flateric said:Rhinocrates said:Aha, so it does! According to "003" below at least.
Still, something like sixty years of development in avionics since and one big off-centre bomb depicted in the original Avro design.
Other images show a centreline bomb bay - e.g.. "lm-boeing-ngb-planform-view" "ngb" - are these to be taken seriously?
Third picture turned out to be some AFRL concept, fourth is incorrect CBSA reconstruction based on published B/LM NGB render
WASHINGTON — The US Air Force's next-generation bomber program will compete for the right to do future technology upgrades, the Pentagon's top weapons buyer told reporters Thursday.
Speaking at a rollout of his Better Buying Power 3.0 acquisition strategy, Frank Kendall, Pentagon undersecretary for acquisition, said the Long Range Strike-Bomber (LRS-B) is being designed to incorporate new technologies, and that those technologies will be individually competed.
"The design is structured so that we have the opportunity to insert technology refresh in a way we have not had the flexibility to do in the past," Kendall said. "That is one of the things we asked for … modular designs and the idea of competition for future upgrades is very much a part of that approach.
"I think we will have opportunities to compete technologies that can go into the bomber to a degree we would not have had really on other programs we have had before," Kendall said. "I think the program office has done a good job of that."
That means whichever team wins the right to build the bomber will have to accept that competitors can still fight over a piece of the sustainment-and-upgrade pie. Northrop Grumman is competing with a team of Lockheed Martin and Boeing for the right to produce the bomber, which will eventually replace the B-1 and B-52 fleets.
Kendall did not go into detail about how much of the bomber's technology refresh would be competed, but the Air Force has made competition over the life cycle of its programs a priority. Officials for the F-35 joint strike fighter, for example, are looking at training contracts as a way to inject competition into that program.
Forcing competition into programs is seen as a way to drive down overall lifecycle costs, something that will be particularly important with the bomber program, which has a self-imposed cap of $550 million per copy in 2010 dollars. The program is expected to downselect this summer.
The Air Force won’t say who the source selection authority is for the Long-Range Strike Bomber, but it’s not Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh, he said Wednesday. “I’m completely isolated from that,” he told reporters in Washington, D.C. “I have no knowledge at all of what’s in the bids, ... which I think is completely appropriate ,” Welsh said. A USAF spokesman said the service does not divulge such information, presumably to shield the SSA from people attempting to influence the choice. The request for proposals went out last year, and a choice is expected this summer. Welsh said he has visited both the Boeing/Lockheed Martin team and Northrop Grumman, and “I was very confident on where both teams were before they submitted bids ... I was impressed by both—the work they’ve been doing—and so I’m excited to see how this moves forward.” Welsh reiterated that LRS-B requirements have not changed since they were set in 2010, adding the program has not changed. “I have not approved a single requirements change since I’ve been in this job. We are serious about maintaining the baseline cost,” which is $550 million apiece in baseline 2010 dollars, “and I think we can produce the bomber for that cost.”
sferrin said:TomS said:That's not what the article claims. It says that LM is doing the whole design effort and Boeing is just there for fabrication (i.e., LM does the design and tells Boeing "build this"). That would be ignoring a lot of design expertise within Boeing's Phantom Works for no good reason.
Yeah, I can't see that.
Read FG article on testing again.sublight is back said:Maybe somebody can answer over in the X-47b thread; If the X-47b was supposed to just have a "notional" stealth shape and the platforms primary purpose was the testing of its autonomous systems and carrier integration, then why was all the pole model testing done?
flateric said:Read FG article on testing again.sublight is back said:Maybe somebody can answer over in the X-47b thread; If the X-47b was supposed to just have a "notional" stealth shape and the platforms primary purpose was the testing of its autonomous systems and carrier integration, then why was all the pole model testing done?
"...pole model that is modular and flexible, allowing large-scale physical changes. The model is being used as a design tool, rather than simply for signature demonstration."
sublight is back said:Respectfully, the wings may be extended as well as flaps and other surfaces, but the dimensions of the fuselage are going to change very little. It is not exactly a pile of legos. And it is a design tool for whom? For Lockheed to build platforms for Northrop?
flateric said:http://www.pogo.org/blog/2015/04/20150416-major-concerns-unaddressed-as-lobbyists-battle-for-new-stealth-bomber.html
If you look at the pictures posted above, the fuselage doesn't have any seams, which is why I say it does not look like a pile of legos. You would have to take a chainsaw/blowtorch/etc to it in order to really change its shape. Do all the edges look replaceable? Yes, those do.quellish said:sublight is back said:Respectfully, the wings may be extended as well as flaps and other surfaces, but the dimensions of the fuselage are going to change very little. It is not exactly a pile of legos. And it is a design tool for whom? For Lockheed to build platforms for Northrop?
