Gene Fraser, Northrop Grumman’s VP for Long Range Strike tells attendees today at AFA’s Air Warfare Symposium in Orlando that the company has upgraded four USAF B-2 bombers with advanced high frequency material as part of the second phase of a fleet-wide modernization program. Fraser said the new materials give the stealthy aircraft greater reliability, since AHFM reduces maintenance hours from a standard 80 to as few as four. The new materials coating replaces some of the most labor-intensive low observable processes with more efficient ones.
The Air Force and Boeing agreed to a nearly $2.4 billion contract for a new lot of KC-46 aerial tankers on Nov. 21. The deal, announced by the Pentagon, is for 15 new aircraft in Lot 11 at a cost of $2.389 billion—some $159 million per tail.