Posted on Dec 10, 2021
The Air Force's top civilian wants a drone wingman for the B-21 bomber - Breaking Defense
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The Air Force wants to give the secretive Northrop Grumman B-21 Raider stealth bomber a drone sidekick, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall announced today.
“The B-21 is a very expensive aircraft. It has a certain payload and range. We’d like to amplify that capability it has to penetrate, which is valuable,” Kendall said during a Defense One event.
“What we want is something that can go operate with it,” he said. “I won’t say accompany it — the tactics are very much to be determined. But we’re going to sort that out and think about unmanned combat aircraft and how to network them together under the control of an operator of the B-21, to operate as a formation in some loose sense.”
Kendall said little else about the capability of the B-21 drone wingman, though his comments about it not necessarily “accompanying” the B-21 hints that it may not have the same level of stealth or the ability to penetrate as deeply into enemy territory. He did not mention how many drones the Air Force could buy, nor how much money it intends to spend.
“The B-21 is a very expensive aircraft. It has a certain payload and range. We’d like to amplify that capability it has to penetrate, which is valuable,” Kendall said during a Defense One event.
“What we want is something that can go operate with it,” he said. “I won’t say accompany it — the tactics are very much to be determined. But we’re going to sort that out and think about unmanned combat aircraft and how to network them together under the control of an operator of the B-21, to operate as a formation in some loose sense.”
Kendall said little else about the capability of the B-21 drone wingman, though his comments about it not necessarily “accompanying” the B-21 hints that it may not have the same level of stealth or the ability to penetrate as deeply into enemy territory. He did not mention how many drones the Air Force could buy, nor how much money it intends to spend.
The Air Force's top civilian wants a drone wingman for the B-21 bomber - Breaking Defense
Posted from breakingdefense.com
Drones
Defense and Space
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Edited 3 y ago
Posted 3 y ago
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An old idea that was crazy then and probably crazier now. https://disciplesofflight.com/parasite-fighters-aviation/
Parasite Fighters: 40 Years Were Spent Trying To Make Them Work
Some plane concepts, like parasite fighters, never really take off. During the early days of military aviation, the effective range of most aircraft was quite limited, meaning that aircraft with ground attack or bombing missions were
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Lt Col Charlie Brown
Thanks Lt Col John (Jack) Christensen I knew you would have good thoughts to bring to this one!
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