Northrop Grumman B-21A Raider (LRS-B)

Northrop Speeds Up B-2 Work, Primes For LRS-B | Aviation Week Network

Northrop hints that if its plan prevails final assembly will occupy the same Building 401 hangar at Palmdale’s Plant 42 site used for the construction of the B-2 stealth bomber in the 1980s and 1990s.
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Northrop Speeds Up B-2 Work, Primes For LRS-B
Dec 14, 2015 Guy Norris and Jen DiMascio | Aerospace Daily & Defense Report

PALMDALE, California – Though still gagged from discussing the Long Range Strike-Bomber pending the verdict of the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) bid protest review, Northrop Grumman is quietly moving to quell potential concerns over whether it has sufficient industrial capacity for the project.
Balanced in a precarious position between being able to acknowledge winning the LRS-B contract in October and revealing future plans assuming a favorable GAO assessment, Northrop hints that if its plan prevails final assembly will occupy the same Building 401 hangar at Palmdale’s Plant 42 site used for the construction of the B-2 stealth bomber in the 1980s and 1990s.

The large Northrop facility, located on the northern side of the sprawling U.S. Air Force industrial complex in Palmdale, is dominated by Site 4, which includes the former B-2 assembly line. The western half of Building 401 is now occupied by the production line for the F-35 center fuselage Northrop manufactures for Lockheed Martin’s Joint Strike Fighter assembly site in Fort Worth, Texas.

Assuming the GAO throws out protests from losing LRS-B contenders Boeing and Lockheed, Northrop plans to lay out production jigs for the new bomber in the eastern side of Building 401. The line, if it proceeds as planned, will be separated by a new wall divider from the F-35 production line. Although only 21 B-2s were built, the east side of Building 401 supported up to 11 bombers on the line during peak production.

Some work for the LRS-B will also be accommodated in the adjacent Site 3, the Northrop facility located to the west of Site 4, where final assembly and test work takes place on the Global Hawk unmanned air vehicle.

Northrop also is expected to activate Site 7 and 8 for LRS-B component and sub-assembly work. Located on a more isolated area in the center of the field, Site 7 was formerly leased to Lockheed for the F-117 Combined Test Force and 410th Flight Test Squadron. The facility, which was also used for F-117 depot maintenance, transitioned to more classified special project work for Lockheed’s Skunk Works in late 2008 following the termination of depot support for the F-117. The site’s last known association with the Stealth Fighter came in August of that year when the 410th was deactivated. Site 8, adjacent to Site 7, is located by the end of runway 04 at Palmdale.

The Air Force plans to buy up to 100 LRS-Bs to replace B-52s and B-1s, which are slated to retire in the mid-2040s. Initial operating capability is expected in the mid-2020s, with nuclear certification planned two years after service entry. The program is targeting a cost of around $550 million per aircraft; a basic enabler of this price point will be a mature production system. Together with Sites 3 and 4, the expanded footprint of Northrop’s production sites at Plant 42 will grow to a total of around 3 million square feet with the addition of Sites 7 and 8.

With concerns about the size and availability of the B-2 bomber fleet, Northrop is meanwhile speeding up maintenance on the 1980s-era aircraft. The company sought to reduce the time that it takes to overhaul each of the 20 bombers in the Air Force’s fleet from 560 days down to one year.

And it has finally done so, wrapping up the programmed depot maintenance of the Kitty Hawk – the first B-2 ever flown – within 359 days. The effort is aimed at reducing the cost of maintenance; the company estimates it will trim $900 million over the life of the fleet.
Advancements in the stealth coatings — from the initial days of painting the B-2 by hand to today’s robot-based application — are helping to keep more B-2s in operation. Previously the coatings had to be replaced every seven years to maintain their low radar cross section, but the Air Force has agreed to extend that to every nine years.

