{"id":69121,"date":"2024-07-23T16:29:52","date_gmt":"2024-07-23T16:29:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2024\/07\/23\/boeing-says-it-will-shun-fixed-price-contracts-for-drone-wingmen\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T00:41:02","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T00:41:02","slug":"boeing-says-it-will-shun-fixed-price-contracts-for-drone-wingmen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/air\/2024\/07\/23\/boeing-says-it-will-shun-fixed-price-contracts-for-drone-wingmen\/","title":{"rendered":"Boeing says it will shun fixed-price contracts for drone wingmen"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">FARNBOROUGH AIR SHOW \u2014 A top Boeing executive said Monday the company plans to keep <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/unmanned\/2024\/04\/24\/here-are-the-two-companies-creating-drone-wingmen-for-the-us-air-force\/\" target=\"_blank\">bidding to make drone wingmen for the Air Force<\/a> \u2014 but not if it means agreeing to a fixed-price contract.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIf it\u2019s a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/industry\/2024\/01\/09\/cautionary-tale-how-boeing-won-a-us-air-force-program-and-lost-7b\/\" target=\"_blank\">fixed-price development program<\/a> that requires a ton of maturity \u2026 that is a recipe for failure,\u201d Ted Colbert, president and chief executive at Boeing Defense, Space and Security, told reporters at the Farnborough Air Show in England. \u201cIt really is. The stuff that we do is really hard, and we\u2019ve got to set ourselves up for success.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Air Force wants to create a fleet of autonomous drones known as Collaborative Combat Aircraft to fly alongside F-35s and the future Next Generation Air Dominance fighter. The service is now planning to create a fleet of about 1,000 CCAs to carry out a variety of missions including conducting airstrikes, jamming enemy signals, gathering intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, and serving as decoys in combat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In April, the Air Force awarded contracts to Anduril and General Atomics to design and build the first round of CCAs. A second wave, or as the Air Force calls it, \u201cIncrement 2,\u201d will follow, and Boeing plans to bid on it unless it means agreeing to a fixed-price contract.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Under a fixed-price contract, a company agrees to create a system for the military at a set price tag. If the program busts its budget, the company is on the hook for cost overruns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Boeing has ended up taking billions of dollars in losses on fixed price deals for programs like the KC-46 Pegasus refueling tanker. In an October 2023 earnings call, Boeing chief financial officer Brian West told investors the company has not signed any further fixed-price development contracts, \u201cnor [do we] intend to.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Boeing\u2019s newfound reluctance to agreeing to fixed-price contracts showed up late last year, when the company was disqualified from the contest to build the replacement for the E-4B Nightwatch \u201cdoomsday plane.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Colbert said the deal to build the Survivable Airborne Operations Center would have entailed agreeing to fixed-price elements and other components that were unacceptable to Boeing. Sierra Nevada Corp. ultimately received the deal to build SAOC for the Air Force.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe submitted a proposal on that \u2026 but we were disqualified,\u201d Colbert said. \u201cAnd that was it. \u2026 There were dimensions of that, that we just cannot sign up for. Especially given the complexity of that particular system.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And when a program involves \u201cimmature technology\u201d or a system that is among the first of its kind, such as CCAs, Colbert said Boeing will need to protect its own interests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThis isn\u2019t meant to be an adversarial comment,\u201d Colbert said. \u201cIt\u2019s about doing it right together with our customer. It\u2019s about us acknowledging that these programs are really tough in the early years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Boeing\u2019s work on the MQ-28 Ghost Bat, an autonomous drone primarily flown by the Royal Australian Air Force, and the MQ-25 Stingray autonomous drone refueler has laid the groundwork for more work on the CCA program, Colbert said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Colbert predicted the Air Force\u2019s future fleet of CCAs will be made up of a variety of different drones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cKind of like your families of car models,\u201d Colbert said. \u201cSmall, medium, large, attritable, lethal. That whole market is set up for a lot of competition going forward, and we\u2019re investing to make sure that we can compete in that market.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;That is a recipe for failure,&#8221; Boeing Defense, Space and Security president Ted Colbert told reporters at the Farnborough Air Show.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":113353,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":7,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[7,160,29,87,36],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3412],"class_list":["post-69121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-air","category-daily-news-roundup","category-digital-show-dailies","category-farnborough","category-newsletters"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"Y3WJZO5L3ZCSJKHAHJ5HTDF6TY","arc_canonical_url":"\/air\/2024\/07\/23\/boeing-says-it-will-shun-fixed-price-contracts-for-drone-wingmen\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented 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