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The Long Range Strike Bomber will join the B-2 in the U.S. Air Force bomber fleet. Photo courtesy USAF / Bobbi Garcia

The U.S. Air Force announced last weekend that the competition to build the next bomber is already underway. Boeing, Lockheed, and Northrop Grumman are all trying to design the Long Range Strike Bomber, a concept that’s been kicked around since 2006.

Many analyses and at least one potential shelving of the idea later, the Air Force has decided to move forward, dedicating $3.7 billion over the next five years for its development with plans for it to become operational some time in the 2020s. The Long Range Strike Bomber would infuse the Air Force’s dwindling fleet of B-52s, B-1s, and B-2s — a total inventory of around 160, less than 20 of which are combat-ready B-2s, which joined the service in the 1980s.

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz has said he expects the new bombers to run about $550 million each. One of the more interesting requirements is that they be “optionally manned,” adding it to the ever-increasing list of remotely controlled vehicles in the military.  The new bomber will largely use the B-2 as a baseline, including its manta ray shape and other stealth attributes.

For more information on the Long Range Strike Bomber, pick up a copy of Ultimate Warplanes, an Air & Space Collector’s Edition that features a spread on this ‘Bomber of the Future,’ with illustrations of the potential design. Ultimate Warplanes hit newsstands February 28, or you can buy your copy online.

In November we posted a video of the new unmanned cargo helicopter, K-MAX, built by Kaman and Lockheed, that the Marines deployed for six months of testing in Afghanistan. A couple months and cargo hauls later, things seem to be proceeding smoothly. Lockheed recently posted this updated glamour video featuring stats and footage of their “unmanned aerial truck” at work.

Ever wonder what it takes to become an Apache helicopter pilot? Former British Army Air Corps pilot Ed Macy gives this description in his 2009 book Apache: Inside the Cockpit of the World’s Most Deadly Fighting Machine.

As the most technically advanced helicopter in the world, the Apache AH Mk1 was also the hardest to fly…. To train each Apache pilot from scratch cost £3 million (each custom-made helmet alone had a price tag of £22,915). It took six months just to learn how to fly the machine, another six to know how to fight in it, and a final six to be passed combat ready. And that was if you were already a fully qualified, combat-trained army helicopter pilot. If you weren’t, you’d have to add four months for ground school and learning to fly fixed wing at RAF Barkston Heath, six months learning to fly helicopters at RAF Shawbury, half a year at the School of Army Aviation learning to fly tactically, and a final sixteen-week course in Survival, Evasion and Resistance to Interrogation, courtesy of the Intelligence Corps’ most vigorous training staff. Three years in total….

Flying an Apache almost always meant both hands and feet doing four different things at once. Even our eyes had to learn how to work independently of each other. A monocle sat permanently over our right iris. A dozen different instrument readings from around the cockpit were projected into it. At the flick of a button, a range of other images could also be superimposed underneath the green glow of the instrument symbology, replicating the TADS’ [target acquisition and designation sights] or PNVS’ [pilots night vision sight] camera images and the Longbow Radars’ targets.

The monocle left the pilot’s left eye free to look outside the cockpit, saving him the few seconds that it took to look down at the instruments and then up again…. New pilots suffered terrible headaches as the left and right eye competed for dominance. They started within minutes, long before take-off…. As the eyes adjusted over the following weeks and months the headaches took longer to set in. It was a year before mine disappeared altogether…. I once filmed my face during a sortie with a video camera as an experiment. My eyes whirled independently of each other throughout, like a man possessed.

An Apache helicopter pilot with the U.K. Army Air Corps in Afghanistan, May 2009. Photo: Cpl Rupert Frere RLC, UK Ministry of Defence.

Screenshot from UAVForge submitted video for a concept by team GremLion

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is trying out innovation the 21st century way: crowdsourcing. The agency, along with the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Atlantic and Northwest UAV Propulsion Systems, wants to build an advanced unmanned aerial vehicle, so it asked engineers and designers to submit their ideas.

The initiative, called UAVForge, received submissions from more than 1,400 teams, who were encouraged to share ideas and problems they’ve encountered in the hope that they would build on each other’s ingenuity and create something they might not have by working in secret. It’s still a competition, though; whichever team creates the best product will take home a $100,000 prize. UAVForge is currently in the process of voting for the top 10 ideas.

This isn’t the first crowdsourcing project by the Department of Defense, which has experimented with software and, last summer, unveiled a particularly hideous but — DARPA hopes — extremely versatile and inexpensive combat support vehicle, the FLYPmode.

Crowdsourcing is certainly one way to cut way back on parts of the defense budget. And though the idea is probably not well-received, generally speaking, by defense contractors, it’s not all bad news — Northwest UAV has already been awarded a contract to manufacture the winning idea. One has to wonder how the 1,400-plus teams can integrate classified military do-dads — which one might assume an “advanced” UAV would have — not to mention keeping whatever they come up with themselves a secret.

Robert K. Smyth learned to fly in the U.S. Navy, where he flew fighter aircraft from the F8F Bearcat to McDonnell F2H Banshees, one of the first carrier-borne jets. In 1952, he successfully completed the Navy’s Test Pilot School and eventually left the service in 1955.

He soon joined Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corpopration as an engineering test pilot, flying the F9F Cougar, F11F Tiger and A-6A Intruder. He also contributed to the certification of the Gulfstream I, a pioneering twin-turboprop business aircraft that led to the Gulfstream II, which became the first of a long line of twin-jet Gulfstream aircraft.

Smyth was instrumental in the development of the Apollo Lunar Module during the 1960s, and in 1967 he was appointed Grumman’s chief test pilot. He and Bill Miller crewed the first flight of the F-14A Tomcat in 1970, but made bigger headlines when he and Miller had to eject from the aircraft just nine days later. (Smyth spoke about his career at the National Air and Space Museum in 2007. You can watch an archived video here.)

He left Grumman to join Gulfstream Aerospace, which was no longer part of Grumman, in 1981 and set numerous records as vice president of flight operations. He retired in 1993 and moved to Florida, where he died on Tuesday at his home at the Leeward Air Ranch in Ocala. He is survived by his wife, Sally, who requests that friends remember her husband by contributing to the Hospice of Marion County.