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14 septembre 2020 | International, Aérospatial

Lockheed-Boeing Battle Heats Up as USAF Looks to Buy F-15EX

The F-35 maker is fighting to keep its monopoly on the Air Force's fighter-jet shopping list.

While it's not unusual for companies to battle one another for weapons deals, these fights often occur behind the scenes, as lobbyists and executives spar inside the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill.

But the fight over whether the U.S. Air Force should buy one or two types of $80 million fighter jets is spilling into the public view, in the pages of the trade press and in think tank reports. Air Force leaders say they need both the F-35 Lightning II, the newest fighter in the U.S. military arsenal, and the F-15EX, the latest version of the twin-engine jet first flown in 1972.

Early last year, Lockheed began to fight back against Boeing's reappearance on the service's tactical-jet shopping list.The battle became a war in July when the Air Force placed a $1.2 billion order for eight jets and said it might spend up to $23 billion to buy up to 144 new F-15s in the coming years.

It's rare for a conservative think tank to explicitly call for canceling defense programs; typically, they argue for increasing defense spending and buying more weapons. But the influential Heritage Foundation has consistently urged the Air Force not to buy the F-15EX.

“I'm just kind of surprised by the broadsides that have been occurring lately,” Jeff Shockey, vice president of global sales and marketing for Boeing Defense, Space & Security and Boeing Global Services' government services portfolio, said in an interview Friday.

The stakes are also higher now as defense spending has flattened and not expected to grow in the coming years. The latest attacks on the F-15 come as Congress is reviewing the fiscal 2021 defense spending and policy bills.

J.V. Venable, a retired Air Force F-16 pilot who is a senior research fellow at Heritage, compared the F-15EX to antiquated dial-up internet. “In deciding to fund the acquisition of the F-15EX, Congress has chosen the dial-up option,” he argued in Defense One last month. “When the Air Force signs that contract, it will be stuck with already-dated equipment for the next 30 years.”

This week, the Mitchell Institute, the Air Force Association's internal think tank, published a report that argues the F-15EX “ may address immediate shortfalls, but it ultimately fails to anticipate or prepare for a much more demanding future combat environment.”

More than a decade ago, as the F-35 struggled with a long list of development problems and cost overruns, Boeing and its surrogates pushed Air Force leaders to consider buying new F-15s or even Navy F/A-18 Super Hornets. Now as the service prepares to buy new F-15s for the first time in nearly two decades, the script has flipped.

The Air Force appears to have been persuaded by arguments that the F-15 is cheaper to fly than the F-35, and can more easily accept new applications and weapons.

But Lockheed is firing back with arguments that the fifth-generation F-35 has stealth, weapons, sensors, and data capabilities that make it a far superior choice.

“We believe the F-35 is a superior platform,” said Michele Evans, the president of Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, in an interview Thursday. "With its fifth-[generation] capabilities, we believe it brings capabilities that other platforms can't.”

The F-15EX is intended to replace F-15C Eagles, planes that are largely flown by the Air National Guard for homeland defense. The F-15C is considered an air superiority fighter — meaning it's fine-tuned for air-to-air combat — and cannot strike ground targets. But the Air Force also flies the ground-pounding F-15E Strike Eagle, of which the F-15EX is a modernized derivative.

“The F-35 and [F-15]EX are very complementary to one another,” Shockey said. “They do very different mission sets.”

Evans, who oversees Lockheed's combat aircraft projects, said she does not view the F-15EX as a threat to the F-35.

