U.S. Air Force Secretary Deborah James on Friday unveiled the first image of a new Northrop Grumman Corp long-range bomber and said it would be designated the B-21, as losing bidder Boeing Co said it would forego further challenges.
The program has been shrouded in secrecy since its inception for fear of revealing military secrets to potential enemies, and to avoid giving the losing bidders any details before their formal protest was rejected last week.
Northrop won a contract worth an estimated $80 billion in October to develop and build 100 new bombers, but work on the plane was delayed for months while federal auditors reviewed a protest by Boeing and its key supplier, Lockheed Martin Corp.
Boeing said on Friday it would skip any further protests with the U.S. Government Accountability Office or in the federal courts.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain said on Thursday he would block the Air Force's use of a cost-plus type of contract for the long-range bomber since it would hold the government responsible for cost overruns.
The Air Force says that only the engineering and development phase of the program, valued at $21.4 billion, is structured as a cost-plus contract with incentive fees.
Production of the first five sets of new bombers, usually the most expensive planes in a new class of aircraft, would be structured with a firm, fixed price, the service said.
Analysts say the program will be worth around $80 billion in total, providing a boon to Northrop and its key suppliers, but the Air Force has said only that it expects to pay $511 million per plane in 2010 dollars.
Title: Re: B-21
Post by: DaveBB on February 26, 2016, 05:12:48 PM
B-2 with more fuel and newer computers. We need more stealth bombers to fight terrorists and insurgents.
Title: Re: B-21
Post by: Brooke on February 26, 2016, 05:12:54 PM
Title: Re: B-21
Post by: DaveBB on February 26, 2016, 05:47:42 PM
On the subject of stealth, wouldn't a satellite be able to use radar to detect stealth aircraft from above? What is stopping a geo-synchronous satellite from using a large radar?
Title: Re: B-21
Post by: Oldman731 on February 26, 2016, 06:47:41 PM
The Air Force says that only the engineering and development phase of the program, valued at $21.4 billion, is structured as a cost-plus contract with incentive fees.
Oh, well, just so long as it's only the engineering and development phases, I suppose there's no harm...
- oldman
Title: Re: B-21
Post by: Rolex on February 26, 2016, 07:44:20 PM
On the subject of stealth, wouldn't a satellite be able to use radar to detect stealth aircraft from above? What is stopping a geo-synchronous satellite from using a large radar?
They are located 36.000 km above the Earth Surface, you will need a very very very powerful radar to detect and track a stealth aircraft at that distance. In theory its possible, but it will cost a lot of dollares... Better option would be a bunch in Low earth orbit (around 300-2000km above the Surface)
Title: Re: B-21
Post by: Gman on February 26, 2016, 08:42:20 PM
I wish they would have released the pictures of the 4 bombers used in the competition, 2 from Northrup and 2 from Boeing/Lockheed. It'd be interesting to see if any match up with some of the recent pictures taken of various high alt flying mysterious on various aviation/coyote sites. They said in every article there IS no B21 prototype made yet, so they must have picked various stuff from the 2 Northrup planes (maybe even 2 B/L planes) and decided to make an all new "B21" design - if the B21 was going to be close to 2 of the Northrup prototypes, you'd think they would just show that, like they did with the YF22/YF23 and X35/X32 planes.
Title: Re: B-21
Post by: FLOOB on February 26, 2016, 10:13:32 PM
Because our other super expensive war planes just aren't good enough to keep us from being invaded.
Title: Re: B-21
Post by: Chalenge on February 27, 2016, 01:35:12 AM
On the subject of stealth, wouldn't a satellite be able to use radar to detect stealth aircraft from above? What is stopping a geo-synchronous satellite from using a large radar?
Why use radar? Why not use optics?
We can see a fly's dropping on the news paper,sry tablet from sats,I would think a large dark plane would be easy peasy!
:salute
Title: Re: B-21
Post by: FLOOB on February 27, 2016, 03:48:59 PM
It's such stupid BS. Every day, every-other news story is "Fear Putin!" and "North Korea is Going to Blow Us Up!" We need more billion dollar aeroplanes to send to bases in South Korea and Estonia or we'll all be speaking korean soon comrade!
Title: Re: B-21
Post by: eagl on February 27, 2016, 06:34:39 PM
Its actually the B-2.1
Title: Re: B-21
Post by: branch37 on February 27, 2016, 08:01:44 PM
They are located 36.000 km above the Earth Surface, you will need a very very very powerful radar to detect and track a stealth aircraft at that distance. In theory its possible, but it will cost a lot of dollares... Better option would be a bunch in Low earth orbit (around 300-2000km above the Surface)
If you had a radar system that powerful wouldn't it be too powerful? What I mean by that is wouldn't it be very difficult for the operator to distinguish stealth aircraft from ground clutter and birds ect?
Keep in mind my knowledge of radar systems is VERY basic.
