LRS-B (new stealth bomber) speculation

Well, it should be no surprise to anyone paying attention, but we've had interesting word from the USAF acquisitions office.....

The competition phase has not been limited to “paper studies,” he allowed, but includes flying demonstrators or better. “We will have variants of technical articles … if you want to call them ‘prototypes,’” he said, and this fact, though previously undisclosed, should be no surprise because the program is “relying on relatively mature technologies,” LaPlante explained. Some of these flying demonstrators are the product of “internal resources that industry has already; some of it is stuff that we have funded through various programs over the years.

www.airforcemag.com...


Which means several test articles are in the skies and probably have been for some time, developing and testing the technology for the new strike platform.

It's easy to put 2 and 2 together and get 5, but I suspect maybe some of the recent sightings of black triangles are related to this

Link to ATS "Pictures Of Mystery Plane Over Wichita":
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Link to ATS "West Texas Spanloader":
www.abovetopsecret.com...

At least one demonstrator was flying in the early to mid 2000s. So there's no telling what's flying now.

a reply to: _Del_

Wichita had nothing to do with the LRS-B program.

a reply to: _Del_

My money's on the Amarillo trio being the selected LRS-B platform or at least mature prototypes.

a reply to: Sammamishman

What's the Amarillo trio? Is that the sorta triangular looking plane in the west Texas span loader thread?

So the flying Dorito looking thing was not a lrb, not the f117 companion, not a tanker, for personal reasons I don't think it's our recon platforms. I guess that narrows down a little what it could be.

Enjoying these aviation threads. Zaph, boomer, sammamishman, Thanks for the best reads here on ats.

Btw zaph,

I saw it again for the third time, heading outbound.

a reply to: BASSPLYR

Yes, it's the aircraft that flew over Amarillo (not the B-2s they flew over later).

a reply to: Zaphod58

Thank you sir!! That's one pretty looking plane that flew over Amarillo. A lot sleeker than the b2. Probably does waaaay more too.

a reply to: BASSPLYR

Wichita is more interesting IMO.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Yeah, we probably won't get to see that one up close any time too soon either. What a tease..

a reply to: BASSPLYR

No, thank you for reading, and mentioning my name in the same sentence as Zaph and Boomer.

btw, can you get a picture of what you are seeing? We love picture here.

a reply to: boomer135

It might still be flying as a systems testbed at this point. All sorts of neat gadgets to put into something to scurry here or there.
The wording definitely suggests multiple SAPs (including actual hardware/airframes) all sort of generally related being incorporated into the LRS-B program. It will be quite interesting, depending on when we learn about them, what systems they now consider "mature".

wild speculation allowed???

i see EW and Networking being a big role of the LRS-B.

the F22's and 35's and I'm guessing others that have been updated(not sure here tho) can use their targeting systems to zero in missiles and bombs fired from the b1b lancer and the B2. this ups the capability of the smaller and harder to detect/target fighters 10 fold.

NOW wouldnt this capability be something amazing if you didnt need the fighters? How bout a cruise missile style drone with a little bit of loiter capability and powerful targeting/networking gear that could be the tip of the spear so to say? a bomber that can stay 200-400 miles away and have an ON SITE visual/Electronic picture of the battlefield thats DIRECTLY SENT TO THE BOMBER. no satellite relays or anything else of this nature. could make it usable in more situations. send this bad devil in get your targets and release your load and be gone before you ever even got within 2 COUNTRIES of your target lol.

heres where i see issues. i doubt theres any way to safely return her to her "womb" when she's done so either make her become a bomb too or proceed on to a safe area for recovery and reuse. i say cruise missile style for the sheer speed factor. its not going to work very well if the b1b drops out a predator and has to throttle back for a while... not fun lol

I'm just blown away by current processing power, in my opinion they could make a very very sophisticated targeting drone in a very compact package. not too compact of course, not talking hobby plane here but like i said above, the cruise missile platform could fit ALL KINDS of goodies inside it if you took out most of the boom boom.


another capability i see being a hot selling point in the future is deployment of weapons outside or nearly outside the earths gravitational pull. bombs will make a much bigger boom with less from way up there if designed to do so.

a reply to: Sammamishman

Well it's like this. What I'm seeing is so damned fast that even if I were to have a camera ready in my hands the time it would take to get the camera up, sorta aimed at the plane and take a shot of the thing would either be gone or a total blur. I would need a camera aimed at the general area of the sky I expected it to fly from filming 24 /7 for a week straight and then have to go back and watch all 168 hours of footage for 1.5 seconds of excitement. I ain't got time for that. And My head would melt in the process.

What I saw is very, very fast. And so out there that I don't even mention it any more or keep up with my own thread regarding it.

Also, I've already decided that if I ever did get a photo of this craft I wouldn't post it publicly, sorta irresponsible, since I'm confident it's ours...and damned proud of it too. But would maybe share with trusted people via U2U.

Meanwhile the Kansas craft is even more interesting than the texas one. Fascinating. I'm especially interested in the pale blue sheen the front edge of the plane has. I've seen something very similar before and No I don't think that's an effect of the sun glinting off of it's fuselage.

originally posted by: _Del_
a reply to: boomer135

It might still be flying as a systems testbed at this point. All sorts of neat gadgets to put into something to scurry here or there.
The wording definitely suggests multiple SAPs (including actual hardware/airframes) all sort of generally related being incorporated into the LRS-B program. It will be quite interesting, depending on when we learn about them, what systems they now consider "mature".

The one I refueled was definitely a scale model demonstrator based on its size. It looked like 3/4 the size of a b-2, which is a big ass plane by the way.

a reply to: mindseye1609

Funny you mention that. The F-35 supposedly fire its wingman's missiles from his jet. So like the flight lead can fire number 4's missiles if it needs to. Just rumor but I think I read this technology was real somewhere.

I have a lot of question in my mind about this exciting program, what size? what the airframe will look like ( flying wing or more like a big F-35?) will it be a fast airplane or not ?what are the mature technology on it ? and what is more exotic ? for now little response on it . The guy's who see a demonstrator of IT are realy Lucky pffff realy so long waiting for the others

a reply to: darksidius

Not as long as you think from what I've heard.

originally posted by: boomer135
a reply to: mindseye1609

Funny you mention that. The F-35 supposedly fire its wingman's missiles from his jet. So like the flight lead can fire number 4's missiles if it needs to. Just rumor but I think I read this technology was real somewhere.

it really is an amazing jump in technology and capability. how many times in history has someone had the lock but didnt have the right ammo or a jam or whatever and their wingman wasn't in lock position but has ammo left. can really turn the tide in a sticky situation.

also opens the doors up for bringing along some sort of "Mothership" like the b1b or b2 that hangs back at distance all loaded down. if we were expecting air to air they can put 50+ sidewinders on a b1b. air to ground I'm sure they have just as formidable of a load. its going to change the way fighters are designed and built. much less emphasis on having them be the killing machine of the past and more like a current day special forces who can get in deep and paint a nice accurate bullseye on the sh!thead who needs it.

a reply to: mindseye1609

The problem with that concept is that the missile trucks are vulnerable. With the new missiles coming out they wouldn't stand a chance in even a medium threat environment. We'd need a totally new stealthy platform for it.

Mind you they'd make a hell of a missile truck and it would be interesting to see. But the entire legacy fleet is vulnerable to new weapons.