Boeing loses out on multi-billion dollar deal with Air Force
Oct 26, 2015, 6:39 PM | Updated: Oct 27, 2015, 3:31 pm
Boeing was being considered for a multi-billion dollar contract to build the next generation of bombers. The Air Force opted to go with Northrop Grumman. (AP)
(AP)
The Air Force skipped over Boeing Tuesday and awarded the largest military contract in recent history, worth $55 billion, to one of its competitors.
“I am pleased to announce that our United States Air Force has awarded the Long Range Strike Bomber contract to the Northrop Grumman Corporation,” said Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James.
James called the contract, and the work ahead, “a very significant milestone in our journey toward the next century of American air power.”
Northrop Grumman, of Falls Church, Va., claimed the contract to build the next generation of Long Range Strike Bombers. Boeing had teamed up with Lockheed-Martin to be considered for the deal, but the Air Force opted to go with the companies’ competitor.
The contract is composed of two parts. The first is for 21 aircraft at a cost of $550 million per aircraft. Those 21 are out of a fleet of 100 that have been ordered. The first part of the contract is to ensure that the deal is affordable.
The second part of the contract is for engineering and manufacturing/development.
“It’s the biggest single military aerospace contract from DOD, and in the world, this decade,” said KIRO Aerospace Analyst Richard Aboulafia.
Aboulafia said that many of the Air Force’s older bombers are scheduled to be replaced in favor of longer-rage bombers while the military engages its Pivot to Asia policy.
James said that the new generation of bombers will give the Air Force the capability to strike anywhere in the world while launching from the continental United States. She said that the modern “threat environment” has evolved to make current and older bombers out-of-date, especially when up against new air-defense systems and modern surface-to-air missile systems.
Those modern systems “effectively push our older bombers, the B-52 and the B-1 with an age of 50-plus years and 27-plus years, respectively, farther and farther away from the fight,” she said.
The news means that Seattle’s Boeing won’t contribute to future design and manufacturing work on any the USA’s next-generation jet fighters and bombers, the Seattle Times reports.
KIRO Radio Reporter Jillian Raftery contributed to this story.
