AVALON AIR SHOW — Despite a recent history of of struggles with Pentagon programs, Boeing is confident that years of secretive development work have put the aerospace giant on solid footing to build a next-gen fighter for the US Air Force, the company’s interim defense chief said in his first official comments with reporters since winning the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) effort.
“We’ve been flying a prototype for quite some time,” Steve Parker, Boeing’s interim defense unit CEO, said in a Tuesday briefing with reporters here at the Avalon air show when asked why taxpayers should believe the company can perform. “And we won the program. So that is a maturity stamp that I’ll give you right then and there.”
Boeing, which beat out Lockheed Martin for the NGAD effort on March 21, is now on the hook to deliver the world’s first sixth-generation fighter jet. The platform is expected to begin replacing the venerable F-22 Raptor around the 2030 timeframe and operate as a “family of systems” in tandem with drone wingmen known as Collaborative Combat Aircraft.
Little was known about the NGAD program prior to the contract award, except for the disclosure in 2020 that at least one prototype had flown. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) then confirmed on the day of the NGAD contract award that Boeing and Lockheed Martin previously designed X-planes that first took flight in 2019, which Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin said had been “quietly laying the foundation” for NGAD by amassing hundreds of flight hours.
Still, as with any development program, Parker acknowledged some risks may lay ahead, though he said certain tools such as digital engineering can help ensure unwelcome technical discoveries are resolved as early as possible.
“There’s no smoke and mirrors here,” Parker said. “When we develop things, you know, there’s a degree of risk there. But at the end of day, it’s really about, what can we do differently? And that digital environment, that digital engineering, we are taking risk out well ahead” of traditional programs.
“Computational fluid dynamics, wind tunnel testing, digital testing,” are all critical tools, Parker said. “That’s the difference. It’s proven itself out with that recent award.”
Boeing’s defense unit has been saddled with losses due in large part to fixed-price development programs like the KC-46 tanker and T-7 training jet, leaving the company on the hook for billions of dollars in cost overruns. In contrast, according to an Air Force official, the NGAD contract for the program’s engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) phase was awarded as a cost-plus incentive-fee deal, where the government is expected to pick up the tab for more risky R&D work that Boeing can collect a fee for in exchange. Cost-plus contracts are often used for exquisite new programs.
The EMD phase “will mature, integrate, and test all aspects of the NGAD Platform. The contract will produce a small number of test aircraft, which will be used to perform testing. The contract also includes competitively priced options for Low-Rate Initial Production aircraft,” the official said.
“You’re not going to hear a lot from us. We’re going to be down and in on executing. That’s been happening in our program for quite a number of years,” Parker said.
Parker did not mention it, but another next-gen fighter opportunity for the company may be approaching imminently as well. The Navy is expected to award a contract for its own futuristic fighter program, dubbed F/A-XX, as soon as this week, according to Reuters.
The Navy effort is down to Boeing and Northrop Grumman after Lockheed Martin’s exit from the competition. As Breaking Defense first reported, Lockheed submitted an F/A-XX bid that did not meet the Navy’s criteria. The company did not proceed in the contest as a result.
