USAF: Long-Range Strike Options Considered

Why not an air force version of the P-8?

Money, money, money, money, money.... money!

Cost has got to be the deciding factor, there are so many unfunded military programs out there, it's got to be cheap to have a chance. The production lines are open, and if you could buy 200 of these things for 50 billion I think you do it.

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. Any idea how many SDB's those birds could carry?

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...

reply to post by intelgurl


Hello, do you mean than the futur bomber contractor will be Northrop and for the hypersonic Blackswift it will be Lockhed an Boeing team?

One small question about the B-1R. If it was built, how long would it take to build, and what year would it become a fully operational aircrart in the USAF?

reply to post by Anonymous ATS


The B-1R would mainly involve upgrading the avionics, new engines, an expanded weapons inventory, external modification (hard-points) and likely some structural modifications for the new external load and the stress of the new engines pushing it to Mach 2+. Still, almost all add on components of the proposed B-1R are currently in production. If a serious effort was made to retrofit the entire fleet with this capability it could be done within a few years. We've seen, due to Afghanistan, the B-1 fleet being fitted with (and performing combat mission with) new sensors that were not standard to the fleet before. I'd give a ballpark figure of 2012-2014 for IOC if we decided to fund the program now.

[edit on 24-12-2008 by WestPoint23]

reply to post by intelgurl


so that would mean that the project could be the B2c or the FB-23 or maybe something new we haven't heard about yet? Be interesting if it actually was the FB-23.

reply to post by intelgurl


>>I like either the FB-22, or, more particularly, the FB-23. My reasoning was influenced in part by the following:

aerosim.calpoly.edu...

This university design team example has about the same size and shape as the FB-23 and offers an approximate overview of the FB-23 design, without the potentially classified hassles.
(NOTE: the file above is over 9MB, so load and print run times could be lengthy.)

The feature I really like about the FB-23 is that the dual vertical stabilizers were left intact from an apparent upward resizing of the F-22. Some artist's renderings of the proposed FB-22 leave off the vertical stabilizers and probably rely on fly-by-wire software to maintain aerodynamic stability. If the computer suffers a *glitch*, encounters a lightning strike or other damage, the plane would crash, not having the flying surfaces to stabilize the aircraft.
(A prototype B-70 was lost in a similar scenario to what I suggest, when both vertical stabilizers were torn off by an F-104 chase plane.)

So, the FB-23 or the FB-22---with vertical stabilizers---would get my vote. Since the F-22 has entered production, additional R&D on it would seen to be the least costly route to take. The FB-23 is still in the 'drawing board stage', as far as I know.

I can tell you that in '91 or '92 I saw a variant of the Boeing X-45C but with rounded edges. I saw this in broad daylight within 200' and about 75' off the ground. Trust me when I tell you that if we know about a project, it's old news.