U.S. Air Force negotiations with Boeing [BA] on the E-7A Wedgetail airborne early warning aircraft have cut the price to be more in line with U.S. Air Force budget limits, a top service official said on May 8.
“We have been executing all the work, but what we’ve been behind on is we got a proposal from Boeing that was roughly twice what the budgeted funding was–funds that were budgeted based originally on information from Boeing about what the cost was gonna be,” Air Force acquisition chief Andrew Hunter told the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) on May 8 at an Air Force budget hearing in response to a question from Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.).
“I can tell you we have narrowed that gap quite considerably into an area where I believe we will soon have an agreement that will be something affordable for the taxpayer and for the Air Force, and we will be able to definitize that contract with Boeing and know how that rapid prototyping program will work over the next several years, ” Hunter said.
Production pace for the E-7A, however, is uncertain until the Air Force secures a deal with Boeing, he said.
Lt. Gen. Richard Moore, the Air Force’s deputy chief of staff for plans and programs, said that “the physics of the E-3 does not permit it to function in the highly contested environment.”
Wedgetail is to replace the Air Force’s E-3 AWACS fleet.
“Nothing that we can do to upgrade the [E-3] airplane will change a 10-second revisit rate,” he said. “It [an upgrade] won’t change the range. It won’t change the resolution, which allows it to see what we need. The mission computer in an E-3 weighs 25,000 pounds.”
The E-7A’s Multi-role Electronically Scanned Array (MESA) radar by Northrop Grumman [NOC] is to provide nonstop surveillance.
“There are some heroics” that could extend the life of some of the E-3’s TF33 engines by RTX‘s [RTX] Pratt & Whitney, but “for all intents and purposes, 2030 is the end of the road for the TF33 engines…The E-3 is not a part of the fight in the highly contested environment. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t have use in other AORs [areas of responsibility] and in other regions–homeland defense, in particular.”
The B-52H bomber also has TF33 engines.
In response to a question on May 8 on the Lockheed Martin [LMT] F-35 from Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Hunter said that the Air Force’s benchmark cost for the F-35A is $6.8 million per year per aircraft with an average annual flying rate of 180 hours per plane. That means that the flying hour cost for the F-35A is nearly $37,800 per year–a far cry from the once stated goal of “25 by 25”–a $25,000 per flying hour for the F-35 by fiscal 2025.
The $37,800 flying hour benchmark cost is “incredibly high,” Kelly said. “I can’t imagine the F-22 is as high.”
Moore then testified that the older, Block 20 F-22 fighters by Lockheed Martin have a price tag “in the neighborhood of” $75,000 per flying hour.
“Wow,” Kelly replied.
Moore said that “what we’re seeing right now with F-35 [cost] is not uncommon with what we’re seeing in our other fleets.”
The Air Force is initially focused on “the supply chain management part of the problem,” Hunter testified on F-35 sustainment costs.
“We do supply chain management for a number of large, international air fleets–F-16 being an example–and we believe there are savings to be had by leveraging some of our enterprise sustainment capabilities, in addition to the capabilities that Lockheed brings to the table and to the partnership,” he said.