Senators push for next-generation bomber - Air Force News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Air Force Times

Senators push for next-generation bomber

The “next-generation bomber” is the latest weapon to acquire its very own congressional delegation.

Six U.S. senators have sent a letter urging President Barack Obama not to kill the bomber, which for now is little more than a notion in the minds of some Air Force planners.

But the senators — all of whom represent states where future bombers might be based — say the need for a new bomber is “urgent.”

The bomber is expected to cost $10 billion to design and could be ready by 2018, according to the Congressional Research Service.

However, recent news reports suggest that the bomber may be a casualty in the 2010 budget.

So the senators wrote to the president, “We believe termination of the Next Generation Bomber would do tremendous damage to our nation’s future ability to project power abroad.”

They envision future wars in “heavily defended airspace” where bombers will confront “extremely sophisticated and deadly air defense systems.”

Of existing bombers, B-52s and B-1s lack the stealth technology needed to evade modern air defense systems. B-2s are stealthy, but there are only 16 of them, the senators said March 26.

The senators are John Thune and Tim Johnson of South Dakota, David Vitter and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas.

They represent Ellsworth, Barksdale and Dyess Air Force bases, respectively.

The bomber joins the F-22 (44 senators), ground-based midcourse missile defense (the Alaska delegation), Virginia-class submarines (Virginia and Connecticut lawmakers) among the weapons with congressional custodians.