AX Competition Critical To Many Team Members
Most of the industrial teams are now in place to compete for the U. S. Navy’s next-generation AX attack aircraft, a program that could make or break some major companies in the financial and structural upheaval in the aerospace industry.
Among the competing teams and their entries are General Dynamics Corp. (prime) and McDonnell Douglas Corp, which will offer up a derivative of the A-
12 Avenger, which was terminated in January; Lockheed Corp. (prime), General Dynamics and The Boeing Co., which will propose a derivative of their U. S. Air Force F-22 (formerly known as the advanced tactical fighter); Grumman Corp. (prime), Lockheed and Boeing, which will propose a clean-sheet design, and Mc- Donnell Douglas (prime) and LTV Corp, which also will offer a new design.
Each of these teams is preparing to respond to the Navy‘s request for proposals for the program’s concept exploration phase, which is expected to get under way in the fourth quarter of 1991. The Navy will award five one-year, $10-million contracts during the last quarter of 1991. Team members have agreed among themselves to participate on only one clean-sheet design team.
Grumman also is considering proposing an advanced version of its carrier-based F-14D fighter as an AX candidate. Grumman officials expect to make a final determination within days.
In addition, Northrop Corp, the prime contractor on the U. S. Air Force B-2 strategic bomber, expects to be among the AX competitors but is reserving judgment on the nature of its participation until the Navy issues its RFP next month.
GUARDING AGAINST COMPROMISE
Similarly, Rockwell International Corp. will not make a decision on AX until the Navy issues the RFP. The company has not ruled out any teaming options, although its participation seems less certain than Northrop’s.
The fact that some companies are participating on more than one team suggests there could be the potential for them to compromise competing technologies or business strategies, but industry officials said they intend to take steps to guard against such an occurrence.
For example, McDonnell Douglas will have two totally autonomous teams. One will develop a clean-sheet AX design and the other team will work on a design based on technology originally developed for the A-12. These teams will be physically separated, workers will report to different senior managers, and no one on either team will have cross-clearances that could give him access to what the other team is doing. They will work as though they were
with competing companies,” James Restelli, executive vice president of McDonnell Aircraft Co., said.
The shrinking military budget—and the industry shakeout that is likely to result in the mid-l990s—makes the AX contract a must-win for some airframe makers. Production of many of the military’s front-line aircraft is winding down, and their builders are scrambling for new business, domestically and overseas. AX is one of the few major opportunities left for companies to make large additions to their backlogs on the strength of a single program.
Without AX, some companies may be forced out of the military-airframe business altogether. Moreover, all losers will forfeit the potential of billions of dollars in added revenue and the competitive edge that goes with producing an advanced combat aircraft for the U. S. Even Lockheed, which is the prime
contractor on the F-22, considers AX a high priority.
“There is a misperception that our F-22 win suddenly turned Lockheed into a fat cat, but we won’t begin making [big] money on that program for years," Thomas Burbage, Lockheed’s vice president of business development and product support, said. “We have got to keep fighting the battle every day to position ourselves for the future; AX along with ATF will determine the winners and losers for the next 20-30 years.”
AX is intended to replace the carrier-based Grumman A-6 Intruder, a two-seat, all-weather bomber for deep strikes and close-air support. It will not become operational until around 2005. The A-6 became operational in 1963. About 100 of the 470 aircraft now operating have been fitted with new Boeing Co. composite wings to extend the bombers’ service life. Eventually, however, the Navy will be forced to introduce a next generation strike aircraft.
The General Dynamics/McDonnell Douglas A-12 had been the intended replacement. But Defense Secretary Richard B. Cheney canceled the program because of cost and schedule overruns. While contractors still do not know exactly what the Navy’s AX requirements will be, they do have broad design criteria, based on the Navy’s tentative operational requirements. The Navy’s priorities are carrier suitability, affordability, survivability, air-to-surface effectiveness and air-to-air effectiveness.
