New Bomber Force May Need 200 Aircraft

[Steak-Sauce]

New Bomber Force May Need 200 Aircraft

Feb 17, 2012

By David Fulghum , Amy Butler
Washington, Washington


The U.S. Air Force chief of staff says the service is not going to go through the B-2 experience again—overdesigning a bomber and then having to buy fewer of them.

Analysts suggest the requirement for the Long Range Strike-Bomber (LRS-B) program could be as high as 200 aircraft as the aircraft begins to replace aging B-1s and B-52s.

The problem is how to take advantage of the new technology without breaking the budget or generating so much political backlash that the bomber program is reduced or canceled. The B-2s ended up costing more than $2 billion apiece because the program was closed down so early.

Article continued @ Aviation Week

[zema_06]

very interesting, the only problem is that it seems that they are going again towards a highly technological platform with costs going entirely out of control...last time they were able to pay for 20 airframes...the risk is that usaf will end up with 10 this time...

basically usaf needs a bomb truck to be able to fit in the footsteps of the present bomber force and especially of the b-52. in my opinion this is isn't going to happen...back in the time when the b-52 was introduced air forces where able to afford buying hundreds of airframes and keeping them in service for an extremely short amount of time before binning them...now we have reached the point where airframes are required to remain in service for 30-40 years and to be constantly upgraded...where the green airframe is probably the least expensive factor of the equation, with electronics being extremely costly and in constant need of upgrade to mantain top notch capabilities. this can remain sustainable for only a limited period of time...but a bomber force numbering 200 (even with reductions due to attrition an end of service life) is simply not sustanaible in the long term...look at the JSF which is a very fitting example...

here in italy we have some very good examples of this on our own...to support the local economy the air forces procures 110 AMX attack aircraft (which have proven to be usefull in the balkans, libya and afghanistan) only to retire more of half of the force after 15 years because there wasn't the money to upgrade them all...

it's all about money or rather the lack of it...both in the short and long term...

[C.Puffs]

They need to figure out what they want first, give it a solid, consistant, budget and then schedule it to be developed in as short a time as possible. Make it somehow illegal (or at least VERY difficult) to either add features or decrease it's yearly budget. The main reasons costs explode are because of feature creep and political meddling. Write those two things out of the process up front. If you're not going to try to address those things you may as well not even bother. They could probably even get supersonic speed for a reasonable cost IF they stuck with off the shelf propulsion, avionics, and stealth technology. Think the stealth tech and avionics of an F-35 with the propulsion of either the F119 or F135. And I don't mean just use those as the starting points and making a new engine. What they'll try to do though is develope engines researched in the VAATE program with tons of electrical generation capability and a variable cycle for DE weapons, jamming, etc. Then they'll want the laser to go with it, new stealth tech. etc. etc. and end up getting themselves cancelled due to aversion to risk, increased costs, and delays due to unforseen technical challenges.

[sepheronx]

They need to figure out what they want first, give it a solid, consistant, budget and then schedule it to be developed in as short a time as possible. Make it somehow illegal (or at least VERY difficult) to either add features or decrease it's yearly budget. The main reasons costs explode are because of feature creep and political meddling. Write those two things out of the process up front. If you're not going to try to address those things you may as well not even bother. They could probably even get supersonic speed for a reasonable cost IF they stuck with off the shelf propulsion, avionics, and stealth technology. Think the stealth tech and avionics of an F-35 with the propulsion of either the F119 or F135. And I don't mean just use those as the starting points and making a new engine. What they'll try to do though is develope engines researched in the VAATE program with tons of electrical generation capability and a variable cycle for DE weapons, jamming, etc. Then they'll want the laser to go with it, new stealth tech. etc. etc. and end up getting themselves cancelled due to aversion to risk, increased costs, and delays due to unforseen technical challenges.

You do know that another form of increased costs comes from the company too. I think you put too much faith in private industries not trying to screw over the government as well.

But, the rest of what you said is good. If they do make a specific budget (no more or less) and stick to a deadline, then it gives no room for either side to screw each other.

[Ordie]

Convert a Boeing 777 to dump precision ordnance from 30K feet.

[Lov3ll]

If the problems over designing them, why not just create another b-52 from a simple airframe?

[toad]

a large share of the b-2's cost was to make it EMP proof. It was said in the past, that if you want a bomb truck....make a few b-2 Lite.

But I think they are looking at a new aircraft, so that is a moot point.

No idea which way they will head, but they could always bring back the SLUF !

