The Pentagon dealt Boeing’s struggling robot shop a major blow on Wednesday when it awarded rival Northrop Grumman a $640-million contract to develop a stealthy armed flying drone, a.k.a. the Unmanned Combat Air System Demonstrator. But if a leaked document from the desk of program manager David Koopersmith is any indication, Boeing isn’t going down without a fight:
“I’m sure the question on everyone’s mind right now is, ‘What will happen to me?’” Koopersmith wrote to his crew:
Your leadership team has been working closely with the functional leaders at both sites to plan for all contingencies. We will continue to meet with the functional leaders to work toward redeploying the UCAS team. I do want to remind you there is always the possibility our legal counsel could advise Boeing that there are grounds for a protest after we are debriefed on the decision.
Protests have a way of holding up contracts for months … and even reversing decisions, as in the case of the 2006 Air Force rescue chopper competition. Boeing won that contest with its HH-47 Chinook, but losers Lockheed Martin and Sikorsky filed protests that have contributed to a decision to re-compete the contract. Will that happen with the killer drone? Who knows, but consider the stakes for Boeing. Without UCAS-D, the Boeing drone shop is pretty much screwed, according to one team member:
This is bad news for [Boeing] St. Louis folks, as this was the only aircraft design job in the pipeline and the understanding was that the skill would evaporate there. This is doubly bad, considering that when the merger happened ten years ago, many of the fighter-size design skills were consolidated in St. Louis and many in Seattle [where Boeing is based] had to either move there or accept another job in another skill area. That became complete after the loss of [the Joint Strike Fighter competition, won by Lockheed Martin]. Managment’s assessment was that loss of UCAS-D would mean we wouldn’t have a viable skill set to bid new business in these areas.
In other words, if the UCAS decision sticks, Boeing’s fighter designers in St. Louis are likely to find jobs elsewhere, leaving the firm without the human capital necessary to compete for future fighter programs, whether manned or robotic. This isn’t just bad for Boeing. This is bad for the Pentagon and the United States, as it means one fewer airplane maker capable of putting together a fighter jet. The suits at Lockheed Martin must be wringing their hands in pleasure at the thought as dollar signs flash in their eyes.
Related:
Bill Sweetman mulls drone decision
Boeing’s drone shop on life support
Navy doesn’t want to talk about surveillance drones
Related posts:
[...] The Navy’s $600-million UCAS-D program, which aims to test a fast, fighter-sized UAV, was the best opportunity to begin large-scale experimentation with an aerial drone swarm. But a week after it tapped Northrop Grumman’s X-47 drone for the UCAS-D contract, the Navy announced that the six-year program would demonstrate only carrier operations. No weapons. No sensors. No swarms. [...]
[...] The Navy’s software request and Northrop Grumman’s grudging acknowledgement of the true potential cost of UCAS-D lit a fire in David Koopersmith, Boeing’s X-45 program manager, according to the anonymous Boeing source. He says that the routine “loser debrief,” normally a sedate affair, turned ugly when Koopersmith repeatedly challenged the Navy, accusing the service of unfairly favoring Northrop Grumman and wrongly ordering the destruction of the X-45 airframes. Now Boeing might protest on the grounds that the Navy never wanted Boeing to win. [...]
[...] Related: Global Hawk pics Northrop wins UCAS No swarming for UCAS Boeing to protest UCAS? Boeing still in the UCAS game — barely Tiny drones get wired [...]
[...] Two years ago the Air Force bowed out of a potentially revolutionary program — Joint Unmanned Combat Air System — to build super-smart, super-lethal fighter-size flying robots. Boeing had built two lightweight X-45 demonstrators (pictured) favored by the Air Force; Northrop Grumman had put together the tougher X-47, favored by the Navy. The idea was that the two services would put their heads together and pick one of the two for development. [...]
query?
when was the last time that Lockheed/Martin designed anything that landed on a carrier? You go to the people who know how to get something that will do the job based on their past performance, and their designs. Grumman has built Navy fighters and attack aircraft (FF-1, FF-2, F4F, F6F, A-1, A-6, F-14, A-12…..oops!) for something like 90 years and Boeing can build anything due to their Microsoft-like technique of buying their competitors.