Days after the formal comment period on the Air Force’s KC-X tanker draft request for proposals closed, Northrop Grumman officials publicly expressed their displeasure with the current format of the competition during a press conference Wednesday in Washington D.C. They said they had voiced their concerns to the Air Force during this initial feedback phase. They also intimated that the company reserved the right to withdraw from the contest if key concerns about proprietary information from the last competition are not resolved. The rebooted KC-X is “fundamentally different” than the requirements worked out in the last competition, said Mitch Waldman, Northrop’s vice president of business development for advanced aerospace programs and technology. Continue
The Air Force on March 12 awarded contract modifications worth a combined $2.4 billion to Boeing to procure an undisclosed number of E-7 Wedgetail as part of the program's engineering and manufacturing development phase and continue work on the airborne battle management aircraft’s radar.