Northrop Grumman B-21 Raider (LRS-B)

JFC Fuller said:
Breaking Defense Story: http://breakingdefense.com/2016/02/gao-upholds-lrsb-award-to-northrop/
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Schwiiiiing Daddy!

EMD and LRIP - Let's get moving.

They haven't updated the americasnewbomber site but there is a statement on the NG site.
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Northrop Grumman is pleased that the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has denied Boeing's protest and reaffirmed the Air Force's decision to award Northrop Grumman the Long-Range Strike Bomber (LRS-B) contract. This confirms that the U.S. Air Force conducted an extraordinarily thorough selection process and selected the most capable and affordable solution.

The LRS-B is vitally important to national security and we are delighted to be resuming work on the next-generation Long-Range Strike Bomber.
 
I wonder if Boeing will go to court. I know the guy who was forced out wasn't anything to do with the choice, but this is such an important contract to all concerned that I could still see them using it as a leverage point to take court action.

Anyway here is the Breaking Defense article with some additional bits and pieces including that Boeing's lawyers are going through the decision with a fine tooth comb but have yet too decide if to go the court route. Also the official GAO statement.

Is that a smart move, I asked aviation expert Richard Aboulafia of the Teal Group? “You’ve got the Air Force, OSD and now the GAO saying no to Boeing. I think the overwhelming majority of opinion seems to be no,” he said. After all that, Boeing better have “a real silver bullet” to justify going to court.

Why then is Boeing not graciously nodding and congratulating Northrop? “I think they regarded this in many ways as a must-win contract,” Aboulafia told me, “and it’s tough to live in the aftermath of this and come up with a fallback plan.”
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The following is a statement from Ralph O. White, Managing Associate General Counsel for Procurement Law, GAO, regarding today’s decision resolving the protest filed by The Boeing Company, B-412441, February 16, 2016

On February 16, 2016, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) denied a protest filed by The Boeing Company, Defense, Space & Security, of St. Louis, Missouri, challenging the Department of the Air Force’s award of a cost reimbursement contract to Northrop Grumman Corporation, of Redondo Beach, California, for engineering and manufacturing development, and early production, of the Long Range Strike Bomber. Boeing argued that the Air Force’s evaluation was fundamentally flawed with respect to the assessment of the offerors’ proposed costs, and the technical evaluation of Northrop’s proposal.

The current contract for the Long Range Strike Bomber is comprised of two parts–the Engineering and Manufacturing Development phase and the subsequent options for the production of the first 21 aircraft. As initially announced by the Air Force, the Engineering and Manufacturing Development phase has an estimated value of $21.4 billion in 2010 dollars. The Air Force has not provided a public figure for the production cost of the first 21 planes, and the total cost of this contract is classified. The Air Force has explained that “the fixed price production award supports the average per unit cost of $511 million per aircraft (stated in 2010 dollars with a production purchase of 100 aircraft).”

GAO reviewed the challenges to the selection decision raised by Boeing and has found no basis to sustain or uphold the protest (emphasis added). In denying Boeing’s protest, GAO concluded that the technical evaluation, and the evaluation of costs, was reasonable, consistent with the terms of the solicitation, and in accordance with procurement laws and regulations.

The details of Boeing’s challenges, and GAO’s decision resolving them, are classified and covered by the terms of a protective order issued by GAO for the protest. Accordingly, this decision must undergo a security classification review by the Air Force, and is not available for public release.
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breakingdefense.com

GAO Upholds LRSB Award To Northrop; Boeing Glowers - Breaking Defense

UPDATED: Adds Aboulafia Comment, SecAF, Boeing, Northrop Statements. WASHINGTON: The Government Accountability Office upheld the Long Range Strike Bomber contract award to Northrop Grumman today, smoothing the way for one of the Pentagon’s highest priority programs and erasing fears that the...
breakingdefense.com breakingdefense.com
 
Response from Boeing... The guy put his cell number in there. Perhaps we should call him every hour to see if there's any updates ;-)

Today, the Government Accountability Office denied the protest filed by the Boeing and Lockheed Martin team challenging the Air Force's award of the Long Range Strike Bomber (LRS-B). We continue to believe that our offering represents the best solution for the Air Force and the Nation, and that the government's selection process was fundamentally and irreparably flawed.

