Assuming the protest over the Long-Range Strike Bomber award goes Northrop Grumman’s? way, the company expects “modest” sales money from the program in 2016, attending a “gradual, month-by-month increase” in employment on the project, company CEO and president Wes Bush said Thursday. Speaking during a conference call with reporters to discuss the company’s 2015 fourth-quarter results, Bush said the LRS-B “head count” in engineering will increase at a rate “appropriate for the start of this incentive-based program.” The Government Accountability Office is expected to decide within two weeks whether the LRS-B award to Northrop was, as Boeing argued in its protest, “fatally flawed.” Bush expressed confidence the protest would be resolved in Northrop’s favor and that the stop-work order would be lifted shortly thereafter. The program represents a “meaningful opportunity for the company over time,” he added. Northrop was selected to build the LRS-B by the Air Force in October, and Bush said the company remains heavily restricted in what it can say about the program. (For more on Northrop’s fourth quarter earnings, click here.)
Seven F-22 Raptor pilots have recently been awarded one of the military’s highest decorations for their actions during operations in the Middle East. Six of the pilots were decorated with the Distinguished Flying Cross for their role in Operation Midnight Hammer, the June 2025 strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities.