| Tango01 | 13 Nov 2019 1:20 p.m. PST |
"The new B-21 Raider stealth bomber is making good progress and should fly in December 2021, USAF Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Stephen "Seve" Wilson said July 24. Wilson, speaking at an AFA Mitchell Institute event in Washington, D.C., said the service continues to analyze its capacity for long-range strike. The Air Force still believes it is short, and is reviewing alternative force mixes…."
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Tgerritsen  | 13 Nov 2019 1:53 p.m. PST |
They really should call it the B-2.1 |
 20thmaine | 13 Nov 2019 3:42 p.m. PST |
Pretty amazing quote in that article: "The Air Force is "focused on the development of the new bomber as well as modernizing the B-52," with new engines and radar" Is the B-52 going to get to a 100 years of service? |
| USAFpilot | 13 Nov 2019 3:45 p.m. PST |
Yea, they've been screwing up the alpha-numerical designations for a long time now. The last bomber was the B-2; shouldn't the next one be the B-3? Then there is the story of the RS-71 that had to change to SR-71 because no one wanted to correct the President when he said it wrong. |
| USAFpilot | 13 Nov 2019 3:50 p.m. PST |
" modernizing the B-52," with new engines and radar" It's a Boeing thing. Like taking the old 737 and stretching it and putting new engines on it. Boeing goes cheap but it costs them in the long run. After 50 years, it's well past time to start new design concepts. |
| Fitzovich | 13 Nov 2019 4:53 p.m. PST |
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| 15mm and 28mm Fanatik | 13 Nov 2019 5:38 p.m. PST |
What's old is new again. It's right smack between the B-17 Flying Fortress and B-24 Liberator/ B-25 Mitchell in series. |
| jdginaz | 13 Nov 2019 9:35 p.m. PST |
The last bomber was the B-2; shouldn't the next one be the B-3? There already was a B-3, the Keystone B-3 and old biplane. I think they are going back and filling in the numbers that haven't been used yet. |
| USAFpilot | 14 Nov 2019 8:53 a.m. PST |
Ok thanks, never heard of the B-3. Makes you wonder why they labeled it the B-3 before there was a B-1 and B-2. It's a pedantic, but you think they would have started with the number 1 and go from there. |
| Ghostrunner | 14 Nov 2019 11:08 a.m. PST |
Movie trivia… B-3 was the B-2-esque bomber in 'Broken Arrow'. |
| Tango01 | 14 Nov 2019 12:32 p.m. PST |
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| Lion in the Stars | 16 Nov 2019 2:12 p.m. PST |
There was a massive re-numbering in the 1960s when all the services got told to unify their numbering, it's why we don't have any more F100+ aircraft. Numbers basically started over. A-1 Skyraider, F-4 Phantom (which would have been the F110 in USAF service had the re-numbering not happened), etc. I'm still not sure why the Raider got the number 21, aside from being the bomber for the 21st century… |
| jdginaz | 16 Nov 2019 8:18 p.m. PST |
It got it because B-21 was the next unused number. |
| Gunfreak | 17 Nov 2019 5:28 a.m. PST |
If a bomber hasn't been tested in a world war, then there is no need to replace it. Because it hasn't really been tested. All this is just costing taxpayers money, and making the weapons manufacturers richer than anyone should be.
Besides zeppelin's are making a comeback, so should concentrate on making those instead. |
| Ghostrunner | 17 Nov 2019 8:34 a.m. PST |
B-21 is just the Air Force answer to the Navy's SSN-21. ‘The bomber for the 21st century.' Personally I hate it -sets off my OCD. |
| jdginaz | 17 Nov 2019 7:58 p.m. PST |
No, it's not B-21 because it's "the bomber for the 21st century" it's because the number 3 through 20 have been used for previous aircraft. |
| Ghostrunner | 18 Nov 2019 11:00 a.m. PST |
Uh, no. link And there's already been a B-21… link |
| Lion in the Stars | 19 Nov 2019 4:24 p.m. PST |
Ghostrunner, the NAA XB-21 is from long before the 1962 tri-service renumbering/designation unification. This should have been the B-3, third bomber since the re-numbering. |
| Ghostrunner | 19 Nov 2019 4:32 p.m. PST |
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adds infantry to his Israeli force.
