“I would hope we’ll see some decisions about how to move out soon” on the long range strike system, Pentagon acquisition chief Ashton Carter said Wednesday at AFA’s Air & Space Conference. He called the LRS a “complex mosaic of electronic attack, ISR, strike, stand-in, standoff, manned, unmanned [capabilities]” requiring a lot of work in cost tradeoffs that is going on department-wide. “In so many places in the department, we’ve lost the knack for doing that. Not in the Air Force, in connection with this project. And that’s the work that [Defense Secretary Robert Gates] deserves to see before he makes decisions on that.
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.