Breaking Down Boeing's Big F⧸A-XX Win ｜ Check 6 Podcast
[00:00:06:15] Robert Wall: Welcome to check six for another emergency episode. The long wait for the fax decision is finally over. We have our winner. And the question around Boeing is definitely no longer does the company have a fighter business. It's really. Now, can it pull off all that business that it has? So join me for the conversation about FX and the downs, like and all that. And their first impressions are Pentagon editor Brian Eberstein, senior editor Steve Trimble, and of course, the Oracle. Graham Warwick, our executive editor for technology. I'm Robert Wall, your host for today and Aviation Week's executive editor for Defense and Space. Brian, let's kick it off with you. Why don't we you tell us what we learned from the Pentagon announcement and what we really still don't know about F/A-XX. Yeah.
[00:00:55:15] Brian Eberstein: So as all of us really know, we've been waiting on this moment for quite a while, probably about a year and a half or so since we first started hearing about the Navy wanting to make their downselect and the Navy made their choice a while back. They've been wanting this announcement for a while and moved up the E ring, waiting for the Pentagon's approval. Looks like we finally got that right before the end of the fiscal year. With the announcement of Boeing and Boeing getting its clean sweep of the sixth generation NGAD programs after building starting the F-47. Now they got the F/A-XX fitting out Northrop Grumman. So the announcement kind of. It gives us some new new information, but a lot of things we do not know. The Navy put out the number of 20 billion for this program to start replacing F/A-18 and EA-18 in the 2030s to fly alongside the F-35C, we didn't get any big promises like we did on F-47 of first flight within this administration. It was really, really remarkable how subdued this announcement really was. We had a press release after COB, we didn't have the Oval Office treatment.
[00:01:55:11] Brian Eberstein: We didn't have a full Pentagon press conference like the last few big announcements that we had, but we do have an F, a X, A winner. And as I alluded to, the Navy has been waiting for this for a long time. Uh, about two months ago or so now, a month and a half ago, I was out at the Tailhook convention talking to a lot of naval aviation folks, talking to Admiral Cottle, the CNO, who has been he thought they were going to have that announcement in August. And he, um, could tell some frustration a little bit, a little exasperation that they've been waiting for this down select for so long. It's starting to have impacts on the rest of the enterprise. It's going to have a lot more impacts on keeping FAA teams flying. Um, going to have a lot more pressure on Lockheed's F-35 to deliver better, to perform better for naval aviation. So we do finally have a Downselect. But now I think the hard work is ready to ready to begin.
[00:02:42:27] Robert Wall: Yeah. Uh, I mean, it totally makes sense given how long we've had to wait here. Um, Steve, what do you think from your perspective, what does what does this soundslike mean for the Navy and Naval aviation in particular? You've talked about that a lot in prior podcasts. Now, how do you see it now that we actually have a, uh, a, uh, an answer to who is behind F/A-XX?
[00:03:04:24] Steve Trimble: Yeah. So just to kind of put a finer point on how long we've been waiting, I went back into my Google Drive to try to find this, but, um, the RFI from the Navy for an FAX was published on April 17th, 2012. So this process got started about 14 years ago, 14.5 years ago really, and, uh, has finally come to fruition. That's how long it took just to get to the contract award. You know, now we still have to wait to get into production and all that, but it's a big deal, right? Because we're talking about the remaking of naval aviation and carrier based naval aviation for long range, you know, strike for long range air to air, you know, basically turning that carrier into a long range killing machine, right? The, the knock on carriers for the last couple of decades has been, yeah, it's got a lot of firepower on it, but not very long range. You know, you're limited to those tactical aircraft and just how far they can go. Now, with F/A-XX officially in development, they are looking at acquiring an aircraft to get it on a carrier deck. And if you arm that aircraft, that F/A-XX with something like an AIM four, two, four. Now you've got the ability to hit targets beyond 1000 nautical miles from the carrier without being refueled. Right? Plus, they have MQ 25 to take it even further. It's important because we have some adversaries out there. Great example. Uh, China has got the H6K. When that thing is armed with a DF 21 D, it can get to a launch point within about a 800 nautical miles of a carrier. Launch that missile at the carrier. And they've got a problem. But now they've got a weapon and a platform to get to that H6K before it gets to that launch point for that missile, so that there's a lot more to it than that.
[00:04:57:28] Steve Trimble: But that's a big part of this. And when you combine it with some of the other, um, investments they're making in carrier based and sea based, uh, long range strike that includes the collaborative combat aircraft, which are just now sort of evolving. Uh, and we're seeing the requirements for it, very large aircraft that they've put out specs for that can carry us for £2,500 weapons. You know, think of those as anti-ship missiles, most likely. Uh, and then this other thing that we're still just trying to get our heads around because it's, it's, it's, um, uh, unfolding kind of before our eyes is this Rimes program that they also have. It's the runway independent maritime Expeditionary strike or system. Uh, r I'm e s uh, that looks like it's heading towards the shield ai x bat. And so you could have a carrier based or even destroyer based or expeditionary sea base based, um, expat that could take off vertically. It could go a thousand nautical miles, drop a couple of munitions, come back and land vertically on a ship. Now you've got long range strike in several different ways. Uh, you turn the Navy back into this long range killing threat that they haven't been for quite a while. So, uh, now, you know, got to execute on all these things, right? You know, this is not a guarantee that this is all going to happen now. But now you can kind of see, get your hand, your head around where they're going and how they're transforming that carrier and making it relevant again, especially in this specific environment where the distances are so vast and the threats are becoming more sophisticated and, uh, lethal.
[00:06:39:29] Robert Wall: Yeah, great. I mean, and, and kind of playing on that, uh, Boeing released a new rendering of FAX on a carrier in, uh, well, it looks like steam. Maybe if, uh, to to appease the white House. There's some steam there. Or maybe it's just. They'll just change it to fog if there's a new administration. But anyway, uh, it is shrouding the aircraft. It is, uh, it looks, you know, like a beast. It looks huge. And with the caveat, of course, we have no idea how accurate it is to what Boeing is actually looking to build. I throw it over maybe to to Graham, your first impressions of what you saw, what you thought was, was particularly, uh, interesting. Noteworthy.
[00:07:23:28] Graham Warwick: Yeah. So, so it kind of looks like we expected it to look like it's, it's big. Um, it's tailless. Um, it's stealthy. Um, you know, you, we've seen previous, uh, artist's impressions showing a sort of a, um, tailless kind of modified delta shape and this kind of fits that you can't tell really. You can see the flaps are deployed on this one because it's being set up for takeoff, but you can't really tell whether or not there's a Lambda wing shape in there, which is kind of the bowing thing or not. But, but the but the flaps start quite a way out from the center of the aircraft. So there may be some sort of a W shape at the back there. It's got big heavy landing gear, very similar looking landing gear to the F-35c. Uh, just bigger, uh, very broad flat fuselage underneath. You can actually sort of see the inlets. The steam doesn't totally, um, obscure the inlets, which on the, uh, on the Boeing on the F-47. It's been very hard to work out what's going on on the inlets, but you can see the inlets tucked in under the wing leading edge up against the fuselage. They're pretty big. Uh, they're sort of angled at the outside to the, to the, to the, to the fuselage side. It looks to me when I first looked at it, it looked like it's kind of like a channel there, like the there was on the a 12 I don't know, it might make sense.
[00:08:47:09] Graham Warwick: The year 12 was General Dynamics and McDonnell Douglas. So maybe there's some history there. Um, the, uh, the thing that struck me, of course, first and foremost is it's not an F30F47. It's not a maritime derivative of the f 47. There's no canards. Even that very broad duckbill that we see on the F 47 doesn't appear to be as, as, uh, emphasized here. There is obviously some sort of a duckbill, but it doesn't look anywhere near as broad as it does on the F 47. And that might be from, um, uh, you know, carrier approach, uh, visibility requirements, although, you know, this thing is probably going to be highly automated when it comes to carrier operations, but I suspect that the canard and the duckbill are kind of not there because of the carrier landing thing, single seat in this, uh, in the impression that we've got, obviously it's replacing the two seat, um, F and growler as well. But of course, by the time this thing enters service, they may have convinced themselves that AI agents can do what the electronic warfare officer can do in the growler today, and the electronic warfare officer and Growler can do what two of them did in in the prowler before that. So you expect some progress there. So so yeah, so, so kind of what we expected, but it is a big looking beast.