“I certainly respect the Air Force, that they've made a decision to procure the F-15EX and we're going to continue to make sure that we're driving upgrades and capabilities into the F-35 to keep it competitive and keep it the platform of choice for the U.S. Air Force, the Navy, the Marine Corps and our partner and [foreign military sales] nations,” she said.

https://www.defenseone.com/business/2020/09/lockheed-boeing-battle-heats-usaf-looks-buy-f-15ex/168425/

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  • Contract Awards by US Department of Defense – October 26, 2020

    27 octobre 2020 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité, Autre défense

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Lockheed Martin Corp., Owego, New York, is awarded a $193,980,348 contract modification (P00019) to previously awarded firm-fixed-price contract N00019-19-C-0013. This modification adds a $180,000,000 not-to-exceed, undefinitized line item for the production and delivery of four MH-60R aircraft, and exercises a $13,980,348 option to procure three airborne low frequency sonars in support of the government of Greece. Work will be performed in Owego, New York (49%); Stratford, Connecticut (37%); Troy, Alabama (7%); Brest, France (6%); and Portsmouth, Rhode Island (1%), and is expected to be completed in February 2025. Foreign Military Sales funds in the amount of $43,980,348 will be obligated at time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity. Applied Physics Laboratory, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, is awarded a $101,353,724 cost-plus-fixed-fee, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for research, development, engineering and test and evaluation for programs throughout the Department of Defense (DOD) within its approved core competency areas including: (1) experimental oceanography; (2) acoustic propagation; (3) underwater instrumentation and equipment; (4) marine corrosion; (5) acoustic and related systems; (6) simulations and signal processing; and (7) mission related and public service oriented research and development. This contract includes options which, if exercised, would bring the cumulative value of this contract to $218,818,971. Work will be performed in Seattle, Washington, and is expected to be completed by October 2025. If all options are exercised, work will continue through October 2030. No funds will be obligated at contract award. Funds of multiple different appropriation types and years from program offices and agencies throughout the DOD may be obligated on individual task orders for efforts that fall within the core competency areas. This sole-source award was made pursuant to 10 U.S. Code 2304 (c) (3), as implemented in Federal Acquisition Regulations 6.302-3; industrial mobilization; engineering, developmental, or research capability; or expert services. The capabilities developed and provided by Applied Physics Laboratory, University of Washington, within the DOD approved core competencies are determined to be essential to support a variety of DOD programs managed by different technical sponsor organizations. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity (N00024-21-D-6400). Smartronix LLC, Hollywood, Maryland, is awarded a $78,281,152 cost-plus-fixed-fee, cost-reimbursable, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract. This contract provides airborne capabilities integration support, including development, design, coding, integration, demonstration and validation of software for embedded systems, real time operating systems and hardware and software systems in support of various Navy, Department of Defense and other government new and legacy weapons systems, platforms and networks. Work will be performed in Hollywood, Maryland (30%); St. Inigoes, Maryland (28%); Huntsville, Alabama (28%); Patuxent River, Maryland (12%); Bowie, Maryland (1%); and California, Maryland (1%), and is expected to be completed in November 2025. No funds will be obligated at the time of award; funds will be obligated on individual orders as they are issued. This contract was competitively procured via an electronic request for proposal; three offers were received. The Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity (N00421-21-D-0007). AIR FORCE Tecan US Inc., Morrisville, North Carolina, has been awarded a $32,862,500 firm-fixed-price contract for robotic pipette tips. The scope of this contract effort includes the expansion of the U.S. domestic production capacity for robotic pipette tips by standing up infrastructure and increasing production capacity with Tecan US Inc. The COVID-19 pandemic has created a requirement for additional near term diagnostic testing capability which significantly exceeds manufacturing capacity of sample collection and processing consumables. This project will create Tecan's capacity to produce up to 40 million pipette tips per month domestically. Work will be completed in Morrisville, North Carolina, and is expected to be completed November 2022. This award is the result of a Commercial Solutions Opening (CSO) request issued by the Joint Rapid Acquisition Cell (JRAC) and is a full and open competition. The solicitation was published by Department of Health and Human Services and JRAC in the CSO in August 2020. Fiscal other procurement funds are being used on this contract. The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, Hanscom Air Force Base, Massachusetts, is the contracting activity (FA8730-20-S-0003). *Small business https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Contracts/Contract/Article/2394545/source/GovDelivery/

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