Along with a faster maintenance schedule, the B-2 has seen a number of upgrades to its radar system, adding Link 16 communications and new weapons, including the ability to carry two Boeing-made Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs. Future enhancements are planned as well. Engineers are working to integrate the B-61 tactical nuclear bomb and Northrop is in the acquisition planning phase of adding protections for nuclear missions via the use of Advanced Extremely High Frequency communications.
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" including the ability to carry two Boeing-made Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs. "

That would seem to indicate the B-2s bomb load is 60,000lbs+ I've seen several sources state it was much lower than that (in the 40s). Never made sense.
 
The Air Force Fact Sheet figure is 40,000 pounds (nominal) payload, which fits with the stated capacity of eighty 500-lb bombs. In practice, they'd be JDAMs, so an actual weight of 47,200 lbs (590 lbs x 80). The total weights for sixteen 2000-lb JDAMs, JASSMs, or B-83s and other weapons are slightly lower.

But that's not including the Advanced Applications Rotary Launcher or Smart Bomb Rack Assembly to hold the weapons, which isn't publicized but could easily be half the weight of the weapons carried. With MOP, you lose the launcher and hang the bomb on a simple strongback, so there's less "overhead" weight in the bay.
 
Air Force may be defer or delay F-35,KC-Y; new fund for L-RSB.

http://breakingdefense.com/2015/12/air-force-may-be-forced-to-defer-or-delay-f-35-kc-y-new-fund-for-lrsb/
 
Analyst Walks Back Cost Claims on Air Force Bomber


WASHINGTON – The prominent Washington defense analyst who accused the US Air Force of fouling up its cost estimates in picking Northrop Grumman to build its new multibillion-dollar bomber is walking back the criticism he levied in a commentary last month.

Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute think tank acknowledged in a Dec. 11 email to Defense News that the Air Force is correct that analysis in his Nov. 6 Forbes commentary about the competition for the Long Range Strike Bomber was misleading. However, since the service has released few concrete cost figures, "it is a meaningless point to anybody trying to understand the selection process," he said.

"I am confident that when the facts eventually become known to Congress, it will be apparent that the winning team bid an unrealistic price at a negative rate of return, setting the bomber program up for failure," wrote Thompson, a Lockheed consultant whose think tank is funded by Lockheed and Boeing.

In his commentary, Thompson laid out Boeing's argument that the Defense Department's October decision to award the LRS-B contract to Northrop Grumman over a team composed of Boeing and Lockheed was “fundamentally flawed” for using unreliable historical data in picking the winner.

"Boeing team-mate Lockheed Martin has delivered each successive lot of F-35 fighters for less than historical data would have predicted," he wrote, "and relying on dated cost data effectively excludes from the calculus numerous advances in aircraft development and production technology that have been made during intervening years."

Thompson's article appeared the same day the losing team formally announced its protest of the decision, which triggered a review by the Government Accountability Office. The GAO is expected to issue a ruling in February. Meanwhile, some work on the project has been halted.

The stakes couldn’t be higher for the three defense giants. LRS-B is the largest military aircraft program since Lockheed won the F-35 joint strike fighter more than a decade ago. But despite the program's massive scope, DoD has guarded details about the classified program so closely that we still don't even know if the stealthy new plane will be designated the B-3, or something else.

The last time Boeing protested a Pentagon contract, the award of the KC-X tanker to Northrop, the company pulled out all the stops, sparking a heated and politicized debate in Washington that eventually forced the Air Force to re-bid the program. Boeing ultimately won that second round, and its KC-46 recently completed its first flight.

But in the case of LRS-B. the Air Force claimed Thompson mixed up his numbers.

"The service stated in its October 27 press conference unveiling the award that it will cost $21.4 billion to develop the bomber, but that figure is roughly twice the amount that the competing industry teams bid," Thompson wrote.

The Air Force is looking into how Thompson gained access to those figures, Reuters reported recently. Although top officials would not confirm a formal investigation, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh earlier this month acknowledged the service’s “concern” that the pricing data should not have been released.

Thompson's commentary accused the government of using bad historical data during the source-selection process, artificially inflating LRS-B’s development cost and effectively eliminating the winner’s risk in developing the plane.