[00:10:00:10] Robert Wall: Steve, what do you think anything struck you?
[00:10:02:18] Steve Trimble: Well, there's, uh, some some additional metadata, I guess we have, uh, about the aircraft, I think is interesting. Probably the biggest being that GE released a statement, uh, you know, uh, not saying that we won, uh, the, the propulsion system for this, but just saying, hey, congrats to the Navy. Congrats to Boeing. That's great. Um, weirdly, we've gotten into this, um, you know, the setup where, uh, that's how they're, that's how they're announcing the engine supplier, uh, for, for, uh, for F-47 and for F/A-XX. It seems Pratt Whitney has not released a statement in either of those programs. Um, so it does appear that, um, sorry, that GE is the engine supplier. And we know that the Navy has told us a couple of years ago that the plan was to select a commercial or sorry, a derivative of an existing engine, a existing military engine, not going with the adaptive propulsion systems that are still in development. Uh, that leads you if it's GE to a F414 or F110, uh, you know, we were talking about this yesterday, but I think it's got to be an F110, something of that size. Super Hornet was already a bit underpowered with F414 at least in my opinion. But you know, um, now I think they have to move to an F110. Uh, you know, or, you know, I can't imagine anything else that GE has off the shelf that they can offer. Um, we do believe that there's an F110 derivative, uh, on the F-47.
[00:11:34:08] Steve Trimble: So maybe there's some commonality there. I'm interested in finding out more about how much, um, uh, other things, how many other things are shared? Uh, you know, with the F-47, uh, for example, radar and other mission systems like the electronic warfare system, especially this one, it's going to be really interesting to see how that, you know, where that, um, uh, you know, how that sizes up for this. Uh, so the radar Boeing, you know, has always gone with Raytheon radars, you know, and all their fighters for some reason, it just works out there. They're going with radar with Raytheon. That doesn't mean that has to continue in this case. Right. But you know that that is, uh, what we've seen in the past, uh, the electronic warfare system, especially for the defensive type systems, you know, that has gone all to buy in recent years, you know, with the F-15ex, with the F-35, with the F-22, and potentially with the B-21. Right? Be is one of the seven named subsystem suppliers to Northrop on the B-21. And the kind of thing that you'd think be would offer most there is e w so there's, uh, you know, so, but, but we don't know that and we're going to going to find that out. But mainly it's important to remember the whole idea between the F-47 and the F/A-XX. And the acquisition strategy was to, um, keep this really open architecture to a level we've never seen before.
[00:12:57:28] Steve Trimble: That gives the government the rights and the, the ability to take the program away, even the airframe and the systems integration from Boeing, if they don't perform and give it to somebody else or, you know, get a second supplier for final assembly or something like that. Now, I don't know if we'll actually see that play out in in reality that it seems very complicated to me. We've never seen anything like that happen before, although, I mean, you could in a way you could argue that happened with the Hornet. You know, I mean, Northrop won the Hornet. That was their design, uh, with the original F/A-18. Uh, and, uh, because of the Navy's, uh, lack of comfort with Northrop and a carrier based aircraft. They gave the systems integration to McDonnell Douglas back in the mid 70s, with the idea that Northrop could still market the Hornet, uh, you know, internationally as their own fighter. And then somehow that didn't happen. So, so McDonnell Douglas got got to keep the Hornet, even though they never even designed it. Um, you know, but so the second time actually is kind of interesting that, uh, Boeing and McDonnell Douglas previously has blocked Northrop from winning a carrier based fighter, which is kind of interesting. Um, but, uh, but that open architecture is, is really important to think of when we think about the future of this program and how it's how it's organized. So, uh, yeah, but those are the things I'm, I'm looking at it.
[00:14:24:13] Robert Wall: Yeah. Just since you mentioned Northrop, maybe back to Brian. Uh, so I mean, the loser, obviously Northrop in this competition, um, what do you think? What what do they say? Do we think they're leaving themselves open the window for protesting?
[00:14:41:26] Brian Eberstein: They did put out a statement pretty quickly. Um, kind of not necessarily committing or not committing to a protest, but saying that they look forward to receiving additional information about the Navy's selection, saying that they did offer a highly survivable, digitally advanced sixth generation fighter for the competition. Um, so for the company, bottom line, that sort of thing, I'll leave a lot to the analysts, but I, I think there are a couple of things to remember here. Um, we are, have been awaiting really all year, um, where the Air force is going to go on a big B-21 production increase. So I think that's going to be, I don't know if we'll shed a lot of tears for a lot of their aero bottom line. When that does come out we're looking I mean possibly doubling that program. That's going to be a lot more money coming their way. I will be curious. It'll be curious to see what happens to their Melbourne, Florida site. Um, ahead of this announcement they announced. They explained how they were doing a pretty big production space increase. Uh, they had the fun name of project Daisy for that to give some more engineering space. For advanced advanced aircraft design. Once the E-2 line down there does run out, which we are seeing in the next couple of years. So it'll be interesting to see where the company does pivot. I mean, as I mentioned, there's a lot of B-21 work there going pretty, uh, pretty hard on Ka with Talon Blue. They should be flying that right about now. I think we've been waiting for that flight. First flight right about now. Um, there are a lot of opportunities down the road, but, um, the company was really quite helpful on this.
[00:16:02:16] Steve Trimble: Well, I just to add to that, they do have that teaming relationship with, um, jet zero, uh, for a future tanker or Airlifter. Um, maybe that rises up the priority for them. Um, you know, you know, after if since they don't have F/A-XX, you know, in terms of future growth opportunities, maybe that becomes more important.
[00:16:26:18] Robert Wall: Just want to also talk briefly what this means for Boeing. Now obviously, uh, kind of it was interesting a few minutes before they, uh, they um, you know, announced FAX and you spotted this in the contract. Steve uh, there's money. There was money in the Pentagon contracts to start planning the shutdown for the, uh, the Super Hornet line and the growler line. So that was kind of funny. Um, then again, the Air Force was, is buying more F-15s. Uh, so, you know, it's a bit lots coming in a bit going out, but, um.
[00:17:00:04] Steve Trimble: Well, no, I was going to say, I mean, one of the big issues, uh, coming into this, uh, competition and really in the extension of this process of just making the decision and then announcing it were these concerns about the capacity of the industrial base. Um, you know, and given that Boeing was working on F-15ex and then had F-47, uh, not to mention MQ-25 and T-7 and KC-46 and B-52, uh, modernization, all a lot of these things that they're actually struggling with, uh, to keep on schedule and certainly under their own costs, especially for those fixed price programs. Um, you know, so there, there were concerns about that from the Navy. Uh, it may be specifically focused on the, on the prospect that Boeing was going to win even a year and a half ago. Um, uh, and then, uh, on top of that, um, we had, uh, general Dale white, uh, with the Air Force, uh, really kind of spreading the message at APhA, uh, both privately and publicly, uh, you know, to people that he, he doesn't want anybody, uh, to distract Boeing from delivering his airplane, the F-47, uh, which seemed to be kind of a message to the Navy like, hey, you know, don't put another thing on Boeing's plate. You know, just as I'm trying to get them to get give me my airplane.
[00:18:17:21] Robert Wall: That's what tipped in Boeing's favor. The Air Force told the Navy, don't take Boeing's. So of course they had to.
