Air Force Eyes Future Bomber 'Fly-Off'

Posted on: Mar. 11th, 2006 || Source: military.com | E-mail Article | Print Article

Air Force Eyes Future Bomber 'Fly-Off'

Senior Air Force officials could commission a fly-off to determine which industry platforms are best suited to meet the service's need for a new long-range bomber by 2018, Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley told Inside the Air Force this week.

The air chief hinted he and other service leaders are mulling an accelerated acquisition plan for the next-generation bomber platform similar to the 1970s approach that led the Air Force to purchase F-16 aircraft. Air Force brass feel such a strategy could allow them to field a new bomber sooner than a Pentagon-mandated 2018 benchmark, Moseley said March 7 during a brief interview.

“I'm willing to look at some creative ways to give [industry] an amount of money and say, ‘You guys come back in X number of months and see what we got.' Let's fly these babies off and see what we end up with,” Moseley said following testimony before the House Appropriations military quality of life and Veterans Affairs subcommittee.

The Air Force is in the early stages of what likely will be a multibillion-dollar effort to develop a new long-range bomber in response to a direction in the 2005 Quadrennial Defense Review to field a new platform by 2018. In his comments this week, however, Moseley hinted senior Air Force officials are mulling ways to put a new bomber in the air before that much-discussed benchmark.

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