Various news reports claim Raytheon has filed a protest over the award of the Joint Cargo Aircraft program to rival L-3 Communications. It hasn’t yet made the online list of protests filed with the Government Accountability Office, but, as an Air Force official noted earlier this year, protests in this tight acquisition environment are almost a given. The Army and Air Force selected the C-27 Spartan offered by the L-3 team, including Alenia North America, Boeing, and Global Military Aircraft Systems, as the winner of the JCA intratheater airlifter program. Raytheon had teamed with EADS CASA North America to offer the C-295.
The Air Force plans to add external weapons pylons on the B-1B bomber, both to increase the number of aircraft that can test hypersonic missiles and expand the Lancer’s loadout as USAF transitions to the B-21 bomber.