We May See America's Next Stealth Bomber by This Time Next Year.

a reply to: boomer135

Yes, but as someone pointed out to me, there's existing technology, and there's EXISTING technology. They may be using off the shelf parts from other black projects, which still falls under existing technology.

a reply to: boomer135
Its publicly what the Advent engine could do , supersonic without afterburner look at the end of the video interesting concept www.youtube.com... and build with existing turbine engine like the GE YF-120 to stay in the budget, performance and not too expensive good news.

a reply to: boomer135

Great to see a fellow flight suit on here! My AFSC is 4N0X1X. Basically a medic in a flight suit. I've gotten most of my flight hours out of Pope AFB. We flew C-130's out of there, but we deployed constantly. My hours between the 130, 17 and 135 are about the same across the board. Now I'm teaching AE at Wright Patterson. Pretty cool stuff, we're actually on the verge of purchasing a KC-46 fuselage and build a global AE training platform for it.

I deployed to the deid in 07 and 08. Ramstein in 09 and 10. And flew a ton of humanitarian missions in between.

You never got to fly any of the AE missions from Ramstein to Bagram? Those were fun...loved nose diving into the airfield because we had no defense capabilities on board.

a reply to: Sammamishman

550 Million a plane? There is NO WAY they are going to even come close to that price considering the B-2 's cost history. We are counting on too much high tech, high cost platforms I think. There is something to be said for lots of simpler weapons. Wouldn't drones be a perfect choice for a replacement to the B-2?

a reply to: pavil

No. They don't have the flexibility of a manned platform.

You can't compare this bomber to the B-2 for cost purposes. The Spirit was built when stealth was still relatively new. New materials, new production methods, and new technologies have brought the price of a platform like this way down. The Spirit is also a great case for people that have no idea what they're doing being in charge of procurement. If they had gotten even twice as many aircraft the unit cost would have dropped noticeably.

originally posted by: darksidius
a reply to: boomer135
Its publicly what the Advent engine could do , supersonic without afterburner look at the end of the video interesting concept www.youtube.com... and build with existing turbine engine like the GE YF-120 to stay in the budget, performance and not too expensive good news.

They used one of my pics in that video. wtf? lol

Well i believe you and i think it could be good enough to supercruise, but in that video they had burner on the entire time going mach 4 or whatever. so idk.

originally posted by: Assassin82
a reply to: boomer135

Great to see a fellow flight suit on here! My AFSC is 4N0X1X. Basically a medic in a flight suit. I've gotten most of my flight hours out of Pope AFB. We flew C-130's out of there, but we deployed constantly. My hours between the 130, 17 and 135 are about the same across the board. Now I'm teaching AE at Wright Patterson. Pretty cool stuff, we're actually on the verge of purchasing a KC-46 fuselage and build a global AE training platform for it.

I deployed to the deid in 07 and 08. Ramstein in 09 and 10. And flew a ton of humanitarian missions in between.

You never got to fly any of the AE missions from Ramstein to Bagram? Those were fun...loved nose diving into the airfield because we had no defense capabilities on board.

No i never flew any of those. And a tanker landed at Bagram? Thats pretty interesting. And yeah looks like i was before your time. I've been to the deid more times than i can count but the last one was in 2006. And we deployed constantly as well. There were times when we would do our 60 days in the desert, get maxed out on flight hours for the month, and fly home just to find out that two weeks after being home your deploying again. We did 60 days at a time over there due to flight hour restriction but in 2003 i got the entire year tax free. lol.

Pope AFB huh? Ever work with the 427th? lol

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: pavil

No. They don't have the flexibility of a manned platform.

You can't compare this bomber to the B-2 for cost purposes. The Spirit was built when stealth was still relatively new. New materials, new production methods, and new technologies have brought the price of a platform like this way down. The Spirit is also a great case for people that have no idea what they're doing being in charge of procurement. If they had gotten even twice as many aircraft the unit cost would have dropped noticeably.

