(credit: US Air Force)
It has been six months since the US Air Force awarded the contract for its next-generation long-range bomber to Northrop Grumman. The exact terms of Northrop’s winning bid to build what the Air Force has designated as the B-21 has been kept secret, but it was based on cost estimates that came in substantially below what the Defense Department’s analysis had predicted.
That, along with the classified nature of the budget and the way the Air Force is packaging the project, has raised concerns in Congress that Northrop may have underbid the cost of its proposal to get a foot in the door, with hopes of getting more money later once the project is underway. A report released this week by the Congressional Research Service suggests that legislators may want to take a hard look at that possibility.
The Air Force made cost per plane a key factor in the award of the initial development contract, setting a fly-away cost of $ 550 million per aircraft (for a fleet of 100 bombers) as the benchmark for bids on the Long Range Strike Bomber program. When Northrop’s bid was revealed as the winner, it was also revealed that Northrop had said it could deliver the aircraft at $ 511 million. But it’s not clear what that price tag encompasses. Some features of the aircraft—such as sensors, nuclear weapons capability, and uncrewed flight—could be packaged under separate, classified contracts and raise the cost per plane significantly.
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