Aviation Week honors Boeing programs for excellence

By BA Staff

The Boeing P-8A Poseidon program and F-15 logistics program were recognized for their success at Aviation Week & Space Technology's Program Excellence award ceremony held Nov. 14 in Phoenix.

The P-8A maritime surveillance aircraft program won the System Level Production category, while the F-15 fighter jet Radar Contractor Logistics Support (CLS) Performance-Based Logistics (PBL) program was a finalist in the Sub-System Sustainment category.

Aviation Week's awards recognize management, leadership, best practices, benchmarking and other factors that make aerospace and defense programs successful.

Jean Chamberlin, vice president of Boeing Defense, Space & Security Program Management and a member of the Aviation Week Program Excellence evaluation team said:

"These nominees represent the 'best in class' when it comes to exceptional leadership and program performance, particularly when we reflect upon how far we have come since the first awards in 2005. I am proud of the improvement these programs demonstrated in customer and supply chain integration and collaboration. It is an honor to be recognized by our industry and government partners."

The U.S. Navy has called P-8A the most successful major Department of Defense acquisition program in the past 30 years. The program exceeds requirements and has achieved every major milestone to date.

Rick Heerdt, Boeing vice president and P-8 program manager said:

"We're lucky to have a great partner – the U.S. Navy – on the P-8A program, and the entire industry team deserves credit for this award,"

The F-15 Radar CLS PBL program with the U.S. Air Force provides total system support to the Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar weapon system. The AESA system gives warfighters the capability to simultaneously detect, track, and engage multiple targets.

Kevin Pennington, F-15 Radar CLS program manager said:

"The PBL approach allows Boeing the ability to optimize radar system availability and performance. Ensuring radar availability provides greater situational awareness and decreased workload with increased survivability." 

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Boeing partners with US Air Force to reduce supply chain costs

By BA Staff

Boeing and the U.S. Air Force Sustainment Center (AFSC) have entered into an overarching public-private partnership that will streamline supply chain contracting, saving money and speeding up execution by as much as 10 months.

The partnership – the first of its kind – allows the three Air Force logistics complexes that are under the AFSC to immediately execute implementation agreements with Boeing.

Scott Strode, vice president and general manager of Maintenance, Modifications & Upgrades for Boeing Defense, Space & Security said:

“Boeing is proud to lead the way for industry by developing a new, more efficient and affordable way to do business.”

In the past, each complex – Oklahoma City Air Logistics Complex, Ogden Air Logistics Complex and Warner Robins Air Logistics Complex – would enter into an individual partnering agreement with Boeing, a process that took 12 to 16 months to complete.

The enterprise partnering agreement now in place allows the complexes to move directly to executing the details of the agreement, allowing implementation eight to 10 months earlier.

Ken Shaw, vice president of Supply Chain Management for Boeing Defense, Space & Security said:

“The new partnering agreement will make our supply chain more agile so we can deliver maximum mission readiness to our customers.”

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Boeing and Lockheed Martin team-up for US Air Force bomber program

By BA Staff

The Boeing Company and Lockheed Martin Corporation are teaming together to compete for the United States Air Force's Long-Range Strike Bomber program, with Boeing acting as the prime contractor and Lockheed Martin as the primary team-mate.

To this critical mission, the team brings together nearly two centuries of combined experience designing, developing and testing aircraft for defense customers around the world. The companies also bring expertise in integrating proven technologies, and their skilled workforces and infrastructure and scale, to meet the U.S. Air Force’s cost and schedule requirements.

President and Chief Executive Officer Dennis Muilenburg, Boeing Defense, Space & Security said: 

"Boeing and Lockheed Martin are bringing together the best of the two enterprises, and the rest of industry, in support of the Long-Range Strike Bomber program, and we are honored to support our U.S. Air Force customer and this important national priority. 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."

Separately the companies are developing two of the Air Force's top priorities, the KC-46 tanker and F-35 Lightning II, respectively, and they partnered on the F-22 Raptor stealth fighter. Each has delivered key Air Force capabilities including the B-1B bomber, F-15E strike fighter, and F-117 and F-16 fighters.

Orlando Carvalho, Executive Vice President of Lockheed Martin Aeronautics said:

"Building on decades of manned and unmanned weapon systems experience, we’re proud to bring our collection of technologies, capabilities and resources to affordably design, develop, produce and sustain the bomber program. We’re confident that our team will meet the well-defined system requirements and deliver a world-class next generation Long-Range Strike Bomber to the U.S. Air Force within the budget and timeframe required."

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Indian Air Force's first Boeing C-17 Globemaster III enters flight testing

The Indian Air Force's (IAF) first Boeing C-17 Globemaster III airlifter (tail number CB-8001) has been delivered by Boeing, on schedule, for flight testing.

Indian Air Force C-17 Globemaster III. CB-8001

The first of the 10 airlifters ordered, now enters a U.S. Air Force (USAF) flight test program at the famous "The Right Stuff" Edwards Air Force Base in Palmdale, California, USA. This particular aircraft completed the 'major join' of its fuselage about six months ago.

These C-17's were ordered by the Indian government under the US government's Foreign Military Sales (FMS) programme. In effect it is the US government that is selling these planes to India, hence Boeing's delivery to the USAF. India's Ministry of Defence signed an agreement with the U.S. government on June 15, 2011, to acquire 10 C-17 airlifters, making India the largest foreign C-17 customer. The governments finalised the Foreign Military Sales contract for the airframe on June 6, 2012.

Air Commodore Sanjay Nimesh, Air Attaché at the Embassy of India said

"The C-17 met the stipulated airlift requirements of the Indian Air Force when it flew field evaluation trials in India during June 2010," "It was exciting to see the C-17 fly again, this time with Indian Air Force markings, as the airlifter completed its first-flight milestone on Jan. 11. We look forward to the day that the first IAF C-17 flies over India."

After completing its flight trials and IAF acceptance trials, the first C-17 will arrive in India in the late summer of this year.

Boeing confirms, it is on track to deliver four more C-17s to the IAF this year and five in 2014. Boeing will support the IAF C-17 fleet through the Globemaster III Integrated Sustainment Program (GISP) Performance-Based Logistics contract.

A Boeing spokesperson confirmed that a USAF C-17 would come for the AeroIndia 2013 show, but not the IAF aircraft.

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