Shipbucket

DoD OKs USAF Bomber Program Office
By DAVE MAJUMDAR
Published: 11 May 2011 12:57

The U.S. Air Force is creating an office for its new bomber program, a top service official said. "We've got a general mandate from the Secretary of Defense to go forward with standing up the program office, so we're just at the beginning of that work," said Air Force undersecretary Erin Conaton at a May 11 breakfast sponsored by the Air Force Association. Still to come: detailed requirements, a firmer production plan than the 80- to 100-plane estimate, and more. "We don't have a full life-cycle cost yet," Conaton said. "That's the work that'll be done now by the program office as they stand up," Conaton said. The number of aircraft to be purchased will be refined as the service gets a better idea of the capabilities offered by the under-development bomber, Conaton said. "Eighty to 100 is our current best estimate of what we think we'll need, but that estimate will be refined over time as we see the capability and what we think we can afford," she said. Most important to the Air Force is that the fleet be much larger than the force of 20 B-2 stealth bombers, whose small numbers make them more troublesome and expensive to maintain, she said.

The Air Force plans to manage the program under the auspices of the Rapid Capabilities Office because it offers more streamlined acquisitions than the regular channels, Conaton said. "The idea is to try to get capability as quickly as possible, leveraging as many existing technologies as possible," she said. Conaton acknowledged that the bomber isn't being fielded under what is usually thought of as a rapid capability, but she said the process is faster and simpler than the traditional process.

Current Scuttlebutt from around the net points toward a stealthy B-1A or FB-111H analog rather than a B-2 type airframe.

uhm.... then wikipedia is wrong again. that is lineart of the russian PAKDA bomber XD

Cool. Something like this?
<Image Snip>

A 30 year project is so open to politcal whims that it seems unlikley to progress very far (unless black projects over the last 20 years since the B-2 has already laid groundwork). The last I heard the USAF was anti-bomber and had done everything it could to keep the pro-bomber lobby out of the major command positions with some politcal string-pulling too.

Given the technical hassles with V-22, F-22, F-35 and 787 I can't see the American industry being strong enough to do this alone. Could Boeing or Lockheed really have the resources and money to go it alone on what is essentially a much larger and technically challenging system than the F-22 and F-35 programmes?

Also does this signify a shift away from ship-launched SLCMs as power-projection tools and cruise-missiles in general?

He probaly used it for NS:
http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c197/USCMC/nationstates/B-90ACondor-extended.png

Don't quote pictures - erik_t