B-3 Long Range Strike Platform

The B-3 Long Rang Strike Platform is a planned bomber aircraft of the US Air Force.

As the current US bomber fleet is scheduled to retire around the 2050-ies, a need for new bomber aircraft have arisen. Especially to replace the aging B-52s, whose original design will be near 100 years old(!) by the time of their scheduled retirement date of 2045. The B-1s and B-2s are expected to be around until at least the year 2037. This differs from the 2018 Bomber because it is supposed to go supersonic, of hypersonic whereas it is suppoded to be subsonic.

Plans
In the late 90's, the Air Force talked about a new bomber which would be operable by 2020. Several ideas were produced out of this. One such bomber was the FB-22. The problem is that its projected range is around 1,600 miles. This makes it's selection highly impractible because the Air Force is planning for something with a lot more range. Other ideas included a plan for a hypersonic bomber, as well as one that could fly into space. Yet this could prove impractible because the militarization of space has been tried in the past and there has been outcry over this. The plane is also supposed to be stealthy based on the fact that planes that could be escorting it would be invisible on radar but fact that theres a bomber force coming on radar would raise a few eyebrows.

Controversy
Critics have argued that a supersonic bomber would fail only because the have in the past. True, the B-58, XB-70, and F-111 are not flying anymore. They also had high operating costs and this is always prohibitive of something that flys faster than the speed of sound. The Concorde is something that was successful but had high operating costs.

MORE TO COME ON THIS AND THE SECTION BEFORE! Just so you know.

Specifications
*Speed: Subsonic, Supersonic, or Hypersonic (Depends on what plan is being used)
*Combat radius main= >2,000 mi
*Weapons Load= 14,000-28,000 lb
*Ability to survive in hostile airspace for extended time
*The Ability to carry nuclear weapons or other conventional weapons

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See Also

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