My uncle was an aerospace engineer in Southern California from the 50's to the 70's. Every time there was a new contract he had a new employer and the traffic patterns changed in LA. from all the guys changing their commute from one factory to the other. I think he worked for every one of them down there.
I remember an engineer from the LA area that came to work for Boeing said that it was an inhale of workers for one company of those who had been exhaled by another. No long term allegiance to anybody.
So I'm curious. What is this new project that we will sink a couple of billion into, spreading the money around to subcontractors in the important congressional districts only to cancel it all before a meaningful or useful number of aircraft are completed supposed to be?
Here is the word from military.com:Northrop Wins Contract to Build US Military's Future Stealth Bomber | Military.com "The next-generation bomber will be designed to fight through surface-to-air missiles, as well as electronic and information attack. It will also accommodate lasers and directed-energy systems, hypersonic missiles and other new and emerging technologies."
We already kind of did that with the B2. Lets see, that cost us over 44 billion and we got 20 of them That comes to.................. Don't get me wrong. I am a big supporter of the military but these projects are just stupid. For the kind of money we are spending and the value we get from it we could just make direct payments to our enemies to leave us alone. The Saudi's have been doing that with the Yemeni's for a long time.
Maybe we can sell a few directly to the Chinese rather then have them steal the technology and try to reverse engineer themselves. Might help even up those one sided "free trade agreements" Clinton signed!!
I've worked at all three companies (Boeing, LM and NG) and I have a financial stake in all three as well, so the way I looked at it is that I win either way!
I thought the exact same when I heard the announcement. With the B2 being near $1 billion a piece I wonder how much this thing will go for. Maybe $3 billion a pop when they cancel the program early?
Individual units were close to 1 billion but the entire program amortized to about 2+ billion per. Then we have the F22 that was not built in numbers that made R&D and tooling costs pencil out. We are in the middle of doing the same with the F35 and now we are running off copies of a contract to do it all over again with a new bomber program and DC is full of elected officials that cannot look the voters in the eye and tell us we need it in a convincing way and cannot look the Pentagon and the lobbyists in the eye and say no, so we have another colossal cluster **** that will cost the tax payers another hundred billion for nothing. And DC wonders why the voters are pissed off. Has there been a successful combat aircraft program since the F16? I didn't follow the C17 program so I have no idea how that went. Lets see, what is it you call it when you do the same thing over and over with the same unsatisfactory result? I call it Washington DC. 23 square miles full of stupidity and corruption and surrounded by reality.
Politics and McCain always get in the way of any USAF combat aircraft procurement program. He led the charge against both the B-2 (132 programmed originally) and the F-22 (700+ programmed originally) so that the programs were cancelled just when economies of scale were in the offing. " Not relevant." Would sure be nice to have both those fleets right now instead of sending onesies and twosies to hot spots. Very relevant with the Chinese and Russians saber rattling. The LRS-B will have unbelievable capabilities, eventually including the ability to be flown unmanned like an oversized Reaper. A $500M Reaper. Assuming McCain does not get after it, too, so he can spend the money on carriers. Congratulations to N-G. I have been inside the cockpit of a B-2 at N-G's facility and it is pretty impressive.
Too bad the Vietnamese didn't keep him, or that missile on the Forrestal didn't go a little more to the right.
I have talked to some navy pilots who didn't have many nice things to say about John when they were flying with or near him. I don't remember the name of the carrier but it was the one that had the missile accidentally fire from an aircraft that caused a holocaust of fire and explosions. I was told that it came from John's airplane.I don't know how much truth is in it but that is what I remember.
Forrestal aka "Forrestfire" An old friend and ex A4 pilot was a shipmate of his and was in the squadron ready room when it hit the fan on the Forrestal has never had a good word to say about him as a sailor or pilot. Helps when Dad and Grampa are/were both flag officers. The missile hit his plane, not launched from it as I recall.
Dramatization of meeting around B2, as chronicled in the movie "Head Office": Max Landsberger: Since the 1984 oil discovery in New Guinea, we have sold the Bu!kais hill tribesmen 20 of our S-24 fighters. At $21 million per unit, that's $252 million. This has started a local arms race between the Bu!kais, and their local neighbors the Kla!klalas. Now the Kla!klalas also happen to be sitting an a large amount of oil. And now the Kla!klalas want to buy 20 of our new X-24/X-Ray Ultra Pursuit fighters for a total of $480 million. Pete Helmes: What are the chances of war between them? Bob Nixon: Very good sir. Our spare parts replacement contracts could be very lucrative. Pete Helmes: Who trains their flight personnel? Max Landsberger: Well, as near as we can assess it... well... they don't actually fly the planes. They sort of roll them down hills... crashing them into each other. Scott Dantley: Personally, I think that it's a shameful waste of incredible kill power. Pete Helmes: Make the deal. Bob Nixon, Scott Dantley: Absolutely.
Kind of P&R, so mods feel free to delete if deemed inappropriate. I've resigned myself to look at it like this: The government is going to waste massive amount of money no matter what. I'd rather them be giving it to aerospace companies who are at least training and employing a generation of engineers, computer guys, technicians, and other highly skilled people. We also get trickle down civilian technology from this. If nothing else, think of it as keeping our population able to design and build advanced war fighting equipment, whether or not we actually end up building much of it. I'd rather see them shovel $50 billion to a bunch of engineers and scientists who are working hard for it, than for example give that same $50 billion to illegal welfare recipients or to study the mating practices of the pink toed salamander or whatever. They say that unused construction and design technology can get lost quickly if it is not used, so how much of stuff like this is really more about keeping defense companies up and running as opposed to building something we really need?
Nathan- We are still flying B-52s, the last of which were built under a 1962 contract, so we need the LRS-B. Neither the B-52 nor the B-1B can penetrate an advanced IADS, so that leaves only 21 B-2s that can do that job. Not enough, especially with bomber readiness rates. Brian, Bob- On the McCain and the missile on the Forrestal, makes you wonder if someone was trying to get him with a little fratricide. Two flag relatives? No wonder he is a mess. Proverbial silver spoon attitude.