Paul Lewis/WASHINGTON DC
US president-elect George W Bush has been given a range of pricing options to restart production of an updated version of the B-2 stealth bomber as a more cost-effective alternative to the US Air Force pursuing an all-new development.
Northrop Grumman, encouraged by approaches from within Bush's Republican Party, is hoping that a significant cut in the unit cost of the B-2 bomber could persuade the next administration to order it back into production. Options are understood to include producing 40 more at $550 million each.
This compares to about $2 billion per aircraft to build the original 21 B-2s. The $20 billion non-recurring cost of development has already been written down against the first batch of aircraft, and further savings can be achieved through a bigger production run and more recent advances in lower-cost stealth technology.
Lexington Institute analyst Loren Thompson says the aircraft could be updated for as little as $1 billion, which would focus mainly on replacing systems that are already outdated or uneconomical to reproduce. Thompson suggests that the B-2's Raytheon APQ-181 radar "is expensive and outdated" compared to cheaper off-the-shelf equipment.
The existing USAF bomber roadmap does not call for a follow-on bomber to be fielded before 2037, by which time attrition will have depleted the current B-2s, Boeing B-1s and B52s to below the 170 aircraft minimum needed to sustain a 130-strong combat-coded fleet.
The USAF plans to initiate a follow-on development in 2013 with a mission area assessment, followed the year after by a mission needs statement. Acquisition would begin in 2019, but the first new bomber would not go into production before 2034. The new bomber is expected to cost about $35 billion in non-recurring development costs alone.
Thompson estimates the air force could save up to $100 billion over 50 years by shifting to an all-B-2 fleet of 100 aircraft.
The likely casualty of restarting B-2 production is the Joint Strike Fighter which, compared to the Lockheed Martin/Boeing F-22 and Boeing F-18E/F, is the least developed and has the weakest political support.
Source: Flight International