It is a pile of legos, that's the point.
sferrin said:flateric said:http://www.pogo.org/blog/2015/04/20150416-major-concerns-unaddressed-as-lobbyists-battle-for-new-stealth-bomber.html
"If this sounds familiar, it should. As Tony Capaccio reports for Bloomberg Business, the LRS-Bs predecessor the B-2, was planned as 132 planes for about $571 million each in 1991 dollars before the first Bush administration cut the fleet to 20 planes in the early 1990s. That resulted in a price of about $2.2 billion per bomber, a fourfold increase, in a program that remained highly classified during its development."
<Insert obligatory facepalm> Typical POGO cluelessness. R&D is a fixed cost and when you cut the numbers total unit cost is going to go up, and this has absolutely zero to do with anything other than you don't get to divide the R&D cost into as many pieces. But they want to imply that, "see what secrecy gets you? They're hiding all kinds of stuff."
LowObservable said:As for POGO, I don't understand the anger.
LowObservable said:And the point about the B-2 cost spiral is entirely valid. At the point when the final cut to 21 happened, the flyaway cost for another 20 was already north of $500 million each and development to a supportable standard was far from complete.
LowObservable said:As for POGO, I don't understand the anger. It's not as if everyone in DC is pure in heart and motive, and if you want money or power (the local currencies) being pro-big-program is demonstrably the best way to do it
Steve Pace said:Tell that to the B-2 drivers that flew nearly 50-hour missions to drop their precision munitions. -SP
LowObservable said:As for POGO, I don't understand the anger.
Steve Pace said:Tell that to the B-2 drivers that flew nearly 50-hour missions to drop their precision munitions. -SP
RadicalDisconnect said:LowObservable said:As for POGO, I don't understand the anger.
Read their articles on the F-22's performance (especially when comparing to the F-16), and tell me they're not distorting information.
"North of $500 million" is far different than $2.2 billion
Dragon029 said:RadicalDisconnect said:LowObservable said:As for POGO, I don't understand the anger.
Read their articles on the F-22's performance (especially when comparing to the F-16), and tell me they're not distorting information.
Do you have a link to a specific article or two? I'm not doubting you, just interested in seeing how far they go.
The Sound Signature - Modernity and the sound of a booming supersonic F-22 allow high-speed computers to identify it and (given an intergrated net of sensors) provide sufficiently accurate position location and prediction.
...
The F–22 does not provide a Great Leap Forward in performance relative to the F–15C or MiG-29. At 65,000 lbs, with 18,500–18,750 lbs of fuel, with two nominal 35,000 lb thrust engines—it has the thrust to weight ratio of the F–15C, the fuel fraction of the F–15C, and a wing loading that is only slightly inferior to that of the F–15C, so it will accelerate, climb, and maneuver much like the F–15C for reasons of basic physics.
RadicalDisconnect said:Note that those who post about the F-22 on POGO are Pierre Sprey and Winslow Wheeler. You can easily dig up their garbage pieces on the F-22.
RadicalDisconnect said:Dragon029 said:RadicalDisconnect said:LowObservable said:As for POGO, I don't understand the anger.
Read their articles on the F-22's performance (especially when comparing to the F-16), and tell me they're not distorting information.
Do you have a link to a specific article or two? I'm not doubting you, just interested in seeing how far they go.
Well then...
http://www.slideshare.net/Picard578/stevenson-f-22-brief
http://www.pogo.org/our-work/reports/2000/ns-fa22-20000810.html
The Sound Signature - Modernity and the sound of a booming supersonic F-22 allow high-speed computers to identify it and (given an intergrated net of sensors) provide sufficiently accurate position location and prediction.
...
The F–22 does not provide a Great Leap Forward in performance relative to the F–15C or MiG-29. At 65,000 lbs, with 18,500–18,750 lbs of fuel, with two nominal 35,000 lb thrust engines—it has the thrust to weight ratio of the F–15C, the fuel fraction of the F–15C, and a wing loading that is only slightly inferior to that of the F–15C, so it will accelerate, climb, and maneuver much like the F–15C for reasons of basic physics.
Or how about this gem that compares the M48 with the M1A2 Abrams. I'll let you guess who Mr. Sprey picked as the winner.
http://pogoarchives.org/labyrinth/09/07.pdf
Note that those who post about the F-22 on POGO are Pierre Sprey and Winslow Wheeler. You can easily dig up their garbage pieces on the F-22.
LowObservable said:Reading the Stevenson brief, it seems that whatever anyone here may think of his analysis, he reached the same conclusion that Bob Gates did, about three years before Gates: That the F-22's advantages were offset by inflexibility and high cost.
