via USNI News.
The biggest legislative win for the Navy was partial funding for additional EA-18G Growlers the Navy had put on its unfunded requirements list.Wow.
The subcommittee elected to include 12 Growlers out of the 22 the Navy requested in its mark of the bill at $975 million.
Growlers are integral to the service’s emerging Naval Integrated Fire Control-Counter Air (NIFC-CA) which blend sensors and weapons into a new construct for fighting a carrier strike group (CSG).
Lets see. You start off behind the power curve, but you get it together quickly. Instead of balling up into a corner and "accepting" your fate you decide to fight back.
You start a website and get the military community talking about your product.
You get serious about lobbying members of congress.
You start doing a hardcore comparison between what your product brings to the table and what your competitor hopes (after more than a decade of development) to deliver.
And finally you do it at a price your customer can afford in these times of sequestration.
Boeing learned the game and they're fighting back. Why do I have a pic of the Advanced Super Hornet for a story about Growlers? Because I'd bet body parts that I highly value that this is only the beginning. Boeing will be back with the ASH as a cheap and affordable upgrade to keep those maintenance friendly, high availability, great bomb truck, network communications node airplanes.. competitive into the future.
Best news I've heard all day. :)
ReplyDeleteGood news for sure, but we must keep fighting to keep the line open beyond 2016/17 for more Growlers and possibly new build ASH.
Delete"Boeing has learned the game...." I do not know where you have been but Boeing knows the game. The problem is they lost there ace in the hole and have been able to replace him.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Foley
If you look at Boeing's contracts, they plummeted after he lost his seat. If you look at NEW contracts for Boeing they almost dried up entirely after his lost. The C-17/F-15E/F-18E/F and AV-8B+ were started prior to his loss.
He wasn't the only one. They also lost Todd Akin. Akin went out stupidly though.
DeleteThose conformal fuel tanks and weapons pods are going to be very useful upgrades/add-ons to the existing Super Hornet fleet.
ReplyDeleteI still want to see what the ASH flight performance will be with those EPE engines, in particular the transonic boundary.
Gotta buy congressmen, journalists and ex-flag consultants (all in quotes) to be competitive with LockMart. That's what they do. It's a corrupt propaganda-driven world and we live in it.
ReplyDelete