The 2037 Bomber is the unofficial name given to a heavy strategic bomber

Strategic bomber

A strategic bomber is a heavy bomber aircraft designed to drop large amounts of ordnance onto a distant target for the purposes of debilitating an enemy's capacity to wage war. Unlike tactical bombers, which are used in the battle zone to attack troops and military equipment, strategic bombers are...

 planned by the United States Air Force

United States Air Force

The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...

. It is projected to enter service in 2037 as a stealthy

Stealth aircraft

Stealth aircraft are aircraft that use stealth technology to avoid detection by employing a combination of features to interfere with radar as well as reduce visibility in the infrared, visual, audio, and radio frequency spectrum. Development of stealth technology likely began in Germany during...

, supersonic

Supersonic

Supersonic speed is a rate of travel of an object that exceeds the speed of sound . For objects traveling in dry air of a temperature of 20 °C this speed is approximately 343 m/s, 1,125 ft/s, 768 mph or 1,235 km/h. Speeds greater than five times the speed of sound are often...

, long-range, heavy-payload, possibly unmanned aircraft to potentially replace the B-52 Stratofortress

B-52 Stratofortress

The Boeing B-52 Stratofortress is a long-range, subsonic, jet-powered strategic bomber operated by the United States Air Force since the 1950s. The B-52 was designed and built by Boeing, who have continued to provide maintainence and upgrades to the aircraft in service...

, which entered service in 1955 and is scheduled to be retired in 2040.

Development

With the ending of B-2

B-2 Spirit

The Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit is an American heavy bomber with low observable stealth technology designed to penetrate dense anti-aircraft defenses and deploy both conventional and nuclear weapons. The bomber has a crew of two and can drop up to eighty -class JDAM GPS-guided bombs, or sixteen ...

 production in the early 1990s, the U.S. Air Force was left with a gap in its bomber development. A new bomber would be needed in the 2037 time frame to replace retiring B-52s and B-1

B-1 Lancer

The Rockwell B-1 LancerThe name "Lancer" is only applied to the B-1B version, after the program was revived. is a four-engine variable-sweep wing strategic bomber used by the United States Air Force...

s according to the Air Force's Bomber Roadmap, released in 1999. This was considered too long to wait, as the Air Force needed an interim bomber before the 2030s. This left the aircraft proposed for 2037 as more of a heavy bomber than a medium bomber.

Specifications

• Supersonic
  Supersonic
  Supersonic speed is a rate of travel of an object that exceeds the speed of sound . For objects traveling in dry air of a temperature of 20 °C this speed is approximately 343 m/s, 1,125 ft/s, 768 mph or 1,235 km/h. Speeds greater than five times the speed of sound are often...
  
   max speed
• Ability to carry nuclear weapons
• Possible requirement for unmanned
  Unmanned aerial vehicle
  An unmanned aerial vehicle , also known as a unmanned aircraft system , remotely piloted aircraft or unmanned aircraft, is a machine which functions either by the remote control of a navigator or pilot or autonomously, that is, as a self-directing entity...
  
  technology

External links

• "The 2018 Bomber and Its Friends". Air Force Magazine, October 2006.
• "Great Expectations". Air Force Magazine, August 2007.