[00:18:23:16] Steve Trimble: Well, I did wonder at the time, like you could read that two ways. As you know, Dale white basically shutting the door on the idea of Boeing winning and making sure that Northrop wins, or Dale white being so concerned that Boeing was going to win this thing, that he took the unusual step of basically inserting himself into a decision making process for another services aircraft, even though he didn't do that explicitly. But I mean, to me, the message wasn't that, uh, you know, unclear, I guess.
[00:18:52:01] Robert Wall: I mean, uh, you know, Brian also, I mean, it was striking really how, how Boeing in its statement about winning, really focused on that issue, right? It wasn't just, it was repeatedly, but, um, I find striking.
[00:19:07:21] Brian Eberstein: It's I mean, we've talked to Steve Parker for the past year and a half. He said the same thing every single time. We built both of our offers to execute at the same time. The company really got ahead with a lot of capital investment, building up its Saint Louis plant to get ready for this sort of work. I mean, but now they have to execute. I mean, that's kind of been the line for Boeing for the past several years, and they really need to execute.
[00:19:31:14] Steve Trimble: My sense going into this program, both for F-47 and for F/A-XX, is that Boeing wanted this so much more, uh, than the other companies. And they were willing, even at a point where they were, uh, kind of falling apart as a business on the commercial side. I mean, just really struggling with 737MAX and seven, eight, 7777 X. Um, you know, those programs are kind of floundering, I think is a fair term for what was going on at that time. Um, and then their, their defense programs were just a mess. They were just in shambles. They've lost billions of dollars on all of them. Um, and, and yet even as that was happening, they were committing enormous resources internally, uh, to work on this next generation of air dominance aircraft to kind of, you know, take the place of the F-15 and the F/A-18 and, you know, so we, they got the initial prototype for the F 47. They flew that, um, as early as September of 2021. Um, we don't know if they got a prototype for the Navy, even though there was money allegedly for both Air Force and Navy prototypes in the Aerospace Innovation Initiative that was passed in 2016 and got started. And that's what led to the F-47 prototype. Um, but, um, that is one really interesting element of all this is that they've had five years to fly a six generation prototype, um, which, you know, is a rare and unexpected luxury in this business. Usually you get just one year with a prototype before they want to move on to MD. Thankfully, because of the series of delays to both F/A-XX, and F-47, both of which were delayed but F/A-XX even more.
[00:21:16:27] Steve Trimble: It was supposed to come before the F-47, right? They got started in 2012. Air force didn't get started in F-47. What became F-47 for a few years later. So, you know, this was a, uh, you know, this was a huge commitment. We already know that they have this, uh, development going on in Saint Louis where they're building, uh, out phase one, uh, of their new assembly line. Uh, to support the F-47. They had, uh, documents because you can look them up in the Saint Louis. They were trying to get some tax breaks from the city of Saint Louis. And so they've released all this information about their plans for phase two. Um, you know, which adds another assembly line. I always assume that would be for FAX. If they want it now, they can, uh, you know, push forward on that as well, as well as their advanced composites facility in Mesa, Arizona, which was also stood up to support these programs. So, you know, that is a, that's a, that's a really interesting part of that. I hope one day we get the full story of what happened in this competition. Um, you know, I think this was the turnaround for Boeing here is, is extraordinary. I mean, just from being where they were five, six years ago to now. Uh, you know, you know, you could not have anticipated that, uh, they still have to execute on these programs. Um, but to, to go, to go from, from there to here is, is extraordinary.
[00:22:42:08] Robert Wall: Well, and on that point, I do want to kind of circle back to, uh, Graham mentioned the, A-12, uh, obviously, and, uh, you know, an epic problem for McDonnell Douglas and, uh, clearly, uh, really, to some extent, I think started a decline really for, for the McDonnell Douglas on the fighters side. I mean, they got Super Hornet, right? But then at first they lost on, on JSF or Jast. Anyway, um, my point is I'd like each of you to kind of reflect on what, given where we are now, what do you see as some of the programmatic risks going forward? So either from an aircraft perspective, programmatic perspective, wherever you think. What are some of the things you'll be watching for? To make sure to see, give you any indication whether this program is being executed or, frankly, the two programs are being executed as Boeing says they can. And where you see the biggest risks. So, Graham, why don't we kick it off with you?