We will carefully review the GAO's decision and decide upon our next steps with regard to the protest in the coming days.

Given the significance of the LRS-B program, it could not be more critical that the government procure the most capable bomber to serve the warfighter, at the greatest value to the American taxpayer.

Contact:

Todd Blecher
Defense, Space & Security
Mobile: +1 312-543-4311
 
Ok Boeing and LM build it with your own money and fly it undetected around the world.
 
Supposedly an Air Force Budget Spreadsheet for 2017 Budget request - LRS-B. Any idea on which years are EMD and where LRIP begins? I'm trying to determine the NG numbers proposed for EMD.

Link is to source

breakingdefense.com

'We Simply Can't Afford' What We Need: Air Force 17 Budget - Breaking Defense

UPDATED: Adds Air Force POM Chart Of Most Major Programs WASHINGTON: It’s simple: the Air Force “simply cannot afford” to buy what it needs to buy over the next decade. The emphasis is the Air Force’s own, published on its budget website ahead of the official budget release. “The Air Force is...
breakingdefense.com breakingdefense.com
 

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bobbymike said:
www.forbes.com

Boeing Protest Rejected, But Problems Just Beginning For U.S. Air Force's Next Stealth Bomber

There is good reason to suspect that the Long Range Strike bomber program will founder long before the first B-3 is scheduled to join the force circa 2025. The problem, in a nutshell: the USAF's budget to modernize its aging fleet of planes is inadequate, and that has led to an unrealistically...
www.forbes.com www.forbes.com
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I wonder if he'd being saying that if the protest had been upheld. I'm thinking not.
 
bobbymike said:
www.forbes.com

Boeing Protest Rejected, But Problems Just Beginning For U.S. Air Force's Next Stealth Bomber

There is good reason to suspect that the Long Range Strike bomber program will founder long before the first B-3 is scheduled to join the force circa 2025. The problem, in a nutshell: the USAF's budget to modernize its aging fleet of planes is inadequate, and that has led to an unrealistically...
www.forbes.com www.forbes.com
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Thompson argues that the bomber is in trouble because Northrop underbid and there won't be enough money come 2023, so the USAF should have picked the more expensive realistic Boeing contract. This isn't exactly an internally consistent argument.

Now, I wonder how Thompson knows who bid what? Isn't that, umm, classified? (I would pay money to see him arrested for leaking classified information.)
 
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sferrin said:
bobbymike said:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/lorenthompson/2016/02/16/protest-rejected-but-the-bombers-problems-are-just-beginning/#7d917c37677a
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I wonder if he'd being saying that if the protest had been upheld. I'm thinking not.
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Boeing got spanked and they deserved it. It's seems like a company run by number crunchers and marketing folks and not engineers.

In the mean time, production rates for 777 and 748 are cut. On the KC-46, they botched the wing design resulting in a ~$300 million charge. They further botched the development of the fuel system to the tune of an additional ~$825 million. This on an airframe that they designed.

I'm pretty sick of Boeing whining about the St. Louis production line and the potential loss of jobs. Boeing moved some production from Washington to S. Carolina. If they want to maintain their workforce in St. Louis they can work out a deal to move some civilian production there. But they won't. They'll continue to pull on heart-strings and complain that "it's not fair".

"We the people" are not the lifeline for Boeing. If folks don't want to purchase your planes - build a better plane. If you're costs are too high, reduce the "fat" in your management compensation plans and stop being so cheap in your design work. Don't expect to be nursed by the taxpayers.

Get serious about design (and pricing) or get out. And take Msgr Thompson along with you.
 
We'll see whether Northrop Grumman knowingly underbid the LRS-B contract or not. I presume that Northrop Grumman would have filed a GAO protest if the Boeing-Lockheed Martin team had won the contract. It seems fashionable to hate Boeing, while Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman aren't any better. Moving production to lowest cost regions and breaking unions is capitalism. We shouldn't hate Boeing and Lockheed Martin for filing the GAO protest. It's just business.
 
