phrenzy said:a VHF space based option
On what frequencies? VHF does not get along with the ionosphere.
phrenzy said:a VHF space based option
bobbymike said:These links are subscriber only, sorry:
http://aviationweek.com/defense/under-radar-project-aims-slash-boeing-costs?NL=AW-19&Issue=AW-19_20150716_AW-19_223&sfvc4enews=42&cl=article_1&utm_rid=CPEN1000000230026&utm_campaign=3186&utm_medium=email&elq2=4327e65b3c014cafa3b83e06adbe9e16
Boeing believes a closely held manufacturing technology initiative, code-named Black Diamond, will give it a competitive edge in the Long-Range Strike Bomber (LRS-B) and T-X trainer contests and also reduce the costs of future commercial airplane programs, according to outside analysts who have been briefed on it. The effort is led by the Phantom Works unit of Boeing’s Defense, Space & Security division, which is believed to be building a large-scale demonstrator airframe to prove and showcase key technologies.
Black Diamond, one analyst says, is closely linked to new CEO Dennis Muilenburg. “It’s one reason why he’s the next CEO,” that source says. Boeing declined comment on the initiative.
Black Diamond is company-funded and free from government security regulations, which has allowed the company to involve its commercial aircraft unit and its outside partners. Its goal is to advance the state of the art in two related disciplines: engineering based on detailed computer models that include all the physical properties of each part, not just its shape, and robotic fabrication and assembly
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http://aviationweek.com/defense/opinion-economics-credibility-dominate-bomber-decision?NL=AW-19&Issue=AW-19_20150716_AW-19_223&sfvc4enews=42&cl=article_3&utm_rid=CPEN1000000230026&utm_campaign=3186&utm_medium=email&elq2=4327e65b3c014cafa3b83e06adbe9e16
The story so far in the Long-Range Strike Bomber (LRS-B) program will make fascinating reading when and if the participants can tell it without being tossed into a federal slammer.
It would have been easy if the people who had built a stealth bomber and stealth unmanned air vehicle (UAV) had teamed with the people who build hundreds of large airplanes every year, and have learned the hard way how to do that in composites. But they didn’t, so Pentagon acquisition czar Frank Kendall, Air Force acquisition boss Bill LaPlante and their staffs have had to earn their pay to choose between Northrop Grumman and the Boeing/Lockheed Martin team.
FighterJock said:Would the pentagon really go with Northrop just because LM are having problems with the F-35 program and that Boeing have not designed a modern bomber since the B-52?
Those are all Martin bomber names. The B-34 shown was named Ventura. -SPArjen said:Marauder, Baltimore, Maryland ...
As you know it wasn't Lockheed Martin when those aircraft (the Marauder, Baltimore and Maryland) were in service. it was the Glenn L. Martin Company in Baltimore, Maryland. The Lockheed Aircraft Corporation was all the way cross-country in Burbank, California. The Lockheed B-34 Ventura had nothing to do with the Martin Marauder, Baltimore and Maryland. -SPArjen said:Marauder, Baltimore, Maryland ...
Intersting quote from 2008bring_it_on said:A Future-Based Risk Assessment for the Survivability of Long-Range Strike Systems
jsport said:Intersting quote from 2008bring_it_on said:A Future-Based Risk Assessment for the Survivability of Long-Range Strike Systems
"National Intelligence Council’s 2020 Project [5]. Similar
to the other studies, the National Intelligence Council (NIC)
team conducted workshops and brainstorming sessions with a
broad range of experts to develop four alternative future
scenarios: Davos World, Pax Americana, A New Caliphate,
... ''
zebedee said:A third scenario, New Caliphate, posits a radical wave across the Muslim world, putting a brake on globalisation, while the fourth, Cycle of Fear, projects the spread of weapons of mass destruction into terrorist hands."
sferrin said:zebedee said:A third scenario, New Caliphate, posits a radical wave across the Muslim world, putting a brake on globalisation, while the fourth, Cycle of Fear, projects the spread of weapons of mass destruction into terrorist hands."
Things will definitely get interesting once Iran gets nukes.
Sundog said:sferrin said:zebedee said:A third scenario, New Caliphate, posits a radical wave across the Muslim world, putting a brake on globalisation, while the fourth, Cycle of Fear, projects the spread of weapons of mass destruction into terrorist hands."
Things will definitely get interesting once Iran gets nukes.
Pakistan and Israel have them. When Iran gets them Saudi Arabia will feel compelled to have them. Interesting times.
Fortunately for Saudi Arabia, they won't be getting them for awhile.
That's why upon learning of the 'so-called' 'set back' SA immediately pondered its' own nuclear program.Sundog said:To clarify, I was saying, fortunately for Saudi Arabia, Iran has finally been set back on it's nuclear program, since nobody was slowing them down in the past from getting nuclear weapons.
bring_it_on said:Long-Range Strike Bomber contract to be awarded; Boeing and Lockheed’s edge; Northrop Grumman’s advantage ....
marauder2048 said:bring_it_on said:Long-Range Strike Bomber contract to be awarded; Boeing and Lockheed’s edge; Northrop Grumman’s advantage ....
It's an interesting read but something that's been nagging me is: will there be enough slack in the aerospace supply chain to accommodate
the bomber at reasonable cost/schedule? If you look at the current and proposed ramp-ups that will be occurring during the bomber's
timeline just the composite heavy jets alone (F-35, 787, 777X, A350) will be at unprecedented production rates.
