Boeing now has a $14.9 million contract to provide systems engineering and modeling services for USAF’s A-10 wing replacement program. Last summer, the company received a $2 billion contract to manufacture the 242 wing sets needed to replace “thin-skin” winged A-10s. In a company statement, William Moorefield, Boeing program manager, said the “modeling would result in a true paperless engineering package,” a process developed over the last 15 years that has produced “significant cost savings” for programs such as the F-18E/F and C-17 and others.
Fresh off its most ambitious test yet of an autonomous cargo plane, the Air Force is preparing to go even bigger by deploying and operating another such aircraft for an entire year.