Triton said:
We'll see whether Northrop Grumman knowingly underbid the LRS-B contract or not. I presume that Northrop Grumman would have filed a GAO protest if the Boeing-Lockheed Martin team had won the contract. It seems fashionable to hate Boeing, while Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman aren't any better. Moving production to lowest cost regions and breaking unions is capitalism. We shouldn't hate Boeing and Lockheed Martin for filing the GAO protest. It's just business.
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If they felt they had a real case that's one thing. A "hail Mary", at the taxpayer's expense, in hopes a miracle might happen deserves all the scorn it's getting.
 
Triton said:
We'll see whether Northrop Grumman knowingly underbid the LRS-B contract or not. I presume that Northrop Grumman would have filed a GAO protest if the Boeing-Lockheed Martin team had won the contract. It seems fashionable to hate Boeing, while Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman aren't any better. Moving production to lowest cost regions and breaking unions is capitalism. We shouldn't hate Boeing and Lockheed Martin for filing the GAO protest. It's just business.
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I don't hate Boeing. I'm irritated at their piss poor management (KC-46 etc). I think they cost me money and time - as a taxpayer, and put the protection of my children and grandchildren at risk with their protest.

I'm all for moving production, I even suggested it in my post. There is a drumbeat of media that implies that if Boeing isn't awarded contracts then the St. Louis production line will soon have no work. My point is that if Boeing wants St. Louis to have work then move civilian production there.

Watch as we get closer to the T-X program. You're going to see the drumbeat start again. Lockheed has F-35, NG has LRS-B, isn't it a shame that St. Louis is going to have no work. I want the best company to produce T-X and I don't think Boeing manages well. They need to fix the problem or sell their military business. We don't need to feed work to Boeing to keep their military division going.

The argument they put forward in the media for protesting LRS-B is basically thus...

There is no way that NG can complete EMD cheaper than we can - And - The Air Force did not give us credit for our advanced engineering - implying that's why they were more expensive.

Remember LM and the F22 stealth coatings? No problem, they said. How many years did the program take? Thank goodness the GAO wasn't buying it with Boeing's so-called advanced engineering.

The gig was the gig. Both LM/Boeing and NG put together a design (including engines) with risk reduction paid for by J.Q Taxpayer. LM/Boeing deserved to lose. And I don't want Boeing (a company willing to risk my money, time and safety) winning T-X just to secure work for St. Louis when Boeing can move work there themselves.
 
OK, guy is comparing prices for bomber and widebody airliner saying that first must somehow correspond to the other.
That's enough for me to judge a level of competence.
 
flateric said:
OK, guy is comparing prices for bomber and widebody airliner saying that first must somehow correspond to the other.
That's enough for me to judge a level of competence.
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I saw that too. It sounds so much like an "internal" Boeing talking point that it struck me as odd that he would include it in his article.

Boy - I was feeling pissy last night. Sorry if I went a bit overboard. Boeing & LM got both barrels of my work stress. :)
 
flateric said:
OK, guy is comparing prices for bomber and widebody airliner saying that first must somehow correspond to the other.
That's enough for me to judge a level of competence.
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What I think Thompson means when he writes "a typical Boeing widebody jetliner costs more than what the Air Force thinks it is going to be getting its future bombers for" is that the Northrop bid unit price and possibly the most probable cost estimate are lower than the price of a widebody airliner. We know these figures are well below the 511m $ independant cost estimate based on historically spiralling costs, just how much below is the question. This also wouldn't be the first time Thompson vaguely leaks classified cost information on the project, as he wrote in an article shortly after the contract award that the EMD bids were under a half of the 23 billion independant estimate.
 
sferrin said:
Triton said:
We'll see whether Northrop Grumman knowingly underbid the LRS-B contract or not. I presume that Northrop Grumman would have filed a GAO protest if the Boeing-Lockheed Martin team had won the contract. It seems fashionable to hate Boeing, while Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman aren't any better. Moving production to lowest cost regions and breaking unions is capitalism. We shouldn't hate Boeing and Lockheed Martin for filing the GAO protest. It's just business.
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If they felt they had a real case that's one thing. A "hail Mary", at the taxpayer's expense, in hopes a miracle might happen deserves all the scorn it's getting.
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With a 43% effective rate (the protestor gets some sort of relief), a GAO protest ain't a "hail Mary." But now asking the third branch of government to overturn what the other two branches have (re)affirmed would be.

