WASHINGTON -- The Air Force settled a high-stakes competition between two military aircraft giants Tuesday by selecting a group led by Lockheed Corp. to build America's next generation of jet fighters.
The $60 billion Advanced Tactical Fighter project is heralded as the most lucrative and prestigious aviation contract of the 1990s. The decision establishes Lockheed and its team as leaders in the aviation industry and could deal financial setbacks to the group led by Northrop Corp., which lost the competition.
The ATF is to replace the F-15 Eagle, master of the skies during the Persian Gulf War.
Both competing prototypes, produced by the companies with a combined $1.4 billion of their own money, blended high performance, including cruising speeds well above the speed of sound, and stealth technology, the ability to elude radar detection.
In announcing the decision at a packed Pentagon news conference, Air Force Secretary Donald Rice said Lockheed produced a lower-cost proposal and its fighter appeared to have greater reliability and ease of maintenance.
He also said the Air Force weighed the competing companies' past record in 'controlling costs and meeting schedules' as contractors, meaning Northrop's recent financial scandals and its criticized performance with the B-2 Stealth bomber was considered.
'On balance, across the whole range of factors, we believe that this team ... offers the best value to the government,' Rice said.
'We believe it was a sound judgment and we don't have any second thoughts whatsoever,' he added.
Both Lockheed and Northrop are based in Los Angeles. The Lockheed team included Boeing Co. and General Dynamics Corp. The Northrop team included McDonnell Douglas Corp.
In addition, United Technologies Corp.'s Pratt & Whitney unit was selected to produce the ATF engines, beating out General Electric Co.
In awarding the contract, military leaders opted for the Lockheed group's angular design and stunning airborne agility over the Northrop team's smoothly curved design and raw speed.
Lockheed's YF-22 prototype, dubbed the Lightning 2, features almost unimagined maneuverability, including the ability to fly straight and level with its belly to the wind at an angle nearly perpendicular to the ground. The YF-22's maximum altitude is 50,000 feet, its maximum speed Mach 2 (twice the speed of sound).
'The ATF will ensure American air superiority well into the next century,' Rice said.
'From the beginning, our strategy was to pursue a balanced design,' James Blackwell, project manager for the Lockheed group, said in a statement. 'We combined stealth, the ability to supercruise ... and the improved agility that a new-generation fighter needs without trading away any reliability or maintainability. As evidenced by our win, our strategy paid off.'
Both teams flew their prototypes in extensive trials over the California desert surrounding Edwards Air Force Base last fall.
Rice said the proposed fighters differed 'only in minor characteristics' despite their starkly contrasting appearances.
'We were dealing with shades of differences, given that all the proposals were in the acceptable range,' Rice added.
Northrop spokesman Jim Taft described the mood at the company as 'very somber,' saying Northrop officials were expecting to 'talk about winning.'
'We felt very strongly that we could build an attack plane that was an exceptional product,' Taft said. 'So the other team must have built an extraordinary plane.'
The announcement comes on the heels of a Congressional Budget Office report stating the ATF is too expensive for dwindling military budgets and a CBO analyst suggested either scrapping the project or buying much smaller numbers of the fighters. Air Force officials have already said they will scale back their procurement request to 648 of the fighters, down from 750.
The contract calls for $13 billion for full-scale development and $47 billion for production of the 648 fighters, Rice said.
The announcement could touch off a dramatic corporate chain of events within the military industrial complex, with top technical personnel from the losing companies jumping ship to the winners, perhaps crippling the losing companies' future abilities to produce jet fighters.
Rice said there remains a substantial aviation funding base, but questioned whether that will 'sustain the same number of companies that we've know in the past.'
The Persian Gulf War served to further emphasize the need to establish air superiority in military conflicts. The allied forces unleashed an air campaign that quickly and decisively gained control of the skies above Iraq and Kuwait, paving the way for a devastating coalition victory.
The ATF, due to become operational in the year 2002, is the next step in the evolutionary scale of jet fighters.