Title: Re: B-21
Post by: DaveBB on February 27, 2016, 08:09:00 PM
From directly above, a stealth aircraft has a huge radar reflection. The more perpendicular the aircraft is to the radar wave, the larger the reflection. Some of it will be absorbed by the skin of the aircraft, and a bit will be reflected away from the radar receiver. But it will still produce a very large signal.
But from my research, a geostationary orbit needs to be 22,000 miles above the Earth. Explains why they haven't put a radar up there yet...
Title: Re: B-21
Post by: Brooke on February 27, 2016, 08:31:22 PM
It seems that low-frequency radar might pose the biggest future threat to stealth aircraft. Stealth aircraft aren't so stealthy to low-frequency radar.
Historically LF radar has had problems with noise, size of the antenna, low specificity of location, etc. However, technological advancement could mean overcoming some of these problems or using LF radar to rough in the detection then using other radar or other means to get more specific.
Title: Re: B-21
Post by: Zimme83 on February 27, 2016, 08:46:09 PM
Geostationary orbit is 22,236 miles above the surface. The speed and orbit time for a satelite depends directly on what altitude its on so there is only one level were you can place a satelite if you want it to remain stationary over a fixed point on the Earth.
But sats in low Earth orbit could work, you just need a system of several satelites if you want to cover the entire globe.
Title: Re: B-21
Post by: eagl on February 28, 2016, 03:16:35 PM
Stealth aircraft need to be built with special materials that xxxxxx, shaping to help xxxx and xxxx, without xxxxx, and surface treatments that xxxx the xxxx to ensure xxxx while preventing xxxx and being easy to xxxxx. All of these need to be balanced because the overall design and individual design details must be tuned to xxxx, leading to compromises in both xxxx and xxxx. You can make a great all-around stealth shape with special materials, but it may not be flyable or useful due to payload, aero efficiency, and maintainability, and it still won't be perfectly "stealthy" against the entire EM, visual, or thermal spectrums. So they do their best to match the stealthy characteristics against known and predicted threats in order to be "good enough" to get to the target and back both now and in the future, also generally assuming some level of cooperative support from other assets and capabilities in really high-threat scenarios.
So... its complicated and there will always be one or more current or future threat systems that will defeat any particular aircraft. So what. There's always a threat we can't defeat. The question is if the weapon program will be good enough to fit within a system of systems to get the job done in scenarios we can anticipate, and hopefully have enough capability to be effective and survivable in those scenarios that surprise us. This aircraft is no different from any other aircraft in the past or in the future, so don't get caught up in the rabble rousing on either side just because they can blabber on about what if this one specific highly technical situation where....
Title: Re: B-21
Post by: eagl on February 28, 2016, 03:20:13 PM
Geostationary orbit is 22,236 miles above the surface. The speed and orbit time for a satelite depends directly on what altitude its on so there is only one level were you can place a satelite if you want it to remain stationary over a fixed point on the Earth.
But sats in low Earth orbit could work, you just need a system of several satelites if you want to cover the entire globe.
Oh, that's all you need. Easy. :)
Seriously, I think the US put about a billion dollars into a space based radar system including some prototype experimental payloads, before trashing the envisioned system and starting over. I think its just a bit harder than just tossing a few dozen radars into orbit. A comm sat we tossed into the ocean a couple of years ago cost just over $500 million bucks, and that was just one satellite. Just sayin...
Title: Re: B-21
Post by: DaveBB on February 28, 2016, 04:22:35 PM
Is there really any substitute for speed? If you were in a strike aircraft over enemy territory, would you rather be in a subsonic stealth aircraft, or a Mach 1+ B1b at 100 feet?
We are going to be fighting Isis and other extremist groups for a long time. They don't treat downed pilots too well....
Title: Re: B-21
Post by: Wolfala on February 28, 2016, 05:24:02 PM
Title: Re: B-21
Post by: Zacherof on February 29, 2016, 07:14:48 AM
Is there really any substitute for speed? If you were in a strike aircraft over enemy territory, would you rather be in a subsonic stealth aircraft, or a Mach 1+ B1b at 100 feet?
We are going to be fighting Isis and other extremist groups for a long time. They don't treat downed pilots too well....
In a word, yes there is a potential solution. A slower aircraft and high alt can drop a glide style weapon from beyond return fire range and let the bomb fly itself to the target. Same goes for powered flight munitions. The supersonic aircraft at very low alt will have to overfly the target directly.
Title: Re: B-21
Post by: Sabre on February 29, 2016, 01:35:31 PM
On the subject of stealth, wouldn't a satellite be able to use radar to detect stealth aircraft from above? What is stopping a geo-synchronous satellite from using a large radar?
