U.S. Air Force’s Big Modernization Plans

The Big Three: KC-46 Tanker

▪ After a challenging development phase riddled with technical problems and cost overruns, the Air Force recently awarded Boeing a $2.8 billion contract for the first two initial production lots of the new KC-46As.

▪ The service is still considering what penalty Boeing will face for missing a major contractual deadline to deliver 18 full-up tankers to the fleet by August 2017.

▪ The missed deadline will not necessarily put much of a dent in the Air Force’s plans to retire its aging fleet of KC-10s and KC-135s—it does not expect to start sunsetting its legacy tankers until receiving its 24th KC-46.

▪ There is some wiggle room for Boeing to accelerate production so that the 24th KC-46—if not the 18th—is delivered on time.

The Big Three: B-21 Bomber

▪ Northrop Grumman is hard at work on the next-generation B-21 bomber, which is expected to cost $100 billion over the life of the program.

▪ Losing Boeing/Lockheed Martin team filed a bid protest with the Government Accounting Office over the award of the development contract to Northrop, but the GAO upheld the Air Force’s decision.

▪ Although the GAO will soon release a redacted version of the ruling, the document likely will not show any new cost or capabilities information about the new bomber.

▪ In another win for the B-21, the service also beat back Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) campaign against keeping the new bomber’s cost under wraps.

The Big Three: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter

▪ The Air Force declared the F-35 ready for war right on target on Aug. 2 and has begun transitioning squadrons of A-10s, F-16s and F-15s to the fifth-generation jet.

▪ The F-35 is still in its test phase, and late discoveries may result in fixes or modifications to the existing fleet.

▪ One of the late modifications could be to the ejection seat. Although recent tests of a fix to the escape system to mitigate risk for lightweight pilots have been successful, the service is looking into replacing the Martin-Baker seat with UTC’s ACES 5.

▪ The Air Force is also working with the other services and international partners on the capabilities for an F-35 follow-on, called Block 4.

Competitions Ongoing: T-X Trainer

▪ The Air Force is looking to build a fleet of 350 T-X trainers to for the next generation of pilots.

▪ The T-X is one of the pilot programs of the Air Force’s “Bending the Cost Curve” initiative, which aims to increase dialog with industry to streamline requirements.

▪ Affordability is a key factor—the Air Force intends to bring the T-X in below the service’s current cost estimate.

Competitions Ongoing: Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent

▪ The Air Force this summer launched an effort to procure a silo-based GBSD ballistic missile to replace the legacy Minuteman III ICBMs, a program that could cost as much as $85 billion.

▪ The Pentagon’s top weapons buyer recently signed off on the GBSD program’s entry into a three-year technology maturation and risk-reduction phase, with a selection of two teams planned for next summer and an eventual downselect to one vendor.

▪ To keep costs down, the Air Force is looking at a “smart commonality” approach, asking industry to use existing components from other government programs.

▪ The service will strive to be transparent with Congress about how large the GBSD bill will be beyond the Future Years Defense Program. 

Competitions Ongoing: Long-Range Standoff Weapon

▪ The Air Force recently kicked off a competition for a Long-Range Standoff nuclear cruise missile to replace its AGM-86 Air-Launched Cruise Missile and eventually arm the B-2, B-52 and B-21.

▪ Selection of up to two competing designs is expected in summer 2017, followed by a 54-month technology maturation and risk-reduction phase and eventual downselect to a single vendor

▪ Leadership hopes the robust risk-reduction period will ensure that the Long-Range Standoff weapon is reliable and maintainable from the beginning.

▪ The service wants to field 1,000-1,100 missile bodies by 2030.

Competitions Ongoing: UH-1N

▪ The Air Force is seeking information from industry for a dual-mission UH-1N Huey replacement. 

▪ The service wants 41 new rotorcraft for the nuclear mission and 31 for VIP transport.

▪ The Air Force expects to field the new platform in 2021 but aims to accelerate that schedule through a more efficient acquisition strategy, including minimizing the time between the draft and final requests for proposals.

▪ Although an existing design likely poses less risk, the Air Force is not ruling out consideration of clean-sheet proposals.

Troubled Program: OCX

▪ Raytheon’s next-generation GPS ground-control system, or OCX, has been labeled the Pentagon’s most troubled program.

▪ The OCX may be terminated, given its 25% cost growth from initial estimates and a two-year delay. The Pentagon will make a final decision on whether to re-bid the program in October.

▪ Raytheon has recently seen progress, but the Air Force is already looking at alternatives.

▪ The Air Force learned from the OCX experience that cybersecurity and information assurance must be planned in from the very beginning, Bunch says.

Still Conceptual: A-10

▪ The service is looking at a two-phase approach to recapitalizing the close-air support mission: pursuing a low-end light attack “OA-X” aircraft to augment the A-10 in the near term while simultaneously aiming for a later, more robust replacement, “A-X2.”

▪ The OA-X would free up the expensive fourth- and fifth-gen platforms now providing close-air support to train for the high-end fight. 

▪ But the OA-X would likely require additional funding above the Air Force’s topline budget—a prospect that has Air Force leaders questioning the plan’s viability.