Sunday, September 21, 2008

Boeing Shows off Bomber Proposal at AFA Convention

So, now we have some models of the competing Boeing and Northrop Grumman concepts to compare:




Boeing Above



Northrop Grumman Above

Both are clearly designed with stealth in mind, and Boeing's design is rather similar to the B-2, though they have made comments about laminar flow designs to reduce drag. The outer wings, given their narrow chord would likely be laminar flow naturally.

N-G's design looks as if it would more easily accommodate a large weapons bay, which might make it easier to carry ultra heavy bunker busters.

Based on my estimates of scale, both appear to carry less in the way of bombs than a B-52 (20-30 tons), and more in line with something along the line of the B-47 (10-15 tons).

My guess is that given miniaturization of nuclear weapons, and the available of relatively small guided weapons, a larger capacity is considered redundant.

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