April 30, 2020 | International, Aerospace
By: Valerie Insinna
WASHINGTON — Boeing will have to pay $168 million out of pocket to cover increased costs on the VC-25B Air Force One replacement program, the company said Wednesday.
Boeing attributed the overrun to “engineering inefficiencies” caused by the impact of COVID-19, but Chief Financial Officer Greg Smith said the program remains on schedule with a projected delivery of the first VC-25B in 2024.
However, Boeing's quarterly report to the Security and Exchange Commission noted future risk to the program's cost and schedule as a result of the engineering challenges. “We believe these inefficiencies will result in staffing challenges, schedule inefficiencies and higher costs in the upcoming phases of the program,” the company stated in the report.
It was not immediately clear how work on the VC-25B program had been disrupted.
“That charge was really associated with COVID-19,” Smith told reporters in an April 29 phone call. “As we have folks working virtually — particularly on the engineering side — as well as that's gone, we certainly experienced some inefficiencies that has caused us to re-evaluate our estimates to complete those efforts. And that's essentially what you saw today in our results and the charge associated with that.”
Smith added that although the program team has done a “good job” of managing the program in the face of changes caused by the novel coronavirus pandemic and is “executing very well on many fronts,” Boeing could not mitigate the added cost to the program this financial quarter.
Air Force acquisition executive Will Roper said he spoke with Boeing Defense CEO Leanne Caret last night about the problem, but because the issue was “late breaking,” he referred detailed questions to the program office.
On Wednesday night, the Air Force released a statement that — like Boeing — attributed the cost increase to “engineering inefficiencies.”
Just two weeks ago, Roper praised the progress of the program, which used virtual tools to complete its critical design review in March and wrap up a modification readiness review in April. At the time, the program was on schedule with no disruptions due to COVID-19, he said then.
The Air Force One replacement drew considerable attention in 2016 after then-President-elect Donald Trump tweeted that the program was too expensive and should be cancelled unless the cost—then projected as more than $4 billion—came down. In 2018, the Air Force awarded Boeing a $3.9 billion fixed-price contract to modify two 747s into the VC-25B configuration.
" There has not been an increase to the $3.90B firm-fixed price contract with Boeing or the $5.3B VC-25B total acquisition cost," said Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek.
Although the total price of the program is estimated to hit $5.3 billion once ancillary costs such as new hangars and revised technical manuals are included, the fixed-price ceiling on the $3.9 billion deal ensures that Boeing will have to pay for any cost growth incurred while building the two new Air Force Ones.
In February, Boeing began making structural changes to two Boeing 747s at its facility in San Antonio, Texas — paving the way for those jets to become VC-25Bs. The jets will also receive upgrades including enhanced electrical power, specialized communication systems, a medical facility, a customized executive interior and autonomous ground operations capabilities.
“As planned in the baseline schedule, the next phase of modification is on course to begin in June 2020,” Stefanek said.
June 10, 2022 | International, Land
“It's not just Lockheed Martin,” Lockheed CEO Jim Taiclet said. “Industry is willing to invest in efficiency. It's willing to invest in capacity. But the constraints of the Federal Acquisition Regulation limit our ability to invest and get great [return on investment] for investors while helping the government.”
July 17, 2020 | International, C4ISR
Mark Pomerleau When it comes to the Army's contribution to a new joint architecture for battlefield command and control, the service said it will collaborate with industry in the very early stages. James McPherson, undersecretary of the Army, said during an AFCEA-hosted webcast July 14 that the service will ask industry for its input into potential solutions for Joint All-Domain Command and Control prior to writing and publishing official requirements. JADC2 is a new concept that seeks to connect sensors across the joint force to shooters making systems interoperable to share data, which officials believe will provide overmatch against sophisticated adversaries in a contested fight. The Joint Staff has created a cross-functional team to guide the military's efforts. “We're looking to really partner with industry in a different way rather than just passing a document over the transom saying: ‘Here's a requirement. Industry, can you meet this?' We want to take the transom down and have a conversation with industry and say: ‘Here are some of the characteristics we're thinking about — what are your thoughts?' ” McPherson said. “ ‘Here's the characteristics that we're looking for with regard to JADC2. Industry, how can you meet some of those characteristics? What other great ideas do you have, industry, to meet those characteristics? How do we turn those into requirements?' Then we turn that into a procurement document,” he added. McPherson said earlier that morning that the top echelons of Army leadership met to hammer out some of those characteristics. He also said the Army is brainstorming how to include coalition partners in this new architecture. “One of the pieces that the chief brought up is, you know, we're going to have to add a letter in front of JADC2, and that's combined. We need to start doing that,” McPherson said. “We need to start sharing, especially with our Five Eye[s] allies, but others as well ... what our concept of this battlefield of 2040 is going to look like and how we can partner with them in going forward with our data management and all things data in that future battlefield.” https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/2020/07/16/army-wants-early-industry-input-on-jadc2-battlefield-concept/
January 8, 2024 | International, C4ISR
Houthi militants "are in possession of some of the most sophisticated copies or variants of Iranian weapons,” said Behnam Ben Taleblu.