“The Navy has a set of requirements to fulfill its medium-attack needs, and it has a range of other capabilities in the ‘desired’ category,” Paul Bavitz, Grumman’s vice president of advanced program development, said. “Navy officials will be looking to industry to tell them what is affordable.” This means contractors proposing a clean-sheet design will be entering the concept exploration phase with no biases toward airframe size, crew size, propulsion or any other criteria.
Further, while stealth will figure prominently in the winning AX proposal, it will not be an overriding design consideration. The Navy is encouraging companies to adopt a balanced approach to survivability and give equal consideration to speed, agility and electronic countermeasures, industry officials said. “The Navy will be examining the proposals carefully to determine ‘break points’ in cost, and where it does not make sense to pour a lot of money in to gain a certain capability,” Gerald A. Cann, assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition, said.
This is welcome news to security analysts, who have been critical of new aircraft development programs that seem to have emphasized cutting-edge technology at the expense of cost-related issues, greatly increasing the financial risk to contractors. Such was the case on the A-12 program, for which General Dynamics and McDonnell Douglas wound up taking $700 million and $350 million in charges, respectively, against 1990 earnings. Industry officials expect the AX contract’s terms and conditions to be far more favorable than those for the A-12 program, which was a fixed-price development program.
NO 1992 FUNDING
“Hopefully, the government realizes the most appropriate type of contract for this type of project is cost-plus for the fullscale development phase,” Lawrence Harris, a senior analyst with Kemper Securities, Inc., said. There is no money requested for AX in the proposed Fiscal 1992 budget. Initially, the program will be funded with $167.5 million in research and development money earmarked in the Fiscal 1991 budget for AX and A-12 “mop-up” costs, Navy officials said.
Of the contractor teams already formed, the Grumman/Lockheed/Boeing alliance is among the strongest. Grumman contributes its experience in carrier-suitability design and support, and its knowledge of the Navy’s fighter and attack missions. Lockheed, which produces the Air Force F-117 stealth attack aircraft, offers its capabilities in prototyping and low-observable technology. And Boeing adds its avionics expertise; it already is developing advanced avionics for the F-22 and the RAH—66 Comanche next-generation attack helicopter. The Grumman team will put a high priority on transferring the avionics Boeing is developing for the F—22 and RAH-66 to the AX. “This will minimize costs and promote commonality between the AX and the F-22,” Ken Cannestra, president of Lockheed‘s Aeronautical Systems Group, said.
LTV was the first company McDonnell Douglas contacted to discuss a possible partnership, and their mutual expectations were so complementary that LTV served as McDonnell Douglas’ standard when it subsequently explored possible alliances with other contractors, including Grumman, Northrop and Rockwell. “From the outset, they understood we wanted to be prime and we understood they wanted to be a principal subcontractor,” Restelli said.
McDonnell Douglas, whose F-4 was the Navy’s primary carrier-based multimission combat aircraft before the introduction of the F-14, was attracted to
LTV’s knowledge of carrier suitability; the carrier-based A-7 attack aircraft is an LTV product. McDonnell also liked LTV’s experience in low-observable technologies and building large complex structures— LTV builds the intermediate sections of the B-2—its low-cost production techniques and the company’s orientation to advanced integrated product definition.
McDonnell Douglas is not overly concerned with the fact that LTV’s aerospace and defense unit is for sale. Nonetheless, the two companies have
an understanding that if the business unit is sold to a buyer who does not want to pursue the AX contract or wants to take a fundamentally different approach to the AX program, then McDonnell Douglas can leave the partnership with no strings attached, Restelli said.
...what a beauty! Looks like the perfect sucessor of F-117 btw ;D
in-house McDonnell model mold marked AX that is in my possession, so my peepers can confirm all aspects of the model and its heritage and the labeling. It's missing the doghouse and sadly there is no sign of this particular mold, so when I finish this I will need to be creative when constructing. Does anyone out there have ANY information on the design and what we are dealing with here?