Yeah the only reason the b2 is 2 billion dollars is because they only made 21 of them. They were projected to cost around the same as the new bomber if i recall correctly with a full run of 100.

a reply to: Zaphod58

When was the last time a plane came close to initial cost projections? What flexibility is achieved by this proposed plane that we couldn't do with drones or other assets? I don't see the need to have a plane that can hit anywhere on the globe in 2 1\2 hours. Give me a scenario where this craft would be indispensable.

a reply to: pavil

For one thing, you won't get shot down because it takes it two seconds to react to control inputs while it's halfway around the world. You don't get spoofed, you have faster reactions to pop up targets, you don't have to miss targets because you've decided to build a semi autonomous UAV that doesn't communicate until it clears the target area.....

Why do you think that the Pentagon is going to fixed price contracts for EVERYTHING. Let it run over, whoever builds it will pay the overrun.

Hell since we don't have to hit anywhere fast, why build new planes at all. I mean just because the current boomer force is older than a lot of the crews, so what, they're good enough.

a reply to: pavil

Getting to the action as fast as possible is always a good thing. The longer it takes to get to a target of opportunity the more chance that target has to get away and hide. Tell me speed of air assets to get in the fight isn't important to that boot on the ground with incoming enemy fire.

Think about it this way. We have B-2 portable hangers at Guam, Diego Garcia, and at a base in Europe. We can strike anyone quicker than it takes the white house to approve the air strike. lol

a reply to: Zaphod58

Valid arguments from you and Sam, however if speed to target were such a great thing, why did we even build the B2? All I am saving is that with the improvements in UCAV and Munitions, instead of 100 new bombers, I'd rather have 1,000 UCAVs to do the same job for the same money. We are living in an area of budgetary concerns. Granted the B-2 is operationally expensive as well as too expensive in overall cost to risk in many circumstances.

So far fixed contracts haven't seemed to help much, but not my area of research.

I'm not saving get rid of manned bombers, just use and update or our existing crafts and go unmanned craft capable of performing the missions going forward. I'd rather swarm drones than try and sneak a few manned craft in.

To me, UCAVs are the future, more cost effective and can loiter far longer if necessary.

a reply to: Sammamishman

Speed is great , but it's the cost Vs numbers argument to me. These bombers would not be close support or ground support craft. That argument is tenuous at best considering our Carriers and Air bases around the Globe.

a reply to: pavil

The technology didn't exist for any kind of speed and stealth when the B-2 was built. It was too immature still.

Fixed price contracts haven't worked because so far the only high profile contract is the KC-46, which was awarded last year.

UAVs aren't mature enough. Why do you think the more autonomous platforms have either no strike capabilities, or very limited capabilities. Strike missions require too much hands on, which means detectable. Not to mention more platforms to do the same mission, which again, means more risk of detection.

a reply to: Zaphod58

I guess we will see how it plays out. Just doesn't seem to be the highest Air Force priority to me.

Zaphod, how long do you think till UCAVs are the primary choice of the USAF, or will they ever take top spot from piloted planes?

a reply to: pavil

They'll never take primacy from manned platforms. They'll compliment them, but never replace them.

a reply to: pavil

Eventually these will be UCAV's. They are only "optionally" manned. I can see eventually a flight of several aircraft with one manned and the rest slaved to that one manned aircraft, overcoming any control lag and able to see targets of opportunity as the come. Once they are full UCAV, they will be able to loiter for extended periods of time if they are as fuel stingy as postulated.

Boomer if you look carrefully the video, the speed is not mach 4 for the bomber with advent engine at the end but mach 2.4 we see the 4 but its in the mach 2 range on the speed indicator not easy to see.

originally posted by: darksidius
Boomer if you look carrefully the video, the speed is not mach 4 for the bomber with advent engine at the end but mach 2.4 we see the 4 but its in the mach 2 range on the speed indicator not easy to see.

id have to rewatch it but i was going off of what the speaker was saying i think.