The U.S. Air Force will earmark billions of dollars in its next five-year budget plan to help meet the Pentagon's goal to develop a new long-range bomber by 2018, a defense official told Reuters on Thursday.

The official said the timetable was aggressive but achievable, given the new bomber would likely include technologies already under development by the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the U.S. aerospace and defense industry.

"Substantial resources will be dedicated across the future years defense plan from 2008-2013 to get there," the official told Reuters, speaking on the condition of not being further identified. "It will be billions."

Defense analyst Loren Thompson of the Virginia-based Lexington Institute said it would cost around $20 billion to develop and build a new bomber, unless it was based on an existing aircraft such as the Lockheed F-22 fighter jet.

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