“There are publications out there that are already saying, ‘You don’t need this. It’s too expensive. It’s not going to work.’ We don’t even know what it is yet, per se,” Maj. Gen. Garrett Harencak, assistant chief of staff for strategic deterrence and nuclear integration said at an Air Force Association breakfast in Arlington, Virginia.Interesting. The USAF appears to be hyper sensitive to criticism of the LRSB. That is thrilling. I don't think that talking points and propaganda will see this program survive a terrible defense budget environment.
“It’s already starting. … They are already out there, the usual suspects that have been against every modernization, every recapitalization out there. Don’t listen to them ladies and gentlemen,” he said.
Harencak answered those who have suggested that the bomber’s mission could be carried out by other systems such as remotely piloted aircraft, or stand-off missiles
Wednesday, January 21, 2015
USAF General defends the Long Range Strike Bomber...
via National Defense Magazine.
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At some time in the future, when legacy aircraft can't cut it anymore, what do you think the US military will miss more...a new bomber or a new fighter?
ReplyDeleteI think its the latter, the A35.. ehm..F35 is a mediocre fighter and the F22 lacks the numbers.
Scratch F35 scratch LRSB and reopen the production line for an improve version of the F22 and if you can an F/A or F/B version of that.
Ad to that some new build improved F16's and F18's, so you have enough planes with a lower price per flighthour for training and common duties. If you can not afford to let your pilots fly the hours to get proficient.. well.. you get the drift..
I would instead go for an American build Gripen.. but that's just me.
"“It’s already starting. … They are already out there, the usual suspects that have been against every modernization, every recapitalization out there. Don’t listen to them ladies and gentlemen,” he said."
ReplyDeleteI wonder which "usual suspects" he's talking about?
Jan 14, 2015
USAF Launches Slate of New Acquisition Initiatives
WASHINGTON — The US Air Force is launching a wave of new initiatives aimed at bringing down the cost and time associated with acquiring new technologies, service secretary Deborah Lee James announced Wednesday. . . ."We have got to stop spending more and more in order to get less and less, so what we have to do is bend that cost curve," James said.
Sounds like the 'stop spending more' talk that we heard when the F-35 was supposed to be 70% of the cost of an F-22. Or when the Virginia class subs were supposed to be cheaper than the Seawolf class that they replaced.
DeleteThe ongoing procurement failure in the US isn't going to change until projects get canceled, and people start going to jail for fraud. Lockheed should have been out of the JSF competition the day they went over budget on their prototype. But the rules were changed to allow them to continue... and changed again to help Boeing look bad.
Virginia is far more advanced and all in all better than Seawolf class which more like an experimental off-shoot of Navy, just like Zumwalt is.
Delete@SandWyrm
DeleteBut now the F-35 is on the wrong side of history when we have Work's Third Offset Strategy, Kendall's Better Buying Power and James's Bending the Cost Curve coupled with the new world security situation.
Yes, but it was developed to be a cheaper alternative to the Seawolf. It would have been more cost effective (and saved more time) to just build/upgrade more Seawolves instead. For a marginally better product, we paid to develop an entirely new (and more expensive) system.
DeleteThe USAF needs the LRS-B desperately. The F-35 is screwed up so bad that it will enter IOC without a proper testing.
ReplyDeletehttp://aviationweek.com/defense/jsf-program-ditches-tests-protect-schedule
JSF Program Ditches Tests To Protect Schedule
A major operational test series planned for the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter has been abandoned in an attempt to protect the schedule for delivering a fully operational aircraft, according to the just-released fiscal 2014 report on the program from the Pentagon’s Director of Operational Test & Evaluation (DOT&E)