The Air Force’s top officer defended the service’s $550 million unit cost estimate for its new next-generation bomber, saying it is based on the price to produce the airplane when it comes off the production line through the program life and not the “fully burdened” cost of the entire program.
Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh said Thursday that he believes the estimated price because he controls the requirements. Welsh added that the new bomber program, known as the Long Range Strike Bomber (LRSB), is not yet mature enough to start making trades based on capability versus cost.
“We have all kinds of people wanting to add new things to this bomber, new capability to this bomber, and to that is no,” Welsh said at a Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) event in downtown Washington. “Until we get to a point in the program where we can understand the trades that we’ll be making…then we can’t decide to make a trade.”
Welsh said the Air Force is “sticking firm” to buying between 80 and 100 new bombers, which could bring a total procurement cost ranging between $44 billion and $55 billion. Media reports have tagged the total price of the LRSB acquisition program at between $50 billion and $80 billion. Though Welsh defended the 80 to 100 new bomber acquisition strategy, it could buy fewer as the service originally envisioned procuring a fleet of 132 B-2s in the 1980s, but ended up with only 20 as the program was beset with cost and scheduling problems (Defense Daily; Feb. 10, 2012).
Once the Air Force retires its fleet of B-52 bombers, of which it has 85 in active force and nine in the reserves, Welsh said the service will have 20 B-2 stealth bombers left, meaning the Air Force will need to “hold steady” on the cost of the LRSB, even if it doesn’t have all the capabilities it wants.
“Our problem has been trying to create a fancy gadget, then making it fancier as we built it,” Welsh said.
The Air Force requested $914 million in its fiscal year 2015 budget request for LRSB to evaluate integrated technologies, representative modes or prototype systems in a high-fidelity and realistic operating environment. The Air Force, from FY ’16-’19, expects to request roughly $10.5 billion for further LRSB development, according to budget documents.
The tandem of Lockheed Martin [LMT] and Boeing [BA] are competing against B-2 bomber prime contractor Northrop Grumman [NOC]. Air Force Secretary Deborah James said in February the service expects a full request for proposals (RFP) in the fall (Defense Daily, Feb. 26).
The Air Force commonly lists the LRSB as one of its top three priorities along with the F-35 and KC-46 aerial refueling tanker.