Especially since LRS-B being a Special Access Program means up to the discretion of the SecAF to determine what evidence can be introduced.
 
Jefferies believes Spirit has won work on new Air Force bomber

Investment analysts at Jefferies believe Spirit AeroSystems Inc. in Wichita may have won work on one of the largest aerospace defense contracts on the horizon.

According to the website 24/7 Wall Street, Jefferies has listed Spirit (NYSE: SPR) as a top stock to buy, with the firm saying it is “reasonably confident” that the company
has won a contract on the Long Range Strike-Bomber that Northrop Grumman Corp. will be building for the U.S. Air Force. Spirit AeroSystems Inc. in Wichita may have won work
on the new bomber being built by Northrop Grumman for the U.S. Air Force.

Northrop recently won that contract, which could be worth more $100 billion over the life of the program, by beating out partners Lockheed Martin Corp. and the Boeing Co.

A spokesperson for Spirit declined to comment on the possible bomber contract.

However, in an 8-K filing last week with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the company disclosed that it is lowering its free cash flow guidance for 2016 from between
$350 million and $400 million to between $325 million and $375 million to “reflect investments anticipated in connection with a recently awarded significant restricted contract.”

That filing came the day after the GAO denied the award protest, thereby clearing the way for Northrop to move forward on the program.

It’s that contract that Spirit references that Jefferies believes to be on the LRS-B program, and one that would be in keeping with Spirit CEO Larry Lawson’s previously stated belief
that there were more opportunities in the defense market for the company.

Jefferies said it believes the contract could add between $350 million to $600 million in revenue at Spirit in five years.

As a result, it has a higher price target — $66 — on Spirit than the consensus of $56.79.

Northrop, which will eventually build up to 100 of the new bombers as part of the contract, said last year that it was hoping add to the amount of work it did with Wichita suppliers.
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http://www.bizjournals.com/wichita/blog/2016/02/jefferies-believes-spirit-has-won-work-on-new-air.html
 
Boeing to skip legal challenge to Northrop bomber deal-source

By Andrea Shalal

Feb 25 Boeing Co has told senior U.S. Air Force leaders that it will not take legal action challenging an $80 billion long-range bomber contract awarded to Northrop Grumman Corp, two sources familiar with the decision said on Thursday.

The decision came hours after Boeing, the Pentagon's No. 2 supplier, replaced Chris Chadwick as the head of its defense division with Leanne Caret, head of the defense division's services and logistics business.

It followed a pledge by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain to block the Air Force's use of a cost-plus type of contract, which holds the government responsible for cost overruns, for the Northrop bomber program.
ADVERTISING

Boeing spokesman Todd Blecher declined to confirm the news.

"If we choose not to pursue our protest further in the interest of our Air Force customer and the war fighter, or otherwise, we will inform the Air Force and other stakeholders of the decision first. We have no new information to share at this point," he said.

Northrop and the Air Force declined to comment.

Air Force Secretary Deborah James was expected to reveal the name of the new bomber at an industry conference in Orlando on Friday, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Loren Thompson, a defense consultant with close ties to Boeing, said Boeing officials expected the bomber program to face tough scrutiny by Congress given reports that Northrop had submitted a lowball bid for the work.

"Just because they won't go to court doesn't mean they're giving up," he said of Boeing's thinking on the bomber contract. "They believe that as time goes by this program will look less and less executable under the terms that were agreed to."

