December 22, 2015

Boeing, Lockheed: Air Force Choice Of Northrop Bomber A ?Flawed? Decision

By ExchangeMonitor
Boeing [BA] and Lockheed Martin [LMT] said over the weekend that the Air Force’s decision to have Northrop Grumman [NOC] build the long-range strike bomber (LRS-B) was “fundamentally flawed.

The losing team on Dec. 17 filed a 133-page brief with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) detailing further its contention that Northrop was not the best and most economical choice to build the aircraft.

Boeing announced Friday that it and Lockheed would continue with the protest, on which the GAO must rule by Feb. 14. The brief was the team’s official response to a filing in early December by the Air Force in answer to the initial protest.

“Yesterday, The Boeing Company filed with the GAO its 133-page brief in response to the Air Force’s filing, in the company’s protest of the Air Force’s selection of the Nation’s next-generation Long Range Strike Bomber,” the company said in a Dec. 18 statement. “The Boeing and Lockheed Martin team believe that the Air Force’s selection process was irreparably flawed and therefore have decided to continue with their protest before the GAO.”

Northrop, meanwhile, has been ordered to halt all production work on its LRS-B design while the protest is decided. That has not dampened the company’s spirits. It has launched a series of self-congratulatory events at its installations nationwide, one of which was held Dec. 18 at the company’s campus in McLean, Va., outside Washington, D.C.

The contract awarded to Northrop has two parts: a fixed-price contract with incentives for reducing cost for 21 aircraft in five lots. The average unit flyaway cost for the contract is $511 million in 2010 dollars for a total of 100 bombers. That translates to $564 million per bomber in fiscal year 2016 dollars. The entire scope of work for the entire required fleet is estimated to be worth $80 billion.

Comments are closed.

Morning Briefing
Morning Briefing
Subscribe
Partner Content
Social Feed

NEW: Via public records request, I’ve been able to confirm reporting today that a warrant has been issued for DOE deputy asst. secretary of spent fuel and waste disposition Sam Brinton for another luggage theft, this time at Las Vegas’s Harry Reid airport. (cc: @EMPublications)

Load More