B-3 is underway - under wraps ...

AOL NEWS ORLANDO: America's new long-range bomber program is "underway," will involve somewhere between 80 and 100 planes and will be delivered sometime in the mid-2020's.
For more news and information on the swiftly-changing defense industry, please sign up for the AOL Defense newsletter. For the quickest updates, like us on Facebook.

"And that's about all we're saying," Air Force Secretary Mike Donley told reporters. It's been known for some time that the bombers will not fly alone but will be part of a family of systems that may include UAVs and other systems.

The really interesting part of all this is the secrecy and why it's so dark. It would seem to indicate several things: that the U.S. does not want potential competitors such as China or Russia to know how advanced a system will be delivered or exactly what capabilities it will involve; that the Air Force is still putting the larger architecture together, deciding which capabilities will be available.

The bomber will almost certainly include an unmanned capability, but no one has made a formal decision yet, an Air Force source told me. Many of the important subsystems have not yet been chosen, this source said. Even presuming that the $4 billion for the bomber in the 2013 budget submission spread over five years is supplemented by a few billion more in the black budget that is not much money to build 80 to 100 planes that will cost at least $550 million each. Even if that is flyaway cost -- which excludes research and development costs -- building a bomber able to penetrate denied airspace and fly thousands of miles to do it without refueling has never been cheap.

And then there are the arcane details about just what we're talking about when it comes to the Long Range Strike Bomber, as the Air Force's head of Global Strike, Lt. Gen. James Kowalski, calls it. On the one hand, Kowalksi told reporters today that there is a family comprising: the long-range standoff missile (nuclear warhead for striking targets deep inside a country); conventional Prompt Global Strike, designed to strike any target in the world within one hour; and the ground-based successor to the Minuteman ICBM, which he called the ground-based strategic deterrent..

But the bomber also comprises a family of systems, thought to include an array of highly capable sensors, the long range standoff missile, some sort of stealth approach and the usual communications suites. It is also assumed by many to include a highly capable intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance suite -- something like a successor to those on-board the F-35. There's been persistent talk of UAVs that fly with the bomber or supplement it, but almost no details are known.

And we know the Pratt & Whitney is doing development work -- at least -- on the plane's engines.

So, we have a system that's "underway," is secret and about which we know very little other than it will be amazing and be relatively cheap, somehow

Marine helicopters collide in Arizona killing seven.

(CNN) -- Two helicopters collided in midair during a training exercise in Arizona, killing seven Marines, the U.S. Marine Corps said Thursday.

Wednesday night's crash occurred during routine training operations at the Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, U.S. Marine Corps Maj. Carl B. Redding, Jr., said in a statement.

The two aircraft, an AH-1W "Super Cobra" and a UH-1Y "Huey," were part of the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing.

Authorities were investigating the collision, which occurred in a remote area of a training range complex, Redding said.

He said officials would not release the names of the Marines involved until their families were notified.

Marine Corps Air Station Yuma has about 4,000 active-duty Marines and sailors, and supports 80% of the Marine Corps air-to-ground aviation training. It covers five square miles in southeastern Yuma and is home to a number of units.

The air station "hosts approximately 70 aviation units, bringing an average of 600 aircraft and 14,000 personnel for ongoing training that takes place throughout the year," utilizing U.S. and NATO forces, the station's website said.

The military describes the AH-1W as "the backbone of the United States Marine Corps' attack helicopter fleet." The UH-1Y is a twin-engine, medium-size helicopter, according to the military.

AVWK: New Bomber Force May Need 200 Aircraft

By David Fulghum , Amy Butler
Washington, Washington:

The U.S. Air Force chief of staff says the service is not going to go through the B-2 experience again—overdesigning a bomber and then having to buy fewer of them.

Analysts suggest the requirement for the Long Range Strike-Bomber (LRS-B) program could be as high as 200 aircraft as the aircraft begins to replace aging B-1s and ­B-52s.

The problem is how to take advantage of the new technology without breaking the budget or generating so much political backlash that the bomber program is reduced or canceled. The B-2s ended up costing more than $2 billion apiece because the program was closed down so early.

