As the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program continues to accrue criticism over cost and schedule overruns and missed milestones, the U.S. Navy is looking to an old standby—the Boeing-built F/A-18 Super Hornet—to plug potential holes in its airborne fleet. The Navy’s unfunded “wish list,” headed to lawmakers’ desks this week, includes 12 Boeing-built F/A-18 fighter jets alongside eight Lockheed Martin F-35Cs. Each purchase would be worth roughly $1 billion for the companies—if Congress decides to fund them.
That’s great news for Boeing BA -0.17% , whose F/A-18 production line is set to cease production in 2017 if the company receives no new orders. But a decision on whether to spend the company’s own cash on long-lead production materials like titanium will have to be made this summer, before Congress finalizes its fiscal 2016 budget. A strong signal from the Navy and Congress now could play a big role in that decision…….
……Boeing needs to produce at least two aircraft per month to keep its St. Louis-based F/A-18 assembly line economically viable, so the additional dozen F/A-18s desired by the Navy would only sustain production for an additional six months. But it would keep it humming into mid-2018, when further U.S. orders or a foreign customer might extend production further still. Boeing is currently chasing a potential deal with Kuwait for a reported 28 aircraft. Other Gulf nations as well as Denmark and Belgium are weighing fighter jet orders at the end of the decade as well. An lifeline for the F/A-18 now could be the difference between Boeing remaining a maker of combat fighter jets or exiting the space entirely as orders for its existing products taper.
No comments:
Post a Comment