McCain told reporters he would block authorization of the new long-range strike bomber program in its current form, arguing that cost-plus deals inevitably lead to cost overruns.

The Air Force said it understood McCain's concerns and looked forward to briefing him on the program in coming weeks.

It said only the engineering and development phase of the program, valued at $21.4 billion, is structured as a cost-plus contract with incentive fees. Production of the first five sets of new bombers, usually the most expensive planes in a new class of aircraft, would be structured with a firm, fixed-price.

The Air Force has not disclosed the full projected cost of the program, although it has said that it expects to pay $511 million per plane in 2010 dollars. (Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Richard Chang and David Gregorio)
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http://www.reuters.com/article/boeing-northrop-grumman-bomber-idUSL2N1642G3
 
breakingdefense.com

McCain Pledges To Stop LRSB; Which Bomber Will Be Retired? - Breaking Defense

UDATED: Adds Air Force React AFA WINTER: Sen. John McCain pledged to stop the Long Range Strike Bomber program in its tracks today unless the Pentagon uses a different type of contract. My colleagues at Defense News quoted McCain this way: “My biggest concern is the cost-plus provision in the...
breakingdefense.com breakingdefense.com
 
LRS-B Drives New Bomber Roadmap

John A. Tirpak

2/26/2016

​Global Strike Command boss Gen. Robin Rand will brief an updated bomber roadmap to Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh and the heads of the other major commands within a month, Rand said in a press conference at AWS16. The new plan begins to take account of the Long-Range Strike Bomber now that the contract has been awarded and Boeing’s protest resolved. The plan’s latest revision will “modify and refine where … we want to be in 2025 and out, based on capacity and ​capability” as well as “what are we going to be able to afford and maintain?” Rand said he doubts the LRS-B will be “additive” to the bomber fleet because it would be “very difficult” to add the pilots, aircrews, and maintainers, as well as an additional logistics train to the bomber force within the expected limits of manpower and funding. “As we get closer to the (deployment of the) LRS-B, that will inform us if we’re going to do further modernization with the B-1, the B-2, the B-52,” Rand explained. “If we’re going to keep all of them and add the LRS-B, we’re going to have to start lead-turning that and start producing more bomber aircrews and maintainers. And I don’t envision we’ll go in that direction but … it could change.” Welsh will make the call on whether to accept Rand’s recommendations. Phasing out existing bombers for the LRS-B will have to be done “very, very prudently so that we are able to meet combatant commander requirements” for current fights while maturing the LRS-B system, Rand said.
 
B-21 ----

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sferrin said:
Not real. Wrong name too.
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I mean, it's from SecAF's verified Twitter account, although it's got about as much detail as the very first F-117 image.
 
Damn! Looks like this party started without me! And I brought booze too!

Hey mods, we might need a part 3 to this shindig! :D
 
35 years of aircrat design evolution
 

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For the history
 

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So, what can we guess based on the image.

1) The Air Force Nomenclature Office has given up. But we knew that already.

2) Apparently it's hard to do much better than a flying wing for a stealth bomber.

3) This one might be smaller than the B-2 (based on the barely visible cockpit windows).

4) Either they omitted the exhausts entirely or they exit on the under side of the aircraft (which seems unlikely).
 
dark sidius said:
What is that 10 years awaiting for another b2 ?? :mad: where is the craft on the Northrop tease video ??
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I don't see anything here that doesn't fit under that sheet in the commercial.
 
The return of the B2 I don't understand how it can be better with the same design and surely the same performance. For me its a real deception I awaiting something different than the 80' years design it look like no progress since the 80's.
 
www.bloomberg.com

Boeing-Lockheed Said Not Suing Over $80 Billion Northrop Award

Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp. won’t ask a federal court to overturn a stealth-bomber contract awarded to Northrop Grumman Corp., people familiar with the situation said, allowing the $80 billion program to move forward without risk of a lengthy legal fight.
www.bloomberg.com www.bloomberg.com
 
TomS said:
I don't see anything here that doesn't fit under that sheet in the commercial.
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To start with, aircraft in the commercial has a cranked kite planform.
 

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