US Next Generation Bomber Studies

Air Force Releases Long-Range Strike Bomber Request For Proposals


Posted: Jul. 10, 2014

The Air Force announced on July 10 that it has released a highly anticipated request for proposals for the Long-Range Strike Bomber. The service issued the RFP July 9, officially moving the program into the competitive development phase.

"The RFP will lead to a competitive selection of the bomber's developer in the spring 2015 time frame," Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James said in the July 10 statement. "The LRS-B is a top modernization priority for the Air Force. It will be an adaptable and highly capable system based upon mature technology. We look forward to industry's best efforts in supporting this critical national security capability." The Air Force wants to buy between 80 and 100 bombers that are to be capable of penetrating anti-access/area denial environments. The program's cost is currently estimated at $55 billion. Whether the source-selection process will be truly competitive was called into question by an analyst at the congressional research service last week. The service's release of an RFP appears to contradict that concern, but it remains to be seen until bids are submitted whether more than one team will compete for the program. A Boeing-Lockheed Martin team has already been formed to bid, and B-2 prime contractor Northrop Grumman is expected to as well. In a July 9 statement to Inside the Air Force, Northrop spokesman Tim Paynter said the company is positioned well to support the program.

"Northrop Grumman's design, production and sustainment of the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber, the bomber most recently produced for the U.S. Air Force, positions it well for the LRS-B program," Paynter said. "We are very interested in working with the Air Force to provide this critical capability for the nation." Boeing is the prime contractor for the B-52 and B-1 bombers. The Air Force did not make the RFP public and spokesman Ed Gulick said in a July 10 email that the service will not reveal the due date for proposals and indicated that the service will continue to limit the information it releases on the program. "This puts us officially in the competitive phase and greatly limits what we can say," Gulick said.

In a July 2 analysis, CRS military aviation specialist Jeremiah Gertler notes that the Air Force's latest spending plan for LRS-B research and development, which shows a jump from $259 million in fiscal year 2013 to $3.45 billion in FY-19, does not reflect the normal development curve of an early development program. Instead, he wrote, it more resembles a procurement curve for a program that is in the late stages of development. "Aviation analysts and industry officials confirm CRS's assessment that this funding stream resembles a production program more than a typical development profile," Gertler writes. "This may indicate that significant LRS-B development has already been completed, presumably in classified budgets. Such prior development would also help explain how the Air Force intends to get the system from a request for proposals to initial operational capability in about 10 years, when equally or less-complicated systems like the F-22 and F-35 have taken more than 20 [years]." Gertler said that if there has indeed been considerable prior development on the LRS-B, as past CRS reports and Air Force budget documents suggest, the Air Force will have difficulty constructing a truly competitive RFP. He said whichever competitor has performed the bulk of preliminary LRS-B development work will likely have the advantage when competing for the production contract.

While providing little detail about the nature of the early development work, the service has said that it is aimed at narrowing design requirements in order to avoid future program cost growth that comes with adding new capabilities late in development. According to a 2009 CRS report, which Gertler helped author, the Air Force funded the development of a next-generation long-range strike capability from FY-05 to FY-09. The government zeroed the line item in FY-10, the report states. In the service's FY-12 budget request, the development effort was restarted under the Long-Range Strike Bomber program, which replaced the earlier Next-Generation Bomber program. -- James Drew and Courtney Albon
 
NG is "looking forward"..
 

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flateric said:
NG is "looking forward"..
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"Forward" in this case meaning as far away from California as possible. All the tax incentives in the world won't make up for lost time and missed opportunities.
 
sublight is back said:
But Northrop aerospace-services chief just said it will be built at Plant 42 after all...
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If they get the contract, and the tax incentives. Other states still have plenty of opportunity to provide even better tax (and other) incentives.
Funny thing about bombers. They're big. And you need big, outdoor test facilities to develop them. Like, I dunno, a far field RCS range.
Lockheed has them. Boeing has them. Northrop didn't have one during the years that were most critical for risk reduction for the program.
 
How does everyone judge the odds that at least one of the two recent mystery planes was a flying lrs-b prototype?
 
phrenzy said:
How does everyone judge the odds that at least one of the two recent mystery planes was a flying lrs-b prototype?
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texas one looked like something smaller, more like f-117 almost.

the kansas one was probably a B-2
 
phrenzy said:
How does everyone judge the odds that at least one of the two recent mystery planes was a flying lrs-b prototype?
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Not plausible. Remember the British "ufo" report that was recently released that mentions still secret US aircraft..? The DoD ain't gonna telegraph to the world it's plans for the new bomber until it's impossible to continue hiding it. What's so hard to believe that the USA has a couple classified types?
 
you won't need to build full-scale prototype to prove aerodynamics of large platforms (see Polecat and MUTT). you have a plenty of remote sites to test it
you won't give classified prototype travel across continental US in a daylight adding it to pair of B-2 (beasts overfly itself being an event that attracts zillion praying eyes), moreover, adding wonderful possibility to compare planforms in situ
you have several thousand miles chance that someone armed with more advanced optics than Steve would look up to the skies after listening to transmissions
level of secrecy around LRS-B is paramount, and now imagine a secop officer who signs for this overfly
 
Has anyone done an article breaking down the size/angles showing that it was a B-2? I'm not doubting anyone I'm just curious.

