Manoj Ambat's Blog dealing with Defence, Foreign Affairs, Strategic Affairs and Politics

Northrop Grumman B-21 Stealth Bomber ( Image credits- Wikimedia Commons / USAF) Source- The National Interest Author- Dave Majumdar The U.S. Air Force has disclosed a trove of additional details about its secretive Northrop Grumman B-21 Long Range Strike Bomber (LRS-B), but is refusing to divulge information about how much the stealthy new warplane will cost, despite congressional pressure. The Air Force is worried that disclosing the price might compromise the bomber’s capabilities. The service’s assertions were meet with skepticism on Capitol Hill, however. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), took the Air Force to task for hiding trivial details about the B-21 for the sake of secrecy. “Why would you not ever want to tell the American people how you’re going to spend their dollars?” McCain asked on March 8. “We’re trying to balance the transparency that we want to do with the public so that they understand what we’re

Boeing B-52 Stratofortress( Image credits- Wikimedia Commons / USAF) Source- The Diplomat Author- Col Mike “Starbaby” Pietrucha It seems increasingly likely that there will be a B-52 flyby for the retirement of both the B-1 Lancer and the B-2 Spirit. The venerable bomber, which first flew in 1952, remains the primary component of the USAF’s bomber force for both nuclear and conventional missions. Lacking the stealth of the B-2 and the speed of the B-1, the B-52 remains a frontline combat aircraft because of its exceptional range, unmatched versatility, and flexible payload options. It is debatable whether today’s aviation industry could re-create an airplane with this essential mix of capabilities, but a fully modernized B-52, in combination with the new Long Range Strike Bomber (LRS-B), would provide the USAF with an asymmetrical advantage over both China and Russia that neither is likely to match. Far from being obsolete, the Stratofortress could well serve into the 205

Image source- Wikimedia Commons / Credits- Boeing Source- The National Interest Author- Dave Majumdar The U.S. Air Force is expected to award a contract for its secretive Long Range Strike Bomber (LRS-B) program later this month. The LRS-B award could determine the fate of the U.S. defense-aerospace industry as Northrop Grumman and a combined Boeing/Lockheed Martin team vie to secure a program that could be worth more than $100 billion. For Boeing and Northrop, the LRS-B is a must win proposition--Lockheed, of course, has the gargantuan $400 billion F-35 Joint Strike Fighter to fall back upon. Though it has a storied past building warplanes like the F-14 Tomcat, F-5 Tiger and B-2 Spirit, Northrop does not currently build any manned aircraft save for the E-2D Advanced Hawkeye and parts of the F-35. These days, the company is mostly known for building unmanned aircraft like the Global Hawk and the Navy’s X-47B demonstrator aircraft. Additionally, aerospace industry trad

Image credits- Wikimedia Commons / United States Air Force Source- The National Interest Author- Andrew Davies From the time it came into being in 1948, the United States Air Force has had a state-of-the-art long-range bomber in its inventory. The first was the extraordinary B-36 Peacemaker—the name intending to signify its deterrent value rather than (just) being ironic—and the latest is the B-2 Spirit “stealth” bomber. There has been several notable aircraft, not least the B-52, which is now scheduled to have a service life in various versions of an astonishing 90 years. (For a review of the current USAF bomber fleet, see here.) Bomber aircraft have been an important part of America’s superpowerdom, allowing it to project global air power and forming part of the nuclear deterrent. Some bombers over the years have never seen combat, but others have flown many “hot” missions. So it’s no surprise that a new Long Range Strike–Bomber (LRS-B) system is in development.

B-2 Spirit (Image credits- Wikimedia Commons/ United States Air force) A  bomber  is a  military aircraft  designed to attack ground and sea targets, by dropping  bombs  on them, firing  torpedoes  at them, or, more recently, by launching  cruise missiles  at them History: The first use of an air-dropped bomb (actually a hand grenade) was carried out by Italian Lieutenant  Giulio Gavotti [1]  during the  1911 Italo-Turkish war in Libya , although his plane was not designed for the task of bombing, and his improvised attack had little impact. The first heavier-than-air aircraft purposely designed for bombing were the  Italian   Caproni Ca 30  and  British   Bristol T.B.8 , both of 1913. [2]  The Bristol T.B.8 was an early  British  single  engined   biplane  built by the  Bristol Aeroplane Company . They were fitted with a prismatic  Bombsight  in the front  cockpit and a cylindrical bomb carrier in the lower forward fuselage capable of carrying twelve 10 lb (4.5 kg) b