Boeing now has a $14.9 million contract to provide systems engineering and modeling services for USAF’s A-10 wing replacement program. Last summer, the company received a $2 billion contract to manufacture the 242 wing sets needed to replace “thin-skin” winged A-10s. In a company statement, William Moorefield, Boeing program manager, said the “modeling would result in a true paperless engineering package,” a process developed over the last 15 years that has produced “significant cost savings” for programs such as the F-18E/F and C-17 and others.
A top Pentagon tech official called on industry this week to help the military develop “lighter, more efficient” directed energy weapons designed to go on aircraft and conduct special operations missions or down drones—areas where the Air Force’s directed energy efforts have been quiet as of late.