LowObservable said:Reading the Stevenson brief, it seems that whatever anyone here may think of his analysis, he reached the same conclusion that Bob Gates did, about three years before Gates: That the F-22's advantages were offset by inflexibility and high cost.
sferrin said:LowObservable said:Reading the Stevenson brief, it seems that whatever anyone here may think of his analysis, he reached the same conclusion that Bob Gates did, about three years before Gates: That the F-22's advantages were offset by inflexibility and high cost.
I think Bob Gates arrived at whatever conclusion Gordon England told him to when it came to the F-22. As for "F-22's advantages were offset by inflexibility and high cost." that's pretty much subjective opinion. One the USAF doesn't agree with. The decision to end F-22 production is already being seen for the foolhardy decision it was.
Sundog said:sferrin said:LowObservable said:Reading the Stevenson brief, it seems that whatever anyone here may think of his analysis, he reached the same conclusion that Bob Gates did, about three years before Gates: That the F-22's advantages were offset by inflexibility and high cost.
I think Bob Gates arrived at whatever conclusion Gordon England told him to when it came to the F-22. As for "F-22's advantages were offset by inflexibility and high cost." that's pretty much subjective opinion. One the USAF doesn't agree with. The decision to end F-22 production is already being seen for the foolhardy decision it was.
Why was it fool hardy? There isn't a single threat out there that even requires an F-22 and there won't be for at least another decade and even then, it won't be in enough numbers to make a difference.
What's fool hardy is the USAF starving the previous generation of major upgrades that could see them last well into the future in order to pursue technology they can't affords to use. They're cannibalizing our current forces to pay for the F-35. That isn't a smart trade off. Upgraded F-15s and F-16s could have been purchased in much higher numbers than the F-22 and F-35 and would have provided plenty of needed capability. But the USAF insists on using technology that actually isn't ready for prime time and ends up spending a lot more than expected as a result. It looks like they may have learned their lesson with LRS-B, but I'll believe it when I see it.
sferrin said:Sundog said:sferrin said:LowObservable said:Reading the Stevenson brief, it seems that whatever anyone here may think of his analysis, he reached the same conclusion that Bob Gates did, about three years before Gates: That the F-22's advantages were offset by inflexibility and high cost.
I think Bob Gates arrived at whatever conclusion Gordon England told him to when it came to the F-22. As for "F-22's advantages were offset by inflexibility and high cost." that's pretty much subjective opinion. One the USAF doesn't agree with. The decision to end F-22 production is already being seen for the foolhardy decision it was.
Why was it fool hardy? There isn't a single threat out there that even requires an F-22 and there won't be for at least another decade and even then, it won't be in enough numbers to make a difference.
What's fool hardy is the USAF starving the previous generation of major upgrades that could see them last well into the future in order to pursue technology they can't affords to use. They're cannibalizing our current forces to pay for the F-35. That isn't a smart trade off. Upgraded F-15s and F-16s could have been purchased in much higher numbers than the F-22 and F-35 and would have provided plenty of needed capability. But the USAF insists on using technology that actually isn't ready for prime time and ends up spending a lot more than expected as a result. It looks like they may have learned their lesson with LRS-B, but I'll believe it when I see it.
No, no, no, you got that all wrong. We should have killed the F-15 and F-16 and kept buying F-4s. 'cuz, you know, F-4s man. : (BTW there are many threats out there that require an F-22 or F-35.)
bobbymike said:sferrin said:Sundog said:sferrin said:LowObservable said:Reading the Stevenson brief, it seems that whatever anyone here may think of his analysis, he reached the same conclusion that Bob Gates did, about three years before Gates: That the F-22's advantages were offset by inflexibility and high cost.
I think Bob Gates arrived at whatever conclusion Gordon England told him to when it came to the F-22. As for "F-22's advantages were offset by inflexibility and high cost." that's pretty much subjective opinion. One the USAF doesn't agree with. The decision to end F-22 production is already being seen for the foolhardy decision it was.
Why was it fool hardy? There isn't a single threat out there that even requires an F-22 and there won't be for at least another decade and even then, it won't be in enough numbers to make a difference.
What's fool hardy is the USAF starving the previous generation of major upgrades that could see them last well into the future in order to pursue technology they can't affords to use. They're cannibalizing our current forces to pay for the F-35. That isn't a smart trade off. Upgraded F-15s and F-16s could have been purchased in much higher numbers than the F-22 and F-35 and would have provided plenty of needed capability. But the USAF insists on using technology that actually isn't ready for prime time and ends up spending a lot more than expected as a result. It looks like they may have learned their lesson with LRS-B, but I'll believe it when I see it.
No, no, no, you got that all wrong. We should have killed the F-15 and F-16 and kept buying F-4s. 'cuz, you know, F-4s man. : (BTW there are many threats out there that require an F-22 or F-35.)
Let alone the million P-51 Mustangs we could have had