A number of technical problems. First, at Geo, you'd need both a huge antenna and gobs of power. The ground-based systems used to track objects in space have both; a geo-satellite to handle the same, but inverse, task would be prohibitively expensive to put into orbit. Then there's the issue of ground-clutter. Consider also: While the planeform view (the silhouette when viewed from directly above or below) presents a huge radar return from a specular perspective (i.e. with the radiating antenna viewing the planeform at zero aspect angle), the "spike" or lobe width of the return is very narrow. The larger the reflective surface, the narrower the angular cone where you get a return. In other words, the radar would only see it well when it was directly underneath the satellite...which is also the direction where ground clutter would be at its worst. So, in order to provide reasonably constant tracking, you'd need many satellites all linked together in a network, further compounding the cost and complexity. Lots more to it, of course, but that's this rocket scientist's view. :airplane:
Title: Re: B-21
Post by: Gman on February 29, 2016, 07:30:51 PM
Geo synchronous is a lot lower alt than Geo stationary isn't it? Couldn't enough lower earth orbiting geosync says be overlapped in various spots to use look down radar for detecting aircraft with reduced signature tech?
The Soviets loved their low earth orbit RORSATs, giant honking radiating everything in sight school bus sized things, which could spot ships easily enough...not sure about a/c, but since the 80s resolution and power must have improved a lot. I wonder if the current stealthy high alt surveillance drones used by the USAF have the capability to track airborne aircraft with low observability tech.
Eagl, funny post. Can't you USAF guys just ask the aliens at Area 51 you fly with to help speed along the development process, and eliminate most of those "xxxx"s?
Title: Re: B-21
Post by: eagl on March 01, 2016, 12:11:55 AM
I think the aliens are playing both sides of the fence and probably leaking stuff to commercial entities. :noid
Title: Re: B-21
Post by: Zimme83 on March 01, 2016, 01:07:20 AM
Geo synchronous is a lot lower alt than Geo stationary isn't it? Couldn't enough lower earth orbiting geosync says be overlapped in various spots to use look down radar for detecting aircraft with reduced signature tech?
The Soviets loved their low earth orbit RORSATs, giant honking radiating everything in sight school bus sized things, which could spot ships easily enough...not sure about a/c, but since the 80s resolution and power must have improved a lot. I wonder if the current stealthy high alt surveillance drones used by the USAF have the capability to track airborne aircraft with low observability tech.
Eagl, funny post. Can't you USAF guys just ask the aliens at Area 51 you fly with to help speed along the development process, and eliminate most of those "xxxx"s?
No, geosynchronous orbit has always the same radius. As i said. Orbit time is depending on the radius. If you want a satellite to have a certain orbit time you need to place it in an orbit with a certain radius.
Geosynchronous orbit has an orbit time of exactly one day (23 hours 56 minutes and 4 seconds), geostationary orbit is a geosynchronous orbit placed directly over the equator.
Title: Re: B-21
Post by: Vraciu on March 01, 2016, 02:53:48 AM
When I first saw the vid all I thought of was...... Nah that cant be Puma...... :rofl :rofl :rofl
However it does sound like something you would do!!!! :aok
Now when Cal starts selling A10's I'll be first in line to get a good used one! :noid
:salute
You are correct sir. I'm much better looking. :D :rofl
....and why in the world would you want something that sounds like a pair of Hoover vacuum cleaners vs a beast that shakes your innards and the ground you stand on when it flys by in full grunt?! :x :rofl
Title: Re: B-21
Post by: Brooke on March 03, 2016, 12:35:37 PM
Cal Worthington was a 29-mission B-17 pilot in WWII.
Title: Re: B-21
Post by: morfiend on March 03, 2016, 03:26:43 PM
You are correct sir. I'm much better looking. :D :rofl
....and why in the world would you want something that sounds like a pair of Hoover vacuum cleaners vs a beast that shakes your innards and the ground you stand on when it flys by in full grunt?! :x :rofl
It's all about the gun! Always has been always will be!
But hey I like the 190A8 a barely flying brick but it packs 30mm's of LUV!!!! :devil
:salute
Title: Re: B-21
Post by: guncrasher on March 03, 2016, 04:52:45 PM
You are correct sir. I'm much better looking. :D :rofl
....and why in the world would you want something that sounds like a pair of Hoover vacuum cleaners vs a beast that shakes your innards and the ground you stand on when it flys by in full grunt?! :x :rofl
As a kid I lived mere yards from one end of the Birmingham airport, home of the Alabama Air National Guard. During the summer months, while summer guard duty was going on, I used to sit in my front yard as their F4s taxied 2 abreast, sometimes as many as 8 or 10 at a time, to "our" end of the runway and take off in tandem. Sometimes this would be in the early evening hours (low light). What a thrill!! When they notched in the afterburners the air sounded like it was being ripped apart, and the sight was spectacular!!
Title: Re: B-21
Post by: morfiend on March 07, 2016, 03:06:39 PM
It's all about the gun! Always has been always will be!
But hey I like the 190A8 a barely flying brick but it packs 30mm's of LUV!!!! :devil
:salute
Absolutely Morf! That's why the F-4E was developed. Vietnam proved that all the missles in the would can't match up against a Mig that turns tight and gets inside yout F-pole.