Delays to Raytheon’s Smart Bomb May Extract a Cost for the Company

by Dramelin 3:00 AM 0 comments

Pilots or ground-based Air Force controllers will be able to beam in-flight changes to the weapon, which eventually would be deployed on aircraft from the F-35 and the B-2 bomber to the MQ-9 Reaper drone.
will probably have to absorb millions of dollars in cost overruns from development and initial production of a new smart bomb that will be the F-35 fighter jet’s primary weapon, the U.
Air Force said.
Citing Defense Contract Management Agency estimates, the Air Force said Raytheon, the Pentagon’s top missile-maker, is exceeding the service’s financial liability on all three initial contracts for the Small Diameter Bomb II.
The contractor is responsible for overruns above the Air Force’s liability.
The Air Force plans to buy as many as 17,000 of the bombs, and Raytheon has said the weapon represents a potential $4 billion in revenue including sales to U.
allies that are committed to the F-35 made by Lockheed Martin Corp.
While the overruns on the primary development contract and two initial production contracts are estimated to cost Waltham, Massachusetts-based Raytheon only about $39 million, they are important as a gauge of contractor performance.
The Air Force applied contract provisions intended to protect the taxpayers from undue financial risk.
In-Flight Changes The 250-pound air-launched glide bomb is equipped with three different sensors and is designed to attack stationary or moving targets 40 miles (64 kilometers) away in all weather.
Pilots or ground-based Air Force controllers will be able to beam in-flight changes to the weapon, which eventually would be deployed on aircraft from the F-35 and the B-2 bomber to the MQ-9 Reaper drone.
The overruns stemmed in part from technical problems in flight testing and production that the Air Force said delayed the first deliveries to June from last November.
The Air Force said the company has since resolved the problems.
The service “believes Raytheon Missile Systems is able to reliably and consistently build” the bomb, Captain Emily Grabowski, an Air Force spokeswoman, said in an email.
Raytheon “has worked diligently to address technical discoveries and is implementing the necessary factory infrastructure improvements to meet current contract requirements.
” Despite some risk, Raytheon’s performance remains on track to meet the Air Force’s first major milestone -- delivery of enough weapons by January 2019 for initial fielding on the service’s top fighter-bomber, the F-15E model, Grabowski said.
“We have nothing to add to what the Air Force has already provided,” Raytheon spokesman David Desilets said via email.
The munition’s foreign sales potential was demonstrated when the State Department on Oct.
2 said it approved a potential $851 million sale to Australia -- a top overseas customer for the F-35 -- for as many as 3,900 of the bombs and related equipment.