US Air Force Will Soon Unveil Next Super Bomber to Replace Cold War Machines

 

Washington:  The US Air Force is getting ready to announce the winner of a multibillion-dollar contract to build a new generation of long-distance bombers that will replace aging, Cold War machines.

Dubbed the Long Range Strike Bomber (LRSB) program, the Air Force will in the coming weeks award the mega-contract to either Northrop Grumman or a team made up of Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

The program envisions the creation of between 80 and 100 strategic bombers to replace America’s fleet of B-52s and B-1s. Almost everything about it is classified, save for the cost of each plane, which was set at $550 million per unit in 2010 dollars.

J-20 may become China’s future stealth bomber: Duowei

 

After the completion of the test flight of the sixth J-20 prototype known as 2015, it is expected to take a further two to three years for the fighter to enter service. It is the job of the Chengdu Aircraft Design Institute to decide what kind of aircraft the J-20 should become in the future. Earlier predictions said the J-20 may be developed as a carrier-based stealth fighter, but Shenyang Aircraft Corporation’s J-31 seems more suitable for that role.

Plan B For Iran

 

If the nuclear negotiations go bad, the U.S. has a backup: Obama can drop the MOP, the world’s largest non-nuclear bomb.

President Barack Obama’s nuclear diplomacy with Iran may yet fail. On Tuesday, exactly one week before a June 30 deadline for an agreement, Iran’s Supreme Leader delivered his latest in a series of defiant statements, setting conditions for a deal—including immediate relief from sanctions, before Iran has taken steps to limit its nuclear program—that Obama will never accept. Secretary of State John Kerry warned last week that the U.S. is prepared to walk away from the talks. And even if a deal is reached, the story is not over. The Iranians may break or cheat on an agreement, and try build a nuclear weapon anyway.

That’s why, at least three times in the past year, a B-2 stealth bomber has taken off from an Air Force base in Missouri and headed west to the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. For these missions, the $2 billion plane was outfitted with one of the world’s largest bombs. It is a cylinder of special high-performance steel, 20 feet long and weighing 15 tons. When dropped from an altitude likely above 20,000 feet, the bomb would have approached supersonic speed before striking a mock target in the desert, smashing through rock and burrowing deep into the ground before its 6,000 pounds of high explosives detonated with devastating force.

Putin on notice: Two U.S. stealth bombers head to Europe for first time amid tension

Two U.S. B-2 Spirit stealth bombers are being deployed to Europe for the first time. The deployment of the advanced aircraft will be used for “short term deployment” at Fairford, a Royal Air Force base in England — just three hours from Russia.