Maybe a larger version....

[C.Puffs]

You do know that another form of increased costs comes from the company too. I think you put too much faith in private industries not trying to screw over the government as well.

But, the rest of what you said is good. If they do make a specific budget (no more or less) and stick to a deadline, then it gives no room for either side to screw each other.

Oh I know what you mean. We needed some work done for a DoD project and as soon as the vendor heard what it was for you could almost hear the cash register go "cha-ching" over the phone. Needless to say they tried to screw us royally so we told them to pound sand. On another project, one that's getting a lot of attention because of costs, I can say (at least from my little corner of the big picture) that they're busting their a$$es to get costs down.

[C.Puffs]

Convert a Boeing 777 to dump precision ordnance from 30K feet.

You can pilot it.

[zema_06]

If the problems over designing them, why not just create another b-52 from a simple airframe?

it's not possible any more, when the b-52 was created the planners had one way missions in mind, you can call them trow-away-planes, back then ECM was just at the beginning and crew surviability wasn't given the same value it has today...out of some 700 b-52 build, some would have reached their target (nuking out the soviets). a nuclear war had acceptable losses which where concieved by some madmen.

the cold war has ended, and the cold war mindset should be long gone...

in the fifties aircraft development was at it's finest, prototypes rolled out in extremely short periods of time, real flyoffs between them where held, selecting the better candidate...

we have reached the point where all new aircrafts are more or less selected on paper, someone would call them comitee weapons. they take an average of 25 years from the start of the programm to the introduction and are by then at least partly obsolete...

today a b-52 is used in an all out war as carrier of air launched cruise missiles, launching them from safe distance, as any other missions profiles wouldn't give them surviability rates worth nothing.

converting a 777 to the missile truck role and firing missiles from safe distance could be the safest aproach, considering that even such a project would deliver 10 years late, billions over budget and probably without up-to-date missiles to fire (that programm would probably be axed or 15 years late...).

the usaf has never been able to replace the b-52 for a number of reasons:
- all replacement programmes where destined to fail because the requirements called for a jack of all trades, which should have been able to be used for all sorts of missions.
- the technical solutions required ment a steep cost increase and a high risk approach, which means that in case of problems nothing gets delivered, just billions wasted.
- a continuous change in requirements means a waste of money and a delay in introduction time.
- the cost is driven to a point where it's impossibile to acquire the plattform in the required numbers, leading to extremely high unit cost and high support costs on the long term as a limited productions means spares become much more costly.

if they really tried to build a b-52 today, they would incurr in some serious isses, cost being the first, further the decision makers (in this case usaf) would try to adapt it to a jack of all trades by packing it with all sorts of mission equipment, which in turn means cost increase...

i tend to think that the actual usaf bomber force will be the last of it's kind, as the costs and the technological requirements to replace it are prohibitive.

in fact the new requirements are the following:
- supersonic
- long range
- deep-strike capability ( = stealth)

trying to pack these requirements in a plane of the size of the b-1 or b-52 probably means, that it will become unaffordable...

probably some smaller strike airframe could be able to satisfy the requirements.

which reminds me of this approach was already tried with the b-58 which in the end was retired early as it couldn't adapt to changing threats (SAMs) and tactics, ending up with little combat value and thus ending up first on the retirement list...

worldwide there are 3 bomber fleets remaining (us, russia and china), which aren't to be replaced any time soon...

[Dankster]

Best of luck! I hope they get this right and we see a successful project for once. 200 bombers is unheard of in modern times, it will be very interesting to see that happen. I hope whatever it is, they choose a flying wing type design. Image 200 Spirits in the skies, pure awesome-sauce

[hattusili]

in fact the new requirements are the following:
- supersonic
- long range
- deep-strike capability ( = stealth)

When they're at the drawing board that list will keep growing, and then you have the over-budget situation once again.
There's probably just one way to get away economically and that's building drones. They could do that with a bomber now.

[C.Puffs]

When they're at the drawing board that list will keep growing, and then you have the over-budget situation once again.
There's probably just one way to get away economically and that's building drones. They could do that with a bomber now.

Yeah, drones are the answer for everything.

[hattusili]

There's even a reduced political risk to using them. Any crash in enemy territory can be explained with malfunctions, navigational errors or whatever..

[C.Puffs]

There's even a reduced political risk to using them. Any crash in enemy territory can be explained with malfunctions, navigational errors or whatever..

No thanks. We don't need another RQ-170 scenario but with a billion dollar aircraft.