Future Bomber: No Money, No Problem

The Air Force has produced enough future bomber studies to fill a decent-sized library, making most of the free world a bit skeptical about grand plans that don't involve cold hard cash. Now, in what may be one of the most hilarious and prescient statements about future bombers, Defense News quotes industry analyst Rebecca Grant as saying: “I don’t believe in Santa Claus and I don’t believe in the 2037 bomber. It’s a mythical beast. It’s just not there. I don’t know why the Air Force even talks about it.”

Just to recap, after years of killing innocent trees with bomber studies, the Air Force decided that it would pursue a sort of modified "off the shelf" strategy for a replacement bomber; meaning it would use available technologies to build a new bomber by 2018, while saving future technologies (like supersonic speed, death beam weapons, and unmanned flight) for the quasi-mythical 2037 bomber. The problem, however, is not even the 2037 bomber, which hasn't yet made it to the realm of VuGraph engineering -- it's the 2018 bomber, which despite lots of promises, also doesn't have any serious cash yet, as the article notes:

Though it’s on a faster schedule than anticipated, Payton said the Air Force won’t see any funding for the bomber project in the upcoming 2009 spending plan, which the president will deliver to Congress in early February and is already largely locked down.

“For the next-generation bomber, we will not have a budget to really move forward with the money that we need to do integration of the currently existing technologies that are out there until FY10,” Payton said.

**Still, she said, requirements for the bomber are already being examined.

"Being examined." Uh-oh. That's Pentagon code for: we ain't go no cash.

Seriously, I'm still hopeful for the 2018 bomber. One of the most sensible things the Air Force has ever done is to take a conservative approach: the 2018 bomber is slated to be subsonic using currently available technologies. Not that this hasn't stopped the PowerPoint rangers from dreaming big. For example, Northrop just put out this fun-filled press release about a laser-armed B-2:

*Next generation bombers equipped with a high-energy-laser-based defensive system and other advanced weapons could perform a variety of new interdiction, strike and special forces missions according to a new virtual bomber concept unveiled recently by Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC). *

*Northrop Grumman is the U.S. Air Force's prime contractor for the B-2 stealth bomber, the flagship of the nation's long range strike arsenal. *

The company demonstrated its new high-energy laser (HEL) bomber concept Sept. 26-27 during the Advanced Concepts Event (ACE) '07, an annual virtual war-gaming exercise staged by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory's Directed Energy Directorate, Albuquerque, N.M

That's golden, 'cause we don't have a high-power laser that can go on a bomber. Not to be outdone, Boeing today announced its own bit of laser news: it's finally installed the chemical laser on the AC-130 gunship. Wake me up when the death beam reaches 100KW.

Frankly, the Air Force's conservative 2018 bomber plan, though it ain't exciting, will give the military the best chance it has at actually building a new bomber.

But, here are the other choices: We can have a real bomber with an imaginary laser, or a real laser on an imaginary bomber. Or maybe we can have an imaginary bomber, an imaginary laser, and drop a sheath of PowerPoint briefings on our enemies.

Or maybe they can revisit the whole dolphin with a freakin' laser beam idea.