Originally posted by lpbman
Why not an air force version of the P-8?

Why not a C-17 or a 757 or any other large capacity aircraft?
Originally posted by lpbman
The sensor suite needs to be changed, and the bomb bay is a bit small, but there are underwing hard points and it wasn't going to be stealthy anyway.

And this focuses on the flaw in your argument, the Long Range Strike plan does call for a stealthy, low observable platform.
Industry rumors at this time tell us that Northrop Grumman won the LRS competition and they are currently working on a stealthy platform in the high
subsonic/low supersonic regime.
This goes along with what Gen. Mosely stated a couple of years ago when asked about the LRS program, saying that it would most certainly start out in
the "black". Which goes a long way to explain why NG had an enormous amount of income designated "black projects" on their last annual
shareholders report.
Furthermore, Mosely has also stated that the LRS plan is multi-tiered which could also explain why it is the opinion of many industry observers that
the Blackswift hypersonic program has an offshoot that is now a Lockheed black program.
Just a few thoughts...