So says Lt. Gen. David Deptula, the Air Force’s ISR czar, when discussing the service’s next-generation bomber. Deptula told Wired magazine’s Danger Room blog March 20 that calling this future aircraft just a bomber fails to recognize the multi-role capabilities that it would have. (Blog entry) “I wouldn’t call it a bomber, because that creates a perception based on historical uses of bombers that this platform is going to be well beyond,” he said. Indeed, he said the new “bomber” would carry out intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance missions, serve as a communications node, and have the “added capability” of striking targets. Deptula went so far as to say he would like to see the designations for aircraft—such as “F” for fighter and “B” for bomber—go away since they are too constraining. A better alternative, he said, might be to call them simply “aerospace vehicles” or AVs for short. This isn’t the first time Deptula has spoken along these lines. Back in 2007, he said, to fully understand what an F-22 can do, one would have to refer to it as an F/A/B/E/EA/RC/AWACS-22.
Anduril and General Atomics will develop their Collaborative Combat Aircraft for the Air Force, beating out Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman, the service announced on April 24. But any of the non-selected companies can compete to actually manufacture the eventual design, the Air Force said.