If you need special air-conditioned hangars to maintain each aircraft, then well, it will be expensive regardless of how many you build. Guess why the B-52 is still around and bombers like the B-58 Hustler are not. The whole B-2 program was a disaster in terms of upkeep.
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- Thread starter tphuang
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If you need special air-conditioned hangars to maintain each aircraft, then well, it will be expensive regardless of how many you build. Guess why the B-52 is still around and bombers like the B-58 Hustler are not. The whole B-2 program was a disaster in terms of upkeep.
TerraN_EmpirE
Tyrant King
Once you buy the hangers it becomes easier to maintain more of them.
As to B58 it was retired as the high altitude high speed penitration profile was rendered venerable to surface to air missiles. Besides by then FB 111 was also entering service and the B58 was nuclear only. FB111 proved the better tactical bomber and could do either job.
B52 was more adaptable to low altitude penetration into defended airspace with Nuclear arms or conventional until that to was rendered to dangerous for operations.
I mean they took a long range high altitude bomber and made it fly low and fast. A hundred or so feet off the deck. Two of the crew wouldn't even be able to eject as there seats fired down into the ground!! The defence? A few machine guns in the tail. After the Gulf war they didn't even bother.
This was (70s) around the time B1A had been killed. The cruise missile was more survivable as a stand off weapon platform.
But farther improved air defences placed that in doubt.
B1B was resurrected as a interim penitration bomber until B2 emerged as a low observable that meant high altitude was back in the game.
You can call B2 a disaster as a program if you like, but the Russians and Chinese want there own for a reason.
Tu160M2 might look cool but against competent air defense all it can do is launch missile, hope they get good kills and stay away.
H6 has become a PLAAF Swiss army knife but again all it can do is launch stand off missiles and hope for good kills.
A B2 can launch missiles to inside the defence zone. B21 is meant to offer that in a more modern form.
Yes Air conditioned hangers are not cheap. But cheaper than getting shot down.
TerraN_EmpirE
Tyrant King
East Asia basically puts them in a "Sand blasting" still. Getting operation out of them is how you get your money's worth from a machine it keeps the pilots skills sharp.
You still need a radar and systems. Otherwise it can't see when it's about to fly into a CAP. Or detect threats like active radar stations.
Remember Stealth is signature reduction not invisibly. If you fly over a radar station they are going to see you.
Decades ago and it would have had at least a heavily modified navigation radar.
That was at a time when they could getaway with it. When cruise missiles were all but impossible targets. Peer on in peer today that's a no go. Because the adversary isn't going to let you near firing ranges.
And stealthing only some of them? Basically that's now 80 of one bomber and 200 of another. Modern stealth materials are part of the design skimping on the ram doesn't save costs.
B52 engines are ancient, they burn huge amounts of fuel. The avionics are antiques. They have been talking about a B52J, that is pulling the wings of the B52s in Service replacing those and the engines as well as the radars and avionics systems already so your pull the radar scheme is a no go. If B52 is to stay in Service as planed the Bomber will ge a rebuild. Ergo there goes your savings.
We already have flight trainers. Fairly new ones two, most of the missions like boarder interdiction from the air is handled by drones and choppers.
If it's a trainer it's not a attacker if its an attacker it can't be training and I can only imagine the media sensation of flying combat attack aircraft over the boarder. MSNBC asks for that on there letter to Santa
The Super Stupendis uber Uptimus Prime Ultra Captain Hornet is the Block III that Boeing is working on now and trailing for the Navy.
The B-2 is a technical masterpiece but an operational and economical disaster. Then again so were the Concorde and the Space Shuttle.
It is like that famous Wünderwaffe of the WW2: the Me-262. As a kid I thought it looked great. As an adult, I realized the engines only lasted a couple hours before they had to be swapped. A technical triumph for sure but a waste of resources which only sunk R&D and production resources into something which was only good on paper.
Heck, ever Göering knew it. When they asked funding for the jet program he said the technology would only be ready after the war was over and it was a terrible idea to waste resources on it. Time would prove him right. If only he knew why then...
The Tu-160M2 program is remarkable in that it provided the Soviets with the first true jet bomber which could hit any target in the USA. It can cover the whole Northern Hemisphere from bases in the Arctic with refueling. It has twice the range of the Tu-22M3. For a country which is both much larger and with much less foreign military bases than the USA that is critical. It can also carry twice the payload of a B-2. It is huge.
The B-21 is supposed to be B-2 done right (in economic terms). I hope it succeeds. FWIW I think the Tu-160M2 is too large to be economic for Russia to build. But still they want to continue with the program.
TerraN_EmpirE
Tyrant King
Now you see my confusion.
Despite the fact that both are calling for different things (USAF Raptor beyond Raptor and some other things.
The USN wants F/A-xx the replacement for Boeing's Marvel the Incredible Spectacular Super Advanced Hornet.)
they are in the same program.
They might be separate programs. The USN and USAF have said 'never again' to the joint approach for fighters.
And their requirements this time around are going to be different. USN will have the carrier requirements, but otherwise will be closer to the european '6th gen' fighters.
The USAF will be rather different as the Brit study pointed out.
TerraN_EmpirE
Tyrant King
Right they are working on the systems now at some point the USAF USA and USN will pay out there requirements. And the two programs will split. The Navy will go for a middle weight fighter the USAF will go for a Air superiority fighter
YEs..but the B-2 is well worth it for its abaility to fight conventional wars, and mainly for its use as a nuclear deterrent.
The B21 will be the same, but we will have four times as many of them.
You see, the progressive/liberals have become expert at canceling and especially rolling back programs that are initially costed to make the high tech they bring to the fore...which is very much in the US interest...so that in the end, the cost of the much reduced number of units has to carry a higher and hiogher burden of those costs. These companies do not work for frree and they have investors that need to see a profit in order for the company to remain profitable.
When you take 33 destryoyers and cut them back to three, when you take 600 aircraft and cut them back to 178, and when you do that over and over again...and then get your allies in the press and yourself to preach and preach about how overly epensive defense is...over time you convince people who do not take the time...or care to take the time to even study out what their own freedom costs...who come to believe such bovine excretement.
But thank God there are enough of us who can see and who understand and who keep the truth about these things out there...partocularly through talk radio that reaches 40-60 million each week so that there are people who hear it and spread that word so that we can at least keep things sain and swing the pendulum back now and again.
As I said about the F-35 which is an unbelievable success despite simiar efforts, and the Virginia Class subs, the Burke DDGs, and other very successful prgrams, ultiately the Zumwalt design and the high tech developed for those hull forms will find their way into the CG(X). The LCS which was destroyed by the Obama administrations attempts to (which proved successful) to turn them into almost defenseless, fast patrol boats...well, things they did learn from tohose mistakes and from some of the successes will find their way into the FFG(X). The unbelievably good stuff in the F-22 has made the F-35 even better and the US will end up with thousands of those. And the B-2 tech is going to make the B-21 an even better bird...not to mention the laser and rail gun technology which though delayed is still there and themselves will find their way into the fleet.
Its the ebb and flow of a free people, and attempts by portions of them, and then the counter pressure to fix those problems. in the end, th US is well served by our freedoms, and we do make things better.
The B21 will be the same, but we will have four times as many of them.
You see, the progressive/liberals have become expert at canceling and especially rolling back programs that are initially costed to make the high tech they bring to the fore...which is very much in the US interest...so that in the end, the cost of the much reduced number of units has to carry a higher and hiogher burden of those costs. These companies do not work for frree and they have investors that need to see a profit in order for the company to remain profitable.
When you take 33 destryoyers and cut them back to three, when you take 600 aircraft and cut them back to 178, and when you do that over and over again...and then get your allies in the press and yourself to preach and preach about how overly epensive defense is...over time you convince people who do not take the time...or care to take the time to even study out what their own freedom costs...who come to believe such bovine excretement.
But thank God there are enough of us who can see and who understand and who keep the truth about these things out there...partocularly through talk radio that reaches 40-60 million each week so that there are people who hear it and spread that word so that we can at least keep things sain and swing the pendulum back now and again.
As I said about the F-35 which is an unbelievable success despite simiar efforts, and the Virginia Class subs, the Burke DDGs, and other very successful prgrams, ultiately the Zumwalt design and the high tech developed for those hull forms will find their way into the CG(X). The LCS which was destroyed by the Obama administrations attempts to (which proved successful) to turn them into almost defenseless, fast patrol boats...well, things they did learn from tohose mistakes and from some of the successes will find their way into the FFG(X). The unbelievably good stuff in the F-22 has made the F-35 even better and the US will end up with thousands of those. And the B-2 tech is going to make the B-21 an even better bird...not to mention the laser and rail gun technology which though delayed is still there and themselves will find their way into the fleet.
Its the ebb and flow of a free people, and attempts by portions of them, and then the counter pressure to fix those problems. in the end, th US is well served by our freedoms, and we do make things better.
The F-35B sales are going to rise as a result of Japan and Australias decesions this week. Korea is doing the same.
Between the UK, Japann, South Korea, Australia, Italy and before all is said and done, Spain and probably India too...we are going to see more and more of them sold and at sea on numerous small carriers who will be able to field powerful 5th generation stealth strike fighters...not to mention the hundreds the US Marines will buy.
Hoorah for F-35 program overall, and particularly this week for the F-35B!
Between the UK, Japann, South Korea, Australia, Italy and before all is said and done, Spain and probably India too...we are going to see more and more of them sold and at sea on numerous small carriers who will be able to field powerful 5th generation stealth strike fighters...not to mention the hundreds the US Marines will buy.
Hoorah for F-35 program overall, and particularly this week for the F-35B!