If they had a flying prototype and needed it across country for some reason I could see them flying it, trucks with planes (or bits there of) tend to attract plenty of photographers of their own. They might have chosen daylight to ensure someone in a chase plane could talk them down and diagnose any visible problems on landing should they arise. If you flew up to altitude over secure land you'd have to feel fairly safe regarding identification at 30k feet.i suppose that doesn't guard you against people looking down on you from above, but that is surely mostly only a concern at taxi/takeoff/landing/taxi which could be timed to happen at an eye on the sky free period...the more I write the more unlikely it sounds... Just seems a little easy to dismiss it because if someone saw it, it couldn't be something we weren't supposed to see, were talking about the branch of the military that accidentally flew nukes cross country without realising it. They can't be on top of everything at every moment.
 
of course, as a chase plane candidate you are choosing two(!) B-2s with 150 kilobucks tag per flight hour...
 
flateric said:
of course, as a chase plane candidate you are choosing two(!) B-2s with 150 kilobucks tag per flight hour...
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They would be obvious candidates to mask a ferrying flight, particularly if they were scheduled to fly anyway. Of all the flyers in the airforce they are amongst the most trusted anyway. As for a chase plane I was thinking they would bring out a t-39 when it came time to start flying the approach.
 
Again - there is already a thread - which I linked to above - focused on speculating about the recent aircraft sightings. There is no evidence to suggest that this has anything to do with NGB/LRS.
 
ouroboros said:
Triton said:
From Stephen Trimble's Twitter feed. LRS-B concept?

Source:
https://twitter.com/FG_STrim/status/480433706268491776
http://mdolab.engin.umich.edu/MDO_Workshop_2011/Agenda_files/Kolonay_MDO_2011_SORCER.pdf
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Interesting use of the space behind the cockpit and below the DSI cone as the main/rear bomb bay. But, considering how far back the pilots lean and overall shape, this bay seems shallows-ish and wide, so no volumetrically large weapons, only long and slim perhaps? With the push for standoff weapons (hypersonics) and smaller guided weapons (SDB-2) I guess this is acceptable, but no MOAB.

The cockpit windows seem close to useless though. Periscopes and virtual windscreens, maybe via helmet projection perhaps?

I seem to have a vague recollection of previous work on this shape being a 4 engine setup though...
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Dumb question, but how feasible would it be to replace the DSI cone itself with a windscreen? Somewhat Bird of Prey style with the cockpit snuggling the intake?
 
Air Force Magazine, August 2014, interview with USAF chief acquisition executive William LaPlante on the LRS-B program:


http://www.airforcemag.com/MagazineArchive/Pages/2014/August%202014/Staying-Stealthy.aspx


Of note:


The competition involves considerable investment from the contractors and flying articles, LaPlante revealed. The government didn’t require this investment, but “if you want to be cutting edge,” companies need to invest to have “the best market advantage,” even if that market is limited to the military. Asked if the LRS-B will apply the philosophy of “fly before buy”—a frequent congressional demand usually meaning a fly-off competition—LaPlante said that because “this is relying on relatively mature technologies, and potentially decades of our industrial base supporting it,” evaluators “will not be merely looking at paper designs to make decisions.” There are “variants of technical articles, ... prototypes, if you want to call it,” that are being evaluated, he said. Some of these assets “are internal resources that industry has already; some of it is stuff that we have funded through various programs over the years, so that’s all going into what is going to be looked at in the next year.” Northrop Grumman is believed to have extensive subscale flying data on hand from work it did in preparation for the Next Generation Bomber project and is flying the stealthy X-47B remotely piloted aircraft under a Navy contract. Boeing’s self-funded “Phantom Ray” RPA has flown publicly, and Lockheed Martin has built a number of stealthy RQ-170 Sentinel RPAs for the Air Force.
 
This concept may have already been posted, but the Lockheed Martin "VS-07 NGB LRS-B 2006 Concept Model":

02v_jj14_e5c6026_live.jpg__800x0_q85_crop.jpg


(Image 4/13)

For every design that makes it into the air, there are thousands that don’t. This one didn’t. The designation was for Variable Sweep, seventh configuration. A two-seat bomber proposed in 2006, it was engineered around a variable-cycle engine that flew efficiently at both subsonic and supersonic speeds. This bomber concept explored the advantages and tradeoffs of swinging versus fixed wings. “Stealth is a fundamental enabler for access to denied areas,” says company director Stephen Justice, “but future bombers will first need to fly very far, arrive very quickly, and then persist. That’s a very conflicting set of requirements, a design nightmare. But that’s where the fun is for us.
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Beautiful concept, sci-fi style, with variable cycle engine its interesting, this concept can give some idea of the futur bomber.
 