[00:23:41:07] Graham Warwick: I'm a I'm a little surprised. Uh, you know, I thought we've just had two decades of learning not to put all your eggs in one basket and all of the lessons we've learned on F-35. So they've just put their eggs in two different sides of the basket and, and hope that they won't rub against each other and break each other. Um, you have to hope that, um, that there is enough commonality between the programs to, to benefit the end customer in terms of, of getting things done, solving problems, fixing them once and then not having, not having to fix them again, uh, that there's enough, um, stagger between the programs so that the experts on one can move over onto the other so that we don't have issues that we had on F-35 with just lack of resources because they just couldn't get everything done at the same time. Um, but I also, I feel sorry for Boeing. I'm not sure whether I feel sorry for Boeing, the company, Boeing, the, the engineers at Boeing, the PR people, because the way that we run defense programs now, the way the visibility we have into, into aircraft defense programs, the fact that aircraft programs never go the way they're supposed to go. I think that Boeing's in for a very difficult ten, 15 years ahead of it as it tries to get these these aircraft going. We have just got to hope we've learned some lessons from the last ten, 15, 20 years.
[00:25:04:12] Brian Eberstein: Well, I, I think my concern is just to see the commitment within the building and within the white House to the Navy, uh, progressing on this. I mean, it is I mentioned it before, but it is really striking to see the difference between the F-47 announcement and F/A-XX. I mean, you had President Trump I'm just announcing himself and throwing so much of his weight behind the program, whereas the Navy really had to drag OSD to to this announcement. I mean, it was trickled out in a press release two days before the end of the fiscal year, when the funding was set to run out, Congress had to prod and prod and prod the Pentagon to get to this point. So I'm I want to see when the next budget comes around, if we'll see this commitment long term in the palm for where the department wants to go, or if there will be kind of continued underfunding, as they've tried to do in the past three years.
[00:25:49:15] Steve Trimble: That's exactly it. I mean, the the resources for this program have not been delivered by the administration or the previous administration. Really, for the last several years, it's been basically Congress stepping in and interceding on the Navy's behalf, because the military wing of the Navy said said that we have to have this. Um, you know, they're going to have to, you know, resource this thing now. And so we're going to see if that actually, you know, um, takes place. There's a lot of other pressure, a lot of other priorities. Um, we talk about all those autonomous systems, you know, between rhymes and commas and, uh, a lot of these other concepts out there. And this kind of runs against the grain of all those. Um, so, you know, uh, but, but the, the potential here is, is extraordinary. I mean, I do think the numbers and the, the actual units that would be delivered, uh, you know, for F/A-XX, if you know, it goes as planned are going to dwarf that of F-47, you know, um, you got to fill the decks on those ten, 11 carriers, however many, they actually end up with the time. And, um, that's a big part of it, but also, um, the opportunity for export on F/A-XX, I think is way higher, uh, because it's going to probably be a cheaper aircraft and more exportable in a lot of different ways. It doesn't have the penetrating counter-air mission of the F-47. It's got an anti anti surface uh anti uh air. Uh, you know it's a long range strike and fleet defense fighter. So you know um it's got a different role and I think it's more suited to a lot of what international militaries are looking for.
[00:27:34:06] Robert Wall: Well I think we'll leave it there. Uh, thanks all three of you for, uh, for that. I'm so glad we finally have a, uh, no longer asking. I don't have to ask you every day. When are we getting this announcement? We we have white smoke, quite literally, if you look at the renderings. So, uh, so that's great. Um. Thanks, Steve. Thanks, Graham. Thanks, Brian. Uh. Thanks, guy. Our producer for this. And as always, thanks to our audience for checking out check six. And maybe we'll get a go a week without an emergency podcast. But anyway, we'll be back pretty soon in your feed. Thanks very much.
