Impending cuts to the defense budget of some $480 billion over the next decade “will stifle the ability of the defense industry to deliver innovation and urgent wartime capabilities,” warned the Defense Industrial Base Task Force last week. Worse, reductions beyond that, up to the $1 trillion sequestration level outlined in the 2011 Budget Control Act, “would severely damage the defense industrial base as a commercially viable enterprise, as a reliable and responsive provider of urgent wartime needs, and as a national strategic asset that is indispensable to the defense of the United States,” according to the report that the task force publicly released on Jan. 6. “This report paints an alarming picture for the future of the aerospace and defense industry,” said Aerospace Industries Association President Marion Blakey in a release. The report is based on a task force survey of several dozen companies. The task force is comprised of companies from AIA, the National Defense Industrial Association, and Professional Services Council.
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.