To make his point, Thompson wrote that each competing proposal to develop the new bomber was roughly $10 billion, information the Pentagon has neither confirmed nor released publicly, but was known to the competitors. He compared this figure to the Air Force’s legally mandated Independent Cost Estimate (ICE) – required of all acquisition programs since 2009 – which projected that development costs would be more than twice what the companies bid – $21.4 billion in 2010 dollars.

The discrepancy between the contractors’ bids and the government’s cost estimate indicates the historical data used to evaluate the proposals is unreliable, Thompson claimed. That cushion, he argued, means the winner has no incentive to keep costs down.

“By dictating such a high cost to industry, the Air Force eliminated any financial risk to industry in developing the bomber,” Thompson wrote. “This is the precise opposite of the way acquisition reform is supposed to operate.”

But Air Force officials – who are often reluctant to comment on classified programs – went as far as saying that Thompson’s claim about historical data was misleading.

Outgoing Air Force acquisition chief William LaPlante stressed recently that the $21.4 billion figure released during the contract announcement was not part of the source-selection process.

A better figure to compare to the contractors’ proposals is the Most Probable Cost (MPC), a separate estimate developed by the source-selection team, Air Force spokesman Maj. Rob Leese told Defense News last week. In an effort to control costs, the government is required by the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) to develop an MPC on cost-reimbursable contracts – like LRS-B – where the government covers cost overruns incurred by the contractor, LaPlante said.

One source with knowledge of the program said the Air Force’s MPC for LRS-B was very close to the pricing proposed by the contractors (roughly $10 billion) – and much lower than the ICE of $21.4 billion.

“The FAR and the [Defense] FAR require for good reason that a Most Probable Cost Estimate is done . . . That is totally different than since 2009 it has been law that an Independent Cost Estimate has to be done,” LaPlante said during a Nov. 24 media roundtable at the Pentagon. “Guess what? Acquisition 101 – those independent cost estimates were not part of the source selection.”

Northrop and Boeing declined to comment for this article.

"The Air Force is correct that the government evaluated Most Probable Cost is a better basis for assessing the bids of the bomber teams than the Independent Cost Estimate," Thompson told Defense News Dec. 11. "However, since the Air Force hasn't disclosed either what the bids were or what the most probable cost was, it is a meaningless point to anybody trying to understand the selection process."

Air Force officials have expressed confidence the LRS-B contract award can survive the protest. The service used two independent agencies to come up with the ICE, officials stressed: the Air Force Cost Analysis Agency and the Pentagon’s Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation.

The high margin does give the Pentagon and industry a lot of wiggle room in terms of budgeting. But one analyst sees the gap between the reported proposals and the ICE as a sign the Air Force is making progress on cost control.

“So what if the proposals were less? The Air Force is ready to pony up to this point – that’s fantastic. I think that’s progress from some programs in the past,” Mark Gunzinger, a senior fellow with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, told Defense News. “Is it conservative? Oh yeah, it’s pretty darn conservative. So you have this tension: To what level do you fund?”
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bring_it_on said:
Boeing raises protest of ‘irreparably flawed’ bomber selection
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Boeing is flawed. As a result, it's been dis-invited from competing in the TX program. They cost the government too much money with their frivolous behavior. That would be my first response if I worked at the Pentagon. Also, if the bomber program was irreparably flawed, why didn't they point that out before they submitted their bid, until waiting until after it was awarded? Oh yeah, it's because they lost.
 
I'm called BS on that. If Boeing is disqualified from bidding on T-X after spending piles of its own money on its design, there's going to be hell to pay. It's not like Boeing's budget and schedule performance is dramatically different from many other bidder.
 