The 2013 budget request asked that the LRS program receive $292 million. The total through 2017 is $6.3 billion. Pentagon comptroller Robert Hale suggests a per-unit cost target of $550 million per aircraft.

“We see it as an important goal,” Hale says. “I’d like to treat it as absolutely [hard and] fast.”

However, industry executives attending the Defense Technology and Affordability Requirements conference in Washington last week contend the unit-cost target is far too optimistic. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is publicly squeezing the Air Force to keep the cost of the classified project down.

“We are going to make our best effort to not over-design the aircraft,” says Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz. “We are intent on ordering a capability that is not extravagant.”

Schwartz calls for delivery of a bomber by the mid-2020s that is capable of intelligence gathering, conducting electronic warfare and linking to offboard sensors. The combination is expected to produce a stealth aircraft that can penetrate enemy air defense, but that is sufficiently affordable to buy in numbers.

The first question then is what is the magic number? The Air Force has called for 80-100 aircraft. However, analysts are saying that twice that number is needed to create a sustainable, operationally effective force, which can continually be modified and upgraded as technology evolves.

“I would double that and look at something near 200 aircraft to provide a credible deterrent force and begin to look at replacement of the entire bomber fleet,” says Rebecca Grant, author of “The Case for a New Stealth Bomber,” a white paper recently published by Washington Security Forum. “I think we see the need for more rather than less.”

READ PAGE TWO AT AVIATION WEEK HERE

John Glenn to mark 50 years since orbit of Earth

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- John Glenn plans to mark the 50th anniversary of his historic spaceflight with a series of events at Ohio State University, including a special dinner and a live chat with crew members aboard the International Space Station.

The former astronaut and senator from Ohio became the first American to orbit Earth on Feb. 20, 1962. The trip helped the United States catch up to the Soviet Union's accomplishments in space, and Glenn says he thinks it was a turning point for America's national psyche.

The 90-year-old is now the namesake of a public affairs school at Ohio State. That's where he and NASA administrator Charles Bolden will speak with the space station Monday before a celebratory dinner and a speech by former astronaut Mark Kelly.

Arrest made in Capitol terror plot - more expected.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A 29-year-old Moroccan man was arrested Friday near the U.S. Capitol as he was planning to detonate what he thought was a suicide vest, given to him by FBI undercover operatives, said police and government officials.

Amine El Khalifi of Alexandria, Va., was taken into custody with an inoperable gun and inert explosives, according to a counterterrorism official.

El Khalifi made a brief appearance in federal court in Alexandria, Va., on Friday afternoon, wearing a green shirt and black pants and holding his arms together behind his back. A judge set a bail hearing in his case for Wednesday at 2 p.m.

A criminal complaint charges him with knowingly and unlawfully attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction against property that is owned and used by the United States.

El Khalifi expressed interest in killing at least 30 people and considered targeting a building in Alexandria and a restaurant, synagogue and a place where military personnel gather in Washington before he settled on the Capitol after canvassing that area a couple of times, the counterterrorism official said. During the investigation, the official said, El Khalifi went with undercover operatives to a quarry in the Washington area to detonate explosives.

El Khalifi came to the U.S. when he was 16 years old and is unemployed and not believed to be associated with al-Qaida. He had been under investigation for about a year and had overstayed his visitor visa for years, according to the counterterrorism official and a government official briefed on the matter who spoke on a condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.

A former landlord in Arlington, Va., said he believed El Khalifi was suspicious and called police a year and a half ago.

Frank Dynda said when he told El Khalifi to leave, the suspect said he had a right to stay and threatened to beat up Dynda. Dynda said he thought El Khalifi was making bombs, but police told him to leave the man alone. Dynda had El Khalifi evicted in 2010.

El Khalifi had several men staying with him and based on packages left for him, Dynda said. It appeared that he was running a luggage business from the apartment, though Dynda never saw any bags.

"I reported to police I think he's making bombs," Dynda said. "I was ready to get my shotgun and run him out of the building, but that would have been a lot of trouble.


READ THE REST OF THE STORY HERE