Boeing and Lockheed Martin will team to compete for the USAF’s long-range strike bomber program, with Boeing acting as the prime contractor and Lockheed Martin as the primary team-mate.
Boeing and Lockheed Martin have previously partnered on the F-22 program, and the two companies had earlier teamed for the US bomber program, before cancelling that arrangement in 2010 while awaiting a better understanding of the project’s future.
Boeing’s Dennis Muilenburg said: “Stable planning, along with efficient and affordable development and production approaches, enables our team to reduce development risk by leveraging mature technologies and integrating existing systems.”
Few details of the bomber project are known publicly, other than a requirement for 80 to 100 aircraft and service entry in the mid-2020s.
Boeing’s extensive bomber heritage includes building the B-52 and, as Rockwell, the B-1B, while Lockheed Martin is prime contractor for the Joint Strike Fighter program (which it won ahead of Boeing).
Northrop Grumman, builder of the B-2 Spirit, is also likely to bid for the program.