Current jet fighters toting a full complement of weapons cannot fly above thespeed of sound without using fuel-devouring afterburners, which provide clearer targets for enemy heat-seeking missiles.
The extremely efficient engines required for the ATF provide the ability to 'supercruise' -- travel at about Mach 1.5 without afterburners -- to save fuel and extend range.
The ATF also will also be 1,000 times more difficult to detect than the F-15, will possess previously unknown supersonic agility and greater repair ease. The ATF is designed to detect an enemy aircraft, fire a missile and destroy the plane before the foe has the ability to detect its presence.
Lockheed will build the plane at its vast plant in Marietta, Ga.
'In evaluating engine and airframe ... one combination offered better capability with lower cost thereby providing the Air Force with a true best value,' said Air Force Secretary Donald Rice in announcing the decision.
In awarding the contract, military leaders opted for the Lockheed group's angular design and stunning airborne agility over the Northrop team's smoothly curved design and raw speed.
Lockheed's YF-22 prototype, dubbed the Lightning 2, features almost unimagined maneuverability, including the ability to fly straight and level with its belly to the wind at an angle nearly perpendicular to the ground. The YF-22's maximum altitude is 50,000 feet, its maximum speed Mach 2 (twice the speed of sound).
While the Lockheed prototype stressed features needed for close-in dogfights, Northrop's YF-23 entrant, nicknamed Gray Ghost, weighs in with a sleek frame and the combination of speed and superior stealth.NEWLN: more
Lockheed Corp. and Northrop Corp. are Los Angeles companies. The Lockheed team also includes Boeing Co., and General Dynamics Corp.
Both teams flew their prototypes in extensive trials over the California desert surrounding Edwards Air Force Base last fall.
The announcement comes on the heels of a Congressional Budget Office report stating the ATF is too expensive for dwindling military budgets and a CBO analyst suggested either scrapping the project or buying much smaller numbers of the fighters. Air Force officials have already said they will scale back their procurement request to 650 of the fighters, down from 750.
The announcement could touch off a dramatic corporate chain of events within the military industrial complex, with top technical personnel from the losing companies jumping ship to the winners, perhaps crippling the losing companies' future abilities to produce jet fighters.
The Persian Gulf War served to further emphasize the need to establish air superiority in military conflicts. The allied forces unleashed an air campaign that quickly and decisively gained control of the skies above Iraq and Kuwait, paving the way for a devastating coalition victory.NEWLN: more
The ATF, due to become operational in the year 2002, is the next step in the evolutionary scale of jet fighters.
Current jet fighters toting a full compliment of weapons cannot fly above the speed of sound without using fuel-devouring afterburners, which provide clearer targets for enemy heat-seeking missiles.
The extremely efficient engines required for the ATF provide the ability to 'supercruise' -- travel at about Mach 1.5 without afterburners -- to save fuel and extend range.
The ATF also will also be 1,000 times more difficult to detect than the F-15, will possess previously unknown supersonic agility and greater repair ease. The ATF is designed to detect an enemy aircraft, fire a missile and destroy the plane before the foe has the ability to detect its presence.
The ATF is not the first contestant in the stealth technology game. For example, Lockheed's F-117 flew some 1,300 sorties during the Persian Gulf War without once being hit by enemy fire. But the ATF overcomes many of the F-117's limitations, including lack of speed and agility.
The Air Force specifications for the ATF call for planes that will cost no more than $50 million each, just a slight increase over the cost of the F-15.
The Air Force settled a high-stakes competition between two military aircraft giants Tuesday by selecting a group led by Lockheed Corp. to build America's next generation of jet fighters.
The $60 billion Advanced Tactical Fighter project is heralded as the most lucrative and prestigious aviation contract of the 1990s. The decision establishes Lockheed and its team as leaders in the aviation industry and could deal financial setbacks to the group led by Northrop Corp., which lost the competition.
The ATF is to replace the F-15 Eagle, master of the skies during the Persian Gulf War.