TomS said:
I'm called BS on that. If Boeing is disqualified from bidding on T-X after spending piles of its own money on its design, there's going to be hell to pay. It's not like Boeing's budget and schedule performance is dramatically different from many other bidder.
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Think he's being facetious.
 
bobbymike said:
TomS said:
I'm called BS on that. If Boeing is disqualified from bidding on T-X after spending piles of its own money on its design, there's going to be hell to pay. It's not like Boeing's budget and schedule performance is dramatically different from many other bidder.
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Think he's being facetious.
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I thought I was being obvious. I guess I should have placed a snark tag around it. But the fact of the matter is if Boeing thought the selection process was flawed, they could have brought it up before they lost. They didn't and they're full of crap and I think there should be some form of penalty for their behavior, otherwise you can expect them to carry on in the same wasteful manner into the future.
 
Whoops. Sorry, I missed the "tha would be my thought" comment. My mistake.
 
Reliance on historical data for cost models is the normal approach - various RAND cost models are industry standard based on this approach.

If you don't rely on historical data how do your validate your cost models? Otherwise you're just making up random numbers
 
If you don't rely on historical data how do your validate your cost models?
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You rely on marketing to develop new ones perhaps?

breakingdefense.com

Carter Tours Boeing's Black Diamond; Is It Key to LRSB? - Breaking Defense

ST. LOUIS: Boeing opened the doors of its Phantom Works’ Virtual Warfare Center to reporters for the first time during Defense Secretary Ash Carter’s visit, showing us tantalizing glimpses of advanced technologies such as its Talon HATE project to improve communications between the F-22 and...
breakingdefense.com breakingdefense.com
 
George Allegrezza said:
-- Aerospace group generating 50 new designs per year, ideally with one new product demonstrator (possibly an air vehicle) selected annually for development.
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Formerly known as Scaled Composites.
 
As GAO weighs protest, Northrop and Boeing-Lockheed team continue to feud over bomber

As the Government Accountability Office measures the merits of the Air Force's Long-Range Strike Bomber competition, the rival teams continue to battle publicly over the highly sought program.

The ongoing tensions are an illustration of just how important this program -- which some analysts value at $100 billion through development and production -- is to both Northrop Grumman, which won the contract in late October, and the unsuccessful Boeing-Lockheed Martin team. Prime contractors are facing a limited slate of new weapons programs in the coming years.

Following a Boeing-Lockheed protest filed Nov. 6, the GAO has until mid-February to make a ruling and the service has ordered Northrop to stop work.

But in the meantime, the industry teams -- and even some in Congress -- continue to make a public case for their respective interests.

Boeing issued a two-sentence press release on Friday evening, stating a day earlier it had filed a 133-page briefing in the protest. Dan Beck, a Boeing spokesman, told Inside Defense the statement was meant to reaffirm the team's "intent to press the protest" because it views the source-selection process as "irreparably flawed."

Beck said the company would not release the details of its most recent filing.

On Saturday morning, Northrop spokesman Randy Belote issued a statement confirming that it, too, filed comments with GAO related to the protest.

"We are now even more confident that the Air Force followed an extraordinarily thorough and careful selection process and picked the right team in Northrop Grumman to serve our nation," Belote said in the release.

The statement added that Boeing and Lockheed's filing is a routine step at this stage of the process and is "not in any way indicative of a meritorious protest."

Northrop has also garnered public support from at least one congressional representative as it defends the Air Force's selection. During an appearance at an LRS-B celebration rally held last week at Northrop's Tysons Corner office, Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) promised he would work to make sure the company retains the lucrative contract.

"The Air Force made the right choice, the smart choice, the best-value choice for the taxpayer," Warner said. "And I can assure you that we are there to defend this choice -- no matter what kind of protest."
 
Sundog said:
George Allegrezza said:
-- Aerospace group generating 50 new designs per year, ideally with one new product demonstrator (possibly an air vehicle) selected annually for development.
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Formerly known as Scaled Composites.
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Formerly known as that company whose most recent design killed one test pilot and crippled another. A rebranding was imperative.
 
marauder2048 said:
Sundog said:
George Allegrezza said:
-- Aerospace group generating 50 new designs per year, ideally with one new product demonstrator (possibly an air vehicle) selected annually for development.
Click to expand...

Formerly known as Scaled Composites.
Click to expand...