I'm curious on the implementation of variable cycle engine.

Is it involve some "variable valve" That can vary the engine's bypass ratio ? So when subsonic fuel efficient mode is chosen, the bypass will be wide open, then once need arise for high altitude high speed flight regime the bypass will be fully closed, thus make the engine essentially a turbojet.
 
If this had any relation to actual concepts being offered for LRS-B, it would not have been released. So we can probably safely discount variable geometry or variable cycle engines.
 
TomS said:
If this had any relation to actual concepts being offered for LRS-B, it would not have been released. So we can probably safely discount variable geometry or variable cycle engines.
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On the other hand, stranger things have happened.
 
Interesting and beautiful design. But doesn't the placement of the horizontal tails in the way of the exhaust nozzles place?
 
donnage99 said:
Interesting and beautiful design. But doesn't the placement of the horizontal tails in the way of the exhaust nozzles place?
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I interpret the image as showing an x tail with the exhaust passing between the upper and lower tails.
 
Tail? We don't need no stinkin' tail. old chap.
 

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Impatient to see the LRS-B in white, interesting and inovative work made by Skunk, surely we will see something we don't think with the LRS-B demonstrator, Boeing and Lockheed together great surprise for sure.
 
I just wish the oblique flying wing was still in the running - it might be impractical for evasive maneuvers, but in terms of elegant simplicity in subsonic and supersonic regimes it is as close to perfect as you can get.
 
Avimimus said:
I interpret the image as showing an x tail with the exhaust passing between the upper and lower tails.
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x-tail is not exactly desirable for RCS. Horizontal tails align nicely with the body and the wings, altering that would create more radar spikes
 
Moose said:
LowObservable said:
Tail? We don't need no stinkin' tail. old chap.
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We're going to need a longer hangar.
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http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/why-is-area-51-building-a-brand-new-hangar-and-what-wil-1617424839
 
bobbymike said:
Moose said:
LowObservable said:
Tail? We don't need no stinkin' tail. old chap.
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We're going to need a longer hangar.
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http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/why-is-area-51-building-a-brand-new-hangar-and-what-wil-1617424839
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Err... Hmm… Hangar did you say? Well, I wonder if there could be some sort of link with the newly published 2014 RFP / contract found today for a Fort Bliss UAV complex…

antigravite said:
(…)
source: https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=765edaa14a96b9d9387ba67275988735&tab=core&_cview=1
(…)
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A.
 
Doubt they'd fly anything classified out here. It's too populated. Oh it's secluded. Just not Groom Lake secluded. Even as you get into the desert you still have roads. Plus loads of airline traffic in and out of El Paso Intl.
 
XP67_Moonbat said:
Doubt they'd fly anything classified out here. It's too populated. Oh it's secluded. Just not Groom Lake secluded. Even as you get into the desert you still have roads. Plus loads of airline traffic in and out of El Paso Intl.
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Kapish. Both aircraft and architectural projects take time to build before they get fielded. Like any engineering project. If anything like a UAV nextgen bomber shows up in the forthcoming decade, based on what is currently flying as it seems, and if this nextgen bomber gets manufactured in quantities, a few of them could well be stationed at this yet-to-be Fort Bliss complex. If not, this whole document is detailed enough to tip off on what a future base could look like, and/or on design and other requirements. Shedding some lights too, on overseas UAV complexes?
A.
 
Do they park planes and do maintenance in it? Or is it a test stand with a building over it to hide the testing they're doing? Or is it a delivery bay, so cargo planes can fly in and unload smaller cargo at any time of day so nobody can see what it is they're delivering? From the outside, it does look like a hanger. From the inside, well, I haven't seen any pictures.
 
Avimimus said:
donnage99 said:
Interesting and beautiful design. But doesn't the placement of the horizontal tails in the way of the exhaust nozzles place?
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I interpret the image as showing an x tail with the exhaust passing between the upper and lower tails.
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The horizontal stabs are actually horizontal.
 
sferrin said:
What else would it be? They park planes in it, do maintenance on the planes in it (I'd think it unlikely they'd fly whatever is in it somewhere else to change an engine). It seems to fit the description. ???
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Building is to tent as Hangar is to new construction at south taxiway.
 
quellish said:
Building is to tent as Hangar is to new construction at south taxiway.
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So it us a temporary shelter to keep an aircraft in. Must be very slow and cumbersome on the ground then if it cannot get outand away without a half way house.
 

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