While commenting on the selection of Pratt & Whitney to build Northrop Grumman Corp’s engines for the long range B-21 bomber, a top Air Force general said the deal should help the company lower the costs for the F135 engine of the F-35 fighter jets.
 
Lieutenant General Chris Bogdan, who runs the $391 billion F-35 program, said that any commonality between the engines, and greater engine production could help drive down costs on both programs.
 
"I would expect that Pratt’s prices on the F135 ought to come down as a result of the work they’re going to be doing on the long-range strike (bomber)," said Bogdan. 
 
He went on to add that this commonality could lead to an increase in F135 engine cores, which could lead to price reductions later.
 
"There's spillover things that happen if you have two engines that are common. There's another source of investment to improve engine manufacturing now,” said Bogdan.
 
While stating he knew little regarding the classified B-21 bomber program, he did not explicitly confirm that the F135 engine cores will be used for the new bomber.
 
Matthew Bates, Pratt & Whitney’s spokesman also declined comment on whether the new bomber would use the F136 engine cores. He however did say that with every contract, Pratt & Whitney has lowered the cost of the F135 engines. The company remains committed to further reductions.
 
By the end of this month, Bogdan said he hoped to finalize a preliminary agreement with Pratt & Whitney for 167 F135 engines in two contracts with a combined value of $3 billion. Last month Bogdan had stated that the cost of those engines will drop by 3%-4% in each contract.
 
Furthermore, in principle, the program also aims to have an agreement with Lockheed for a 9^th batch of F-35 fighter jets by the end of March followed by another batch in the subsequent month. The combined value of the airframe deals are worth $16 billion.
 
With a continuous cost reduction and faced with software challenges in the F-35’s automated logistics systems even if the August 1 deadline were to be extended by a month or two, it wouldn’t hurt the USAF, said Bogdan.

The U.S. Air Force has named Pratt & Whitney as the engine manufacturer for Northrop Grumman Corp’s new long range strike bomber. Additionally it has also defended the "cost plus incentive fee" included in the contract, which has been challenged by U.S. lawmakers.
 
Amidst calls for more transparency in the classified weapons program, U.S. Air Force Secretary Deborah James went on to reveal Pratt & Whitney, a unit of United Technologies Corp, along with key suppliers at a Pentagon new conference.
 
The other key suppliers for the new B-21 bomber includes the U.S. units of two British suppliers, GKN Plc and BAE Systems Plc, as well as Janicki Industries, Spirit AeroSystems Holdings Inc., Rockwell Collins Inc., and Orbital ATK Inc.
 
Last month, Lockheed Martin and Boeing stopped their challenge of Northrop who won the multi-billion dollar contract for the new bomber in October.
 
Without giving any details, James has disclosed the suppliers would work on the mission systems and on the airframe of the new B21 long range bomber.
 
Lieutenant General Arnold Bunch, the Air Force's top military acquisition official, did not divulge the location wherein Northrop would assemble components and build the bomber. He only said that in time the Air Force hopes to provide the value of the bomber development contract and associated incentive fees.
 
He clarified that the incentive fees were based on performance and cost criteria with an emphasis on meeting operational deadlines of having the plane combat ready from the mid 2020s.
 
The Air Force has estimated that it would take at least $23.5 billion to develop the new long range bomber. It has not disclosed the terms of its contract with Northrop. However, going by analyst’s estimates the contact figure is likely to hover around $80 billion, which includes the supply of components over a set period of time.
 
James clarified that the Air Force was in the process of replying to a couple of concerns raised by John McCain, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee regarding the Northrop contract. McCain questions relate to potential increase in cost overruns which will leave the U.S. Government with significant liabilities.
 
James said if McCain were to succeed in blocking the deal, it would take "money and time" to cancel and redo the deal.
 
McCain has argued back saying a fixed price contract had proved beneficial to the U.S. Government and had saved it $1 billion in cost overruns in a contract with Boeing which manufactured a new refueling plane under a fixed price contract.
 
However Lieutenant General Arnold Bunch said in this particular instance the contract were dissimilar since the Northrop contract is to build a totally new airplane and that the company does not have any potential commercial or foreign military sales customers to help it defray its costs.
 
 

Not one to take it lying down, the U.S Air Force's Space Command has now announced its latest cyber initiative, a cyber weapon dubbed as the Vulnerability Assessment/Hunter (CVA/H). The weapon is now online and "fully operational ".
 
Designed to find and fix threats for the Air Force's command network, the CVA/H will assess potentially exploitable network security vulnerabilities that may hamper USAF mission and fix them before they become an imminent threat. At the same time it is also a network security auditing and compliance tool.
 
Although it has been termed as a “weapon”, since it can be used to find vulnerabilities in other networks as well, the CVA/H will, as of now, be primarily used for defensive purposes.
 
Going by a statement from the Air Force Space Command, the CVA/H provides an "in-depth assessment of information system assets such as computers, infrastructure, applications, data, and cyberspace operations".
 
This development should obviously be seen in the larger context of the Department of Defense’s efforts at modernizing and developing cyber capabilities, such as the recently announcing Pentagon Hacking Challenge.
 
The launch of this initiative comes in the wake of the Air Force’s first cyber weapon – the Air Force Intranet Control Weapon (AFINC), which essentially is a first line of defense against its networks. It can be understood as a firewall that moderates all traffic that flows in and out of the U.S. Air Force’s network.
 
Recently the USAF had also launched its Cyberspace Defense Analysis Weapon System, which is again a firewall for all of its unsecured network traffic that ensures that classified data is not being transmitted out.
 
All of these tools are under the command of the 26^th Network Operations Squadron, who have reportedly block nearly a billion instances of suspicious network activity ever week.
 
The Chinese better take note, payback can often be very unpleasant.