A brand new United States Air Force bomber design may not now enter service within the next 15 or so years, according to the latest comments from Robert Gates, the US Defense Secretary. This added up to ten years onto earlier Pentagon references to the USAF’s future bomber capability. Issues to be considered prior to developing it, Gates said, include whether it should be piloted or pilotless, and what kind of weapons fit it should have.

For the moment, though, upgrades would be carried out on the USAF’s present long-range strategic bomber platforms – the B-2 Spirit (Stealth Bomber) and the B-52 Stratofortress designs, he stressed.

“We're talking about a bomber that would probably not appear into the force until the late '20s”, Mr Gates explained in comments made to the Senate Armed Services Committee on February 2nd 2010. “We're just trying to figure out, looking ahead a generation, what the right form...what the right configuration for that would be.”

New USAF Bomber

US defence manufacturers Boeing, Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin are all said to be interested in being involved in the construction side of the new USAF bomber’s development.

Evidence of the kind of upgrades being performed on USAF B-52s emerged on the same day as Gates’ address. B-52 manufacturer Boeing announced that an aircraft fitted with hi-tech communications equipment had performed successfully during a mid-January test flight over California.

The B-52 had been equipped with CONECT (Combat Network Communications Technology), giving it improved location and mission awareness capabilities, and the ability to re-profile its mission in response to new data.

The January 17th B-52 trial flight lasted for over three hours and, during it, elements of CONECT were put through their paces individually, to determine that none of them impacted on other parts of the aircraft’s avionics.

“Completion of the first test flight brings us one step closer to giving command centers and troops on the ground the ability to communicate with the B-52 through the military's digital information network”, Boeing B-52 Development Programs manager, Jim Kroening stated. “Augmenting current voice-based communication gives B-52 crews greater situational awareness and significantly enhanced mission capabilities.”