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.
Northrop fired back over the weekend, confirming that it also has filed additional comments with the GAO in support of the Air Force’s decision. Vice President of Strategic Communications Randy Belote said Northrop is more confident than ever that the service’s selection process was sound, that its bomber is “inherently more affordable” and that it will ultimately keep the contract.
“Northrop Grumman confirms that it filed comments with the GAO in support of the Air Force’s decision to award Northrop Grumman the LRS-B program,” Belote said in a Dec. 19 statement. “We are now even more confident that the Air Force followed an extraordinarily thorough and careful selection process and picked the right team in Northrop Grumman to serve our nation. We understand that Boeing has filed an additional brief in this matter. This is a routine step, particularly at this stage in a protest, and not in any way indicative of a meritorious protest.”
The first bomber will field in the mid-2020s and the fleet eventually will replace the Eisenhower-era B-52 and the B-1B Lancer introduced in the late1980s. The Air Force plans to retire the B-1 in the 2030s, the B-52 in 2040 and the B-2 in about 2060.
Since the genesis of LRS-B in 2011, the Air Force has required the winning proposal first and foremost to come in under $550 million per copy in 2010 dollars, a figure the Air Force says was arrived at by an independent team of experts outside of the LRS-B program.