Delete comment from: Elements Of Power
Hi Nuno,
I won't speculate as to what NG may be doing (if anything) in the next-gen long range strike area. It's a program I know the DoD/AF wants kept under wraps. Personally, I wish it were Black World (unacknowledged) but I imagine that's tougher to do these days without a USSR-equivalent hanging around. (China is, for the time being, a 'Wannabe').
I do think that if the high-low operating environment had been a requirement from the start, the B-2 MIGHT have been a cranked-kite design. The advantages in load distribution may have outweighed the possibility of a higher number of signature 'spikes'.
For an 'OK' history I found while trying to uncover a photo of the original B-2 design, see Rebecca Grant's latest AF Magazine article "Black Bomber Blues". She repeats over-estimates as to the direct cost of security that the program level contractor PMs like to throw around, and doesn't really highlight how ALL the redesign stuff (GLAS, double-sawtooth trailing edge, etc) are by-products of the late redesign, but it's pretty good. Online PDF here: http://www.airforce-magazine.com/MagazineArchive/Documents/2012/January%202012/0112bomber.pdf
Full disclosure. I've met Dr. Grant, but I doubt she would remember me or our conversation concerning the AF's attutude towards 'range',[ i.e. it is (or was) seen, wrongly as 'fungible'].
Dec 11, 2012, 9:38:56 PM