northrop has a way with integrating sensors and combat networking that puts their bird on top. They are reaching unbelievable heights in combat cloud and neural networking. Northrop Grumman leads in inflight power as well, stuff that shrinks the computing power of an Arleigh-Burke to the size of server rack. Remember the LRS is the hub of a "family" of systems. Much of which are highly classified and also overseen by the RCO. This is exactly why the B-1r project is entirely obsolete.

a reply to: aholic
B1-R is an ancient concept for sure now its dead since a lot , if a day it was alive. Yes you are right since the start USAF spoke about a family of system surely a lot of surprise for the futur. In fact there is still 3 military aircraft company in USA and its a realy good new each of us with high competence great for the futur program like the 6th gen fighter.