Formerly known as that company whose most recent design killed one test pilot and crippled another. A rebranding was imperative.
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ee

Which a) is something I'm willing to bet under Northrops guidance, would not have happened due to how they analyze procedures/systems and b) while tragic, we can't stop R&D due to fear of failure. If we're going to do that we might as well pack it all in and just go home.
 
marauder2048 said:
Sundog said:
George Allegrezza said:
-- Aerospace group generating 50 new designs per year, ideally with one new product demonstrator (possibly an air vehicle) selected annually for development.
Click to expand...

Formerly known as Scaled Composites.
Click to expand...

Formerly known as that company whose most recent design killed one test pilot and crippled another. A rebranding was imperative.
Click to expand...

Not sure why a test failure would demand a rebranding. Just about everything out there has failed at one point or another.
 
Scaled is still around and pretty clearly branded as "Scaled Composites, a Northrop Grumman company." This is something else, or at least something bigger.

Kevin Mickey left Scaled in October to run NG's overall advanced design efforts, which seems to cover both Scaled and NG's more traditional in-house design groups. The effort to turn out 50 new aircraft designs a year is part of something NG is calling "NG Next" which seems to be primarily a basic research effort, not aimed at specific contracts. The one "new product" they want to produce every year may or may not be a Scaled design; reading between the lines, it might not even be an actual air vehicle.

 
TomS said:
Scaled is still around and pretty clearly branded as "Scaled Composites, a Northrop Grumman company." This is something else, or at least something bigger.

Kevin Mickey left Scaled in October to run NG's overall advanced design efforts, which seems to cover both Scaled and NG's more traditional in-house design groups. The effort to turn out 50 new aircraft designs a year is part of something NG is calling "NG Next" which seems to be primarily a basic research effort, not aimed at specific contracts. The one "new product" they want to produce every year may or may not be a Scaled design; reading between the lines, it might not even be an actual air vehicle.

http://investor.northropgrumman.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=112386&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=2100373
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Never realized that Scaled Composites was a Northrop Grumman company. When did Northrop take over Scaled?
 
I'm not sure if this has been posted but here's a LM LRSB concept. -SP
 

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That design has been around quite a bit but I don't think I've ever seen that particular picture of it.
 
FighterJock said:
TomS said:
Scaled is still around and pretty clearly branded as "Scaled Composites, a Northrop Grumman company." This is something else, or at least something bigger.

Kevin Mickey left Scaled in October to run NG's overall advanced design efforts, which seems to cover both Scaled and NG's more traditional in-house design groups. The effort to turn out 50 new aircraft designs a year is part of something NG is calling "NG Next" which seems to be primarily a basic research effort, not aimed at specific contracts. The one "new product" they want to produce every year may or may not be a Scaled design; reading between the lines, it might not even be an actual air vehicle.

http://investor.northropgrumman.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=112386&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=2100373
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Never realized that Scaled Composites was a Northrop Grumman company. When did Northrop take over Scaled?
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A year or two ago.
 
Steve Pace said:
I'm not sure if this has been posted but here's a LM LRSB concept. -SP
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This is 2003 LM LRSA concept, not LRS-B, with roots going as deep as early 90s GD studies
 
According to a Promotional Photography person in LMSW who provided me with the image for my forthcoming Skunk Works book it's a LRSB concept. -SP
 
Jane's Defense weekly cover, 4 June, 2003
 

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kagemusha said:
FighterJock said:
Never realized that Scaled Composites was a Northrop Grumman company. When did Northrop take over Scaled?
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In 2007.
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d

Wow, time flies! I should have figUred it was longer as wasn't that optionally manned twin boom pusher developed after Northrop took over? I can't remember it's name right now.
 
Rhinocrates said:
Proteus?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaled_Composites_Proteus
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No, it's the Firebird. Though the Proteus is one of my favorited Scaled Composite designs.
 
flateric said:
This is 2003 LM LRSA concept, not LRS-B, with roots going as deep as early 90s GD studies
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Maybe their variations of the same basic design?
lrsphoto.jpg
 
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What the difference? It's all the same concept
 

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