Both competing prototypes, produced by the companies with a combined $1.4 billion of their own money, blended high performance, including cruising speeds well above the speed of sound, and stealth technology, or the ability to elude radar detection.
In announcing the decision at a packed Pentagon news conference, Air Force Secretary Donald Rice said Lockheed produced a lower-cost proposal and its fighter appeared to have greater reliability and ease of maintenance.
He also said the Air Force weighed the competing companies' past record in 'controlling costs and meeting schedules' as contractors, meaning Northrop's recent financial scandals and its criticized performance with the B-2 Stealth bomber was considered.
'On balance, across the whole range of factors, we believe that this team ... offers the best value to the government,' Rice said.
'We believe it was a sound judgment and we don't have any second thoughts whatsoever,' he added.
Both Lockheed and Northrop are Los Angeles-based. The Lockheed team was made up of Boeing Co. and General Dynamics Corp. The Northrop team included McDonnell Douglas Corp.
In addition, United Technologies Corp.'s Pratt & Whitney unit was selected to produce the ATF engines, beating out General Electric Co.
In awarding the contract, military leaders opted for the Lockheed group's angular design and stunning airborne agility over the Northrop team's smoothly curved design and raw speed.
Lockheed's YF-22 prototype, dubbed the Lightning 2, features almost unimagined maneuverability, including the ability to fly straight and level with its belly to the wind at an angle nearly perpendicular to the ground. The YF-22's maximum altitude is 50,000 feet, while its maximum speed Mach 2 (twice the speed of sound).
While the Lockheed prototype stressed features needed for close-in dogfights, Northrop's YF-23 entrant, nicknamed Gray Ghost, weighs in with a sleek frame and the combination of speed and superior stealth.
'The ATF will ensure American air superiority well into the next century,' Rice said.
'From the beginning, our strategy was to pursue a balanced design,' James Blackwell, project manager for the Lockheed group, said in a statement. 'We combined stealth, the ability to supercruise ... and the improved agility that a new-generation fighter needs without trading away any reliability or maintainability. As evidenced by our win, our strategy paid off.'
Both teams flew their prototypes in extensive trials over the California desert surrounding Edwards Air Force Base last fall.
Rice said the proposed fighters differed 'only in minor characteristics' despite their starkly contrasting appearances.
'We were dealing with shades of differences, given that all the proposals were in the acceptable range,' Rice added.
The announcement comes on the heels of a Congressional Budget Office report that said the ATF is too expensive for dwindling military budgets. A CBO analyst suggested either scrapping the project or buying much smaller numbers of the fighters. Air Force officials already have said they will scale back their procurement request to 648 of the fighters from 750.
The contract calls for $13 billion for full-scale development and $47 billion for production of the 648 fighters, Rice said.
The announcement could touch off a dramatic corporate chain of events within the military industrial complex, with top technical personnel from the losing companies jumping ship to the winners, perhaps crippling the losers' future abilities to produce jet fighters.
Rice said there remains a substantial aviation funding base, but questioned whether that will 'sustain the same number of companies that we've known in the past.'
The Persian Gulf War served to further emphasize the need to establish air superiority in military conflicts. The allied forces unleashed an air campaign that quickly and decisively gained control of the skies above Iraq and Kuwait, paving the way for a devastating coalition victory.
The ATF, due to become operational in the year 2002, is the next step in the evolutionary scale of jet fighters.
Current jet fighters toting a full compliment of weapons cannot fly above the speed of sound without using fuel-devouring afterburners, which provide clearer targets for enemy heat-seeking missiles.
The extremely efficient engines required for the ATF provide the ability to 'supercruise' -- travel at about Mach 1.5 without afterburners -- to save fuel and extend range.
The ATF also will be 1,000 times more difficult to detect than the F- 15 and will possess previously unknown supersonic agility and greater repair ease. The ATF is designed to detect an enemy aircraft, fire a missile and destroy the plane before the foe has the ability to detect its presence.
Lockheed will build the plane at its plant in Marietta, Ga.
