Northrop Grumman is consolidating activities of its aerospace systems sector into five centers of design and integration excellence, announced the company on Monday. It’s also going to shutter a facility in Dominguez Hills, Calif., that supports its information systems work, states the company’s March 4 release. The five COEs are: Manned Aircraft Design in Melbourne, Fla.; Unmanned Systems in Rancho Bernardo, north of San Diego; Electronic Attack in Bethpage, N.Y.; and two for Aircraft Integration: one in Palmdale, Calif., and one in St. Augustine, Fla., according to the company’s March 4 release. The Manned Aircraft Design COE will include aircraft design work currently performed in Bethpage; however, the company’s B-2, F/A-18, and F-35 programs will remain in Palmdale, El Segundo, and Redondo Beach, Calif., respectively, acccording to the release. The Unmanned Systems COE will incorporate the company’s MQ-4C Triton program from Bethpage and NATO Airborne Ground Surveillance program from Melbourne, states the release. “Consolidating these centers of excellence will improve our strategic alignment with our customers’ need for increasingly innovative and affordable products, services, and solutions,” said Wes Bush, company chairman, CEO, and president.
As with previous stealth aircraft unveilings, the Air Force’s imagery of the F-47 Next-Generation Air Dominance fighter has been doctored to keep adversaries guessing about its true shaping and design philosophy.