Northrop Drone Costs Rising `Unacceptably,' Must Be Held, Pentagon Says

[unhappycamper]

Northrