Why So Long for New Bomber?

NoMoreCostOverruns February 14th, 2011 at 7:08 pm

“Where there’s a will there’s a way” Apparently there is not the will to recapitalize the USAF heavy bomber fleet, but there is the will to do whatever it takes to keep JSF and a second engine for JSF alive and kicking. There is a great book called “Innumeracy” which talks about how as a society we understand that ILLITERACY is socially unacceptable however it is socially acceptable to be QUANTITAIVELY ILLITERATE. The consequences are financial mismanagement due to an inability to understand Uncertainty & Risk. You are quite sferrin — we are quite pathetic and the pathology runs deep. The corruption is at the highest levels of power. We need a miracle in order to get things right.

William C. February 14th, 2011 at 8:48 pm

The system is broke.

Dfens February 15th, 2011 at 8:37 am

Whatever we do, we wouldn’t want to buy a new bomber by telling US manufacturers we are going to have a competition for 1,000 new aircraft and it is going to be on Feb 15, 2016 at WPAFB. Show up with your best product if you want to compete. No, better to do the same old thing time and time again, each time hoping for a better result. Because it’s not crazy, it’s policy.

Of course, if we did that, companies might be forced by competitive pressures to go back to having actual qualified people design our aircraft instead of committees. Wow, wouldn’t that suck if our aircraft started to be designed by a new era of Kelly Johnson’s and Jack Northrops?

CharlesHouston February 15th, 2011 at 10:35 am

Do you wonder if the jazzy looking graphics we are using has our Air Force leadership blinded? I must admit that I am no fan of the current fad — stealth — and would rather have 100 flying airframes rather than 20. If we pulled out the design for the B-1, updated it, and built a B-1C — maybe we could have something flying in 5 years? Sure they don’t look like Batman should be flying them but if they were on the ramp, ready to fly in our known theaters — wouldn’t that be worth something? How stealthy does an aircraft have to be to escape notice from the Taliban’s air defense system? Sure we don’t want to just stick with the P-51D forever, but we need to realize what we need and realize that some other neat technology might not be worth the money.
Maybe my 28 years of AF service has left me skeptical.

Taxpayer February 15th, 2011 at 11:45 am

Good question. Why isn’t a modernized B-2 good enough? That would keep development costs down, and a known capability ready.

Taliban air defenses! Is that like the Al Qaeda navy?

BOOMER February 15th, 2011 at 1:35 pm

Stealth isnt 100% unless your engaging a really backwards country. All you have to do is watch the airborn tankers tracks and keep an eye on fighter plane (escort) bases activities and you can kinda put things together. I agree with 100 good platforms over 20 new and neat ones. I would also like to see the Navy get long range heavy bombers back as well considering they are usualy closer to know threats aboard carriers and being closer would give them shorter reaction times and less time for the bad guys to put up a defense. Yeah they can possibly track the carriers but they dont know what type of craft or being launched or if/when they will turn in thier direction as opposed to a bird flying in from stateside and having to refule along the way.

Oblat February 15th, 2011 at 3:53 pm

People say the Pentagon does not have a strategy They are wrong. The Pentagon does have a strategy;
it is: “Don’t interrupt the money flow, add to it.” — Col. John R. Boyd

The system isn’t broke it is functioning exactly as it is supposed to. The defense contractors have used political corruption and consolidation to reduce competition to almost nothing and the result is completely predictable. As the head of GD admitted, contractors cant compete, they don’t know how anymore. What remnants of weak competition that existed, has now descended to the level of public farce with such systems as the F35 and the LCS.

The number of platforms and their complexity is irrelevant — the fact is that if Lockheed was producing P-35s today they would still cost 135 million each. Decades of “managed” monopolies has meant that the industry doesn’t even know what competition driven innovation and pricing looks like. While every other high tech industry has evolved to manage the cost of complexity resulting in dropping costs as complexity increases the defense industry has instead used it for decades as an excuse to ramp up costs.

The system has been so perverted that it cant be managed back to something reasonable. Incompetence and a criminal mindset have become normal. It needs to be exposed to the winds of direct sustained competition. The defense monopolies like Lockheed need to be broken up. A lot of the dead wood will wither and die, but what remains will be set on a path of improvement.

I don’t for a second think this will happen, the path we are certain to follow will be one of rapidly declining capabilities driven by the need for the contractors to deliver much less and demand more from a shrinking budget. One day it may matter and then it will be too late.

freefallingbomb February 15th, 2011 at 5:32 pm

Part 2 / 2

The required professional skill ( = making all sub-systems’ computer languages speak to each other, a.k.a. interfaces) is EXACTLY THE SAME for both big and small weapon systems, but the contractors simply quit trying to make these relatively SMALL weapon systems function internally!

Do the Russians, who traditionally lag behind the U.S.A. in terms of electronics and computers, experience similar difficulties with their ALREADY SERIAL-PRODUCED Sukhoi Su-35 BMs and S-400s (soon to morph into S-500s) ?

That’s what makes the larger picture look contradictory and incomprehensible to me.

Halcyon February 15th, 2011 at 5:45 pm

Here is an easy answer deliver the final product 8 years and 30 days from the final approval date and no more than 25% over budget or all of the patents and proprietary technology involved in the project are the property of the government and they can hire someone else to do maintenance and future orders with the failed contractors technology.

By licencing out the proprietary technology involved in a disastrously over budget and behind schedule project the government won’t have to shoulder the burden of funding the contractors failure — the contractor will.

If the pentagon makes a change to the final specs that adds 4–6 months to the deadline it can only be done 2 times and would require congress to approve. Exploiting loopholes to this would also constitute a felony on the part of the government official involved.

The government could also state that any project that goes outside the previously stated limitations is automatically canceled. To override the cancellation date they must have 75% of the congress approve and the presidents signature.

Guest February 15th, 2011 at 8:21 pm

I’d agree that pork and politics are responsible for much of our weapons development issues, but I think our planners are at fault when they fail to set realistic goals for weapons that can be delivered in realistic time frames and offer incremental (but still significant) improvements over existing system.

Every new weapon doesn’t have to be revolutionary. Whats the point of spending a gazillion dollars for a weapon system intended to dominate the battlefield for the next 30 years, if it takes 25 years to come online and our potential enemies meanwhile continue to build equipment that is just enough better than our existing hardware to outclass it?

berbinator February 15th, 2011 at 11:34 pm

Actually the US government is primarily at fault for the massive cost overruns as the defense industry generally bids close to at-cost, but with provisions in the contract that allows the government to make changes to scope and features at any point but each time inflating the price. Bottom line, the contractors make their profits of change control project cost inflation. The easiest way to fix this stupidity is either limit the amount of scope changes the government can make or reduce the price the company can charge for changes

William C. February 16th, 2011 at 7:53 am

Being a paid shill would involve getting paid to comment here and being as unreasonable and stubborn as yourself when it comes to defense matters. I have a vested interest in the defense of the United States as should any American. Your interest is evidently kissing the behind of the Chinese, Iranians, North Koreans, Venezuelans and others who are so “mistreated” by us. Clearly the defense industry and it’s workers in particular are an obstacle to whatever society you want to see.

Vitesse et Puissance February 16th, 2011 at 10:11 am

But it is a fair question. If the B-2 airframe is good enough, and you are spiraling in avionics and such, why not improve the B-2 now and get capability into the field. 2025 seems a long way off and the threat won’t wait around.

William C. February 16th, 2011 at 1:18 pm

Well the RAM used by our stealth aircraft has seen significant improvements in recent years. Newer materials don’t require nearly the same level of maintenance. In that regard at least the F-35 program has been a huge plus.

If you could incorporate such improvements into the B-2 airframe I suppose such a “B-2B” would do just fine. Yet the work involved in rebuilding the production line would be comparable to establishing it the first time around. Many would argue you might as well produce a new design instead.

If the USAF still wants a subsonic VLO design it would likely resemble a scaled down B-2A like the concept art at the top of the screen shows.

William C. February 16th, 2011 at 1:41 pm

Lets get something clear. Lockheed, Northrop, Boeing, all of these companies are corporations no different from any other. Governments are their biggest customer because who else had the money to pay for state-of-the-art fighters and missiles? Like any other corporation they have their lobbyists and the guys at the top levels get a big paycheck for putting on a show for the shareholders. Like other corporations sometimes they “oversell” their products with unrealistic dates and goals. Yet they aren’t part of some massive conspiracy or in on crazy plan to never actually build their systems in large number. The constant demonization of these groups is pointless.

They are companies that provide necessary services, employ tens of thousands, and make money selling their products priced on an array of factors. What do you expect in the business world? How would a bunch of government bureaucrats running everything do a better job? You want to see these companies broken up under the Antitrust Act? Sure. But the end results are just as likely to be devastating to our industry as they are to be an improvement.

William C. February 16th, 2011 at 3:07 pm

You need manned for the nuclear role and a manned aircraft provides versatility an unmanned aircraft does not. UCAVs have their roles but completely replacing manned strategic bombers isn’t one of them.

BOOMER February 16th, 2011 at 5:03 pm

You also have to add in the fact that UAV’s aint worth thier cost in thier inability to fly in crowded air spaces as has been pointed out numerous times. You wont never replace manned aircraft — at least not in any of our lifetimes.

freefallingbomb February 16th, 2011 at 5:32 pm

Part 2 / 2

You wrote: “(U.S. arms companies)…employ tens of thousands…”

But if 99 % of the U.S. population want entitlements, you balk. For them, it’s only savage Capitalism, for M.I.C. workers (you?), it’s Welfare from cradle to grave.

————————————————————————————————————————

You wrote: “What do you expect in the business world?”

I offer you a gold bullion for each F-35-like product or service that sells well in the civilian Economy, even for public procurements!!! Do you know what would happen to any civilian company if it tried to survive based on the same premises like U.S. American arms companies??

Have you any idea how God-damned right “Oblat” is, every single time? Of course not.

NoMoreCostOverruns February 16th, 2011 at 6:29 pm

Plus UAV’s are known for unacceptably high attrition rate. Attrition rate for our manned bomber fleet has been blissfully low. Pursuing an unmanned solution to replace what B-1, B-2, and B-52 can do is unacceptably too risky.

ex flight test February 16th, 2011 at 9:05 pm

Having been in on the flight testing of the B-1, there is a LOT of politics that gets involved. Procurement is a mess. Its not getting any better. Aircraft are complicated, military aircraft are flight tested and wrung out a lot more than and civilian aircraft. Before you build, getting the engineering down is a big deal Especially the avionics, who you buy from, what works and what you can get now. And make it modular, get an upgrade, just pull a box and fix it. Don’t build that in, it gets expensive real fast. All the corporate acquisitions and mergers have pretty much destroyed aircraft building here, management only cares about the next quarter for the stock market. What they should care about is building better airplanes and doing it well.

ex flight test February 16th, 2011 at 9:12 pm

You realize the B-2 is 30 year old technology?

CharlesHouston February 17th, 2011 at 12:34 am

Oblat does not work — who could tolerate him being around an office?

George February 17th, 2011 at 6:29 am

You can’t build it because we haven’t got the engineers to do so. Today’s engineer knows computers and iPods, they haven’t learned anything hands-on and are gee-whizing stuff that is not needed. They have never heard of requirements these days, the new regulations allow the manufacturers to write their own SOW and so what you buy ain’t what you get!

Byron Harano February 21st, 2011 at 12:31 am

Thanks for providing your personal expertise, experience, and comments. Where does the B1 Lancer design stand in our military future and do you personally think this bomber was worth the cost considering the limited action seen by this aircraft?

Steve May 17th, 2011 at 10:11 pm

Agree! only a small number of stealth B-2, F-111 are needed to knock out radar systems after that stealth isn’t needed (but stay high for shoulder systems). What happens to the $$$$$ stealth systems when missles with visually targeting systems are developed? Same feeling I have about the A-10 vs helicopter, granted copter is more versatile but training/operating/maintenance cost difference is huge.