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

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