USA Today October 29, 2001
Lockheed fighter jet takes $200B prize
But Boeing, allies vow not to be totally cut out
By Byron Acohido
In the end, the competition for the richest defense contract ever -- more than $ 200 billion to build 3,000 Joint Strike Fighters -- may have boiled down to a beauty contest.
And even before the celebratory air at Lockheed Martin could dissipate Friday, vanquished Boeing and its political allies intensified their lobbying, virtually assuring the Bethesda, Md.-based company will have to share some of the wealth with loser Boeing.
After a 6-year design competition, both aerospace giants fully met military specifications for a stealthy, supersonic fighter that could be mass-produced in different configurations for Air Force, Navy and Marine use. Both passed muster on meeting extensive cost and program management requirements. But Lockheed's X-35 and Boeing's X-32 diverged on aesthetics.
Lockheed came up with a classic design based on its sleek F-22 fighter: air intakes along each side of the fuselage blending into angular wings. Boeing opted for a single delta wing and a central air intake mounted obtrusively just under the nose. Sources close to the competition say Air Force reviewers hated the X-32's look.
"The Boeing design is flat ugly," says John Pike, defense analyst at GlobalSecurity.org. "That intake is hideous. It looks like a pelican."
Boeing's avant-garde design may have been the most conservative technically, especially for the 600 jets that the Marines require be capable of taking off from short runways and making vertical landings like a helicopter. The Marines want to replace the aging AV-8B Harrier jump jet. In designing the X-32, Boeing adapted the Harrier jet's combat-proven technology of redirecting jet thrust to get lift quicker on short takeoffs and allow vertical landings.
Lockheed installed a separate lift fan, which adds weight but gives the X-35, now called the F-35, slightly better performance for those maneuvers. "Lockheed pushes the envelope, convincingly so," says Brett Lambert, analyst at DFI International, a defense consulting firm.
Yet while Lockheed won the "winner-take-all" competition, few expect Boeing to be cut completely out of the Joint Strike Fighter mother lode. Rumors ran rampant last week that defense officials would assign production of the Marine jets to Boeing, or at least require Lockheed to bring Boeing on board as a major subcontractor.
But Department of Defense Under Secretary Edward Aldridge says, "the winner-take-all strategy was the right approach" to keep project costs down. Congressional sources say a deal is in the works, with delegations from competing states negotiating the final split.
Lawmakers from Washington state and Missouri, where Boeing operates, want the Chicago-based company to get as much as a 35% cut. But their Texas counterparts -- looking out for Lockheed's Fort Worth plant, where the F-35 will be built alongside the F-22 -- have been pushing to keep Lockheed's cut at 80%, a congressional source says.
Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., is pushing hard to get Boeing's St. Louis factories, where the Navy F/A-18 Hornets and F/A-18 E/F Super Hornets are made, to co-produce the F-35. Bond contends maintaining two F-35 factories will preserve the nation's ability to ramp up production quickly, should it need to do so. Bond says he will seek to "provide some legislative encouragement for the Defense Department to assure there is a second production line."
Boeing could become a subcontractor for major parts, as it is on the Lockheed F-22 fighter, or develop composite materials to help aircraft escape radar detection, as it did for the Northrop Grumman B-2 bomber.
"You can parse these contracts out a lot of different ways," says Chris Hellman, analyst at the Center for Defense Information. Boeing stock closed Friday at $ 37.68, up $ 1.78. Lockheed Martin closed at $ 49.92, up $ 1.02.
Copyright 2001 Gannett Company, Inc.
