Boeing [BA] is confident that Congress will pass a bill this month making two technical changes so that the Department of Defense (DoD) and the aerospace firm can sign the contract for the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet multi-year buy, according to a top company official.
DoD and Boeing need to sign that contract by Sept. 30 (Defense Daily, Sept. 7).
“You have to have congressional notification certified that it was a 10 percent savings, or acceptable savings, for a multi-year,” Chris Chadwick, president Boeing military aircraft, told sister publication Defense Daily.
The measure would have to be approved by the House, Senate, and President Barack Obama by the end of the month for the multi-year deal to go through, because the fiscal year 2010 defense authorization deal sets a deadline of Sept. 30, the final day of FY ’10 (Defense Daily, Sept. 7).
While there has been some concern as to whether Congress would be able to take up the multi-year and get it approved and to the president in time to meet the Sept. 30 deadline, Chadwick is confident it will get done.
“Right now my view is we are still within the timeframe of meeting that deadline. We had discussions with the Navy…I think we are there, or very close, so I am very confident,” he said. “We have had a very robust and engaging discussion with the Navy as we have gone through negotiations. I think there has been very good give and take.”
The multi-year deal for 124 F/A-18s is expected to save the government $590 million when compared to single-year procurements of the same number of aircraft.
Boeing offered DoD a multi-year contract in February that it said would generate a 10 percent savings to the government compared to traditional annual contracts, which is the minimum savings sought by the Pentagon for a multi-year deal. The Navy and Pentagon gave final approval to the arrangement in May.
Getting everyone involved to sign off on the multi-year Super Hornet buy will make the F/A-18E/F a rock solid production line until the middle of the next decade and beyond, Chadwick added.
While the Navy has its sights set on eventually moving into Lockheed Martin‘s [LMT] F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, Chadwick said the Navy’s view all along has been to fly both fighters together out to the 2030s or 2040s.
“In many ways, they are not competitors, perhaps in the budget they are, but in terms of warfighting capabilities they are complementary. That’s the way the U.S. Navy plans on using them,” he said.
While Boeing waits for its multi-year proposal to proceed forward, the company is also eyeing the international market and the partners that are flying the company’s multi-role fighter, Chadwick added.
About two years ago, Boeing took a look at the Super Hornet market, Chadwick explained. What company officials saw was a historic five- to seven-year window in the international arena for a lot of platforms, he said. “The reason being, it is time for them to transition to the next level of capability.”
So, right now, the Super Hornet is in competition in Brazil for that country’s F-X2 fighter competition.
In August 2009, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress of a possible Foreign Military Sale to Brazil of 28 F/A-18E Super Hornet aircraft, eight F/A-18Fs, 72 F414-General Electric [GE]-400 installed engines, a host of spare parts and munitions at an estimated value of $7 billion. The notification was done in advance of an expected announcement by Brazil of the pending competition (Defense Daily, Aug. 10, 2009).
Chadwick said Brazil’s decision has been delayed until early summer 2011.
Denmark has also not made a decision other than to delay its fighter competition, he added.
India, however, should make a decision next year for 126 multi-role fighters with an option for another 63, Chadwick noted. “In essence that is a 200-aircraft buy.”
Boeing submitted a comprehensive proposal to India in support of the company’s Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA).
Japan is looking still at FX fighter program–a potential 50 to 60 airplanes, Chadwick said.
“We continue to have discussions with all of our existing international F/A-18 customers because we believe there is an opportunity there for some of them [to] decide to procure additional airplanes,” he added.
Boeing has recently seen that the Swiss Air Force has delayed their decision on procuring fighters, and could possibly reopen the competition. Chadwick said Boeing had pulled out of the competition, but is now taking a look at reentering.
“I think with the current environment there are perhaps additional Middle East countries that are looking at us,” he said. “We’ve had discussions in areas where customers are starting to worry about F-35 and they want a bridge, perhaps to F-35.
“With the Super Hornet what you get is a known capability, low-risk, very low-risk, and you know what the price is,” Chadwick added.