The Air Force will make its “best effort” to not “overdesign” its next optionally-manned, long-range strike bomber in its plan to produce a platform deliverable by the 2020s, its chief of staff said yesterday.
At a Center for Strategic and International Studies luncheon in Washington, Gen. Norton Schwartz said the service’s goal is to produce a bomber by the mid-2020s that would connect intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities and other sensors that would allow the Air Force to produce a penetrating platform that is sufficiently affordable to buy in numbers.
“We are not doing the B-2 (bomber) again,” Schwartz said.
The Air Force initially envisioned a fleet of 132 B-2s, but ended up with only 20 as the program was beset with cost and scheduling problems. One of the B-2s crashed in 2008. Northrop Grumman [NOC] is the prime contractor for the bomber.
“And so we are going to make our best effort not to overdesign an airplane,” Schwartz said.
Largely relying on existing and proven technology, the service’s goal is to buy between 80 and 100 long range bombers by the mid-2020s (Defense Daily, Oct. 19).
The Air Force sought $197 million in fiscal year 2012 to begin development of the long-range, penetrating, optionally-manned and nuclear-capable bomber (Defense Daily, Oct. 19). In addition to ISR capabilities, the service wants a bomber capable of delivering conventional and nuclear weapons.
Schwartz told the House Armed Services Committee during a Nov. 2 hearing on budget sequestration that the long-range bomber remains a top priority of the Air Force (Defense Daily, Nov. 3).