I've got to think that between Lockheed, Boeing and Airbus (and leaving out the up-and-comers) most of the supply chain is/will be pretty well locked down or heavily committed.
bobbymike said:That's why upon learning of the 'so-called' 'set back' SA immediately pondered its' own nuclear program.Sundog said:To clarify, I was saying, fortunately for Saudi Arabia, Iran has finally been set back on it's nuclear program, since nobody was slowing them down in the past from getting nuclear weapons.
But let's not derail this thread when there is an "Iran Nuclear Deal" thread in "The Bar"
sferrin said:marauder2048 said:bring_it_on said:Long-Range Strike Bomber contract to be awarded; Boeing and Lockheed’s edge; Northrop Grumman’s advantage ....
It's an interesting read but something that's been nagging me is: will there be enough slack in the aerospace supply chain to accommodate
the bomber at reasonable cost/schedule? If you look at the current and proposed ramp-ups that will be occurring during the bomber's
timeline just the composite heavy jets alone (F-35, 787, 777X, A350) will be at unprecedented production rates.
I've got to think that between Lockheed, Boeing and Airbus (and leaving out the up-and-comers) most of the supply chain is/will be pretty well locked down or heavily committed.
While it's tiny compared to that, the CH-53K is also an all composite aircraft. (Or close enough makes no difference.) Carbon fiber and core suppliers are loving life. And I'd think the supplier chain would be exploding.
Dennis Muilenburg may help bring home the bomber.
The new Boeing (NYSE: BA) CEO, with his reputation for bringing bottom-line performance to the company's defense and space unit, may be the tipping point in Boeing's favor for the $55 billion long-range strike bomber contract.
That's the view of Wayne Plucker, director of North America research in aerospace and defense for Frost and Sullivan in San Antonio, who said Pentagon leaders are familiar with Muilenburg — and that could weigh in Boeing's favor.
“I think it’s additive,” Plucker said. “It’s one of those nice added elements, someone... they’re comfortable dealing with, and from whom they won’t expect surprises. At this point in the procurement game, that an important thing.”
The Air Force is to choose by the end of the summer between a Boeing-Lockheed Martin team or Northrop Grumman to land the 100-aircraft bomber contract.
While Northrop Grumman built the most recent bomber, the B-2, Boeing is associated with some of the most famous names in bomber history. In particular, Boeing built the B-52, powered by eight engines in four pods, which continues as the nation’s primary heavy bomber, 60 years after it was introduced.
“My personal sense is that Boeing has the legacy that would help to frame it in their direction,” Plucker said.
Muilenburg’s credentials in the defense community come from the fact that from 2009 through 2013 he served as CEO of St. Louis-based Boeing Defense Space & Security. He won a reputation for effective cost-cutting, keeping margins up even while federal procurement was going down. He was named Boeing CEO on June 23.
Winning the contract is keenly important for Boeing because it likely will be the last new military airframe for as many as 20 years. With Boeing’s St. Louis-produced jet fighters nearing the end of their product lives, Boeing needs a big new contract to keep the St. Louis lines running.
While assembly of the bomber would likely be in St. Louis or be done by Lockheed Martin, Boeing Puget Sound’s experience in carbon composites and military aircraft, would give Western Washington a significant role, Plucker said.
The Puget Sound area could be a “major component supplier” for the new bomber, despite the fact that the region already is jammed with commercial aircraft work, he said.
“There’s a lot of capability there in large airframes,” he said, about the Puget Sound region. “Pieces, parts — they could be done on several of the side lines.
Northrop Grumman has announced a major shakeup of its aerospace systems business, with its rapid prototyping arm Scaled Composites realigning under a newly formed “research, technology and advanced design organisation”.
Scaled has always operated with a degree of autonomy since being acquired by Northrop in 2007, but with its legendary founder Burt Rutan now in retirement and new opportunities like the US Air Force T-X next-generation trainer on the horizon, it will now be more tightly integrated than ever as part of Northrop’s new advanced research arm.
The unit built the Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo and unmanned X-47A demonstrator, and is currently developing the world’s largest aircraft, the Model 351 Stratolaunch, plus Northrop's bid for the XS-1 experimental spaceplane for the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
Former vice-president of advanced systems Chris Hernandez has been tapped to lead the new division, reporting directly to Tom Vice, corporate vice-president and president of Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems.
Hernandez has served since 2013 as the company’s vice-president of advanced systems, and reporting to him will be Tom Pieronek – the newly appointed vice-president of basic research.
In another reshuffle, Northrop has also launched a new global business development unit headed by Mary Petryszyn to grow international sales amid a lacklustre defence budget domestically. That decision comes as American defence contractors look abroad with renewed vigour to boost their bottom lines, since there is no end in sight for an unpopular US government automatic spending cap known as sequestration.
Northrop’s reshuffle is timely affair, with Lockheed announcing last month that it will acquire helicopter maker Sikorsky, and as the US Air Force prepares to announce the winner of its Long-Range Strike Bomber contract, potentially worth upwards of $80 billion for 80 to 100 aircraft.
In terms of new US opportunities, Northrop is eyeing the air force’s T-X and Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System Recapitalisation (JSTARS Recap) programmes primarily, as well as the navy’s Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) project.
phrenzy said:We're coming up to the announcement now, last chance to look smart by calling the winner.