Wynne discusses next gen bomber

I believe it was Brains who mentioned the next gen bomber on IRC the other nite.

From Air Force Times

Wynne discusses next-gen bomber publicly

By Erik Holmes - Staff writer

Posted : Friday Mar 7, 2008 12:21:40 EST

The Air Force is developing both manned and unmanned versions of its next-generation bomber, the service’s top civilian official said Wednesday.

Air Force Secretary Michael W. Wynne’s testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee was one of the first public comments by a top official acknowledging that the new bomber, scheduled to debut in 2018, is well along in development. The program is currently classified, he said, but Air Force leaders think they can meet the 2018 timeline.

“We are excited about the prospect for maintaining the funding profile, maintaining the level of competition that we have, and we’ll probably be back here as we can declassify our ongoing pursuit of the next-generation bomber,” Wynne said. “I think the committee’s going to be extremely pleased with the way we’ve integrated technologies … to make this happen.”

There has long been speculation that the Air Force is conducting a “black” — or classified — program to develop the bomber, but officials have shied away from public comment. The B-2 Spirit was a classified program for several years before it was publicly unveiled in 1988.

Wynne said the Air Force is pursuing an unmanned option because unmanned systems can stay aloft much longer than manned aircraft.

“We are actually thinking about having that aircraft be a manned and unmanned variant because we see the man as, in fact, a constraint,” he said. “He can only go for 11, 12, 13 hours as we have in the U-2 ... and the SR-71 program. Absent the individual, we find our Global Hawks can go 24, 27 hours.”

Wynne also said the bomber will be “evolutionary” rather than “revolutionary,” meaning it will take advantage of technologies already in existence rather than more quixotic solutions such as hypersonics, which would take years longer to develop.

Even though the new aircraft is still a decade away, Wynne said environmental and site studies that are necessary to decide where to base the bomber will begin in 2012 or 2013.

According to the Air Force’s system roadmap released in January, possible sites for the bomber are Dyess Air Force Base, Texas; Ellsworth Air Force Base, S.D.; Barksdale Air Force Base, La.; and Minot Air Force Base, N.D.