The Air Force is about one-to-three months away from its decision on a contractor for its widely- anticipated Long Range Strike Bomber (LRSB) program, its acquisition czar said Thursday.
Assistant Secretary of the Air Force William LaPlante defended the timing, saying it is more important that it gets started at the right time.
“If someone comes to me and says ‘we want one more thing,’ I’m not going to say ‘no, this has to be done tomorrow,’” LaPlante said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) think tank in Washington. “This is something that is going to be with us for 50 years.”
LaPlante emphasized the importance of taking it slow in the early part of the program because if the Air Force makes a mistake early, there’s very little that can be done later. He said the service is taking requirements from airmen and figuring out how much they will cost. LaPlante and Air Force brass have emphasized publicly how they are doing all they can to keep the bomber’s price tag reasonable.
“If you want to go fast, start slow,” LaPlante said.
The Air Force plans to procure 80–100 new bombers at a price tag of around $500 million each. Lockheed Martin [LMT] and Boeing [BA] are teaming against B-2 incumbent Northrop Grumman [NOC] for the program. The new bomber will eventually replace all B-1s, B-2s and B-52s after it comes online, a senior Air Force officer said recently (Defense Daily, June 25).