The team of Boeing and Lockheed Martin filed a protest on Friday of the government’s decision to award the long range strike-bomber contract to competitor Northrop Grumman.
The two companies said in a joint statement that the government’s selection process was “fundamentally flawed” since it did not “properly reward the contractors’ proposals to break the upward-spiraling historical cost curves of defense acquisitions.”
Boeing and Lockheed Martin argued that their proposal offered a superior bomber at a lower cost.
The Pentagon announced last week that Northrop Grumman, which built the B-2 stealth bomber, won the contract to develop and produce the Air Force’s next stealth bomber, valued at about $80 billion. The Air Force plans to buy 80 to 100 of the bombers, which will cost at least $550 million per plane in fiscal 2010 dollars, not including billions in development costs.
Though the government and industry have been secretive about what the next bomber might look like or what capabilities it may have, it’s been widely reported that the aircraft will have a manned and unmanned version eventually, and will be able to carry nuclear and conventional weapons.
The Government Accountability Office has 100 days to issue its decision. In fiscal 2014, only 13 percent of the more than 2,500 protests were sustained.
Selecting Northrop Grumman as the builder of the next bomber ensured it will have a hand in the military’s aircraft procurement for decades. Lockheed Martin and Boeing are behind the F-35 and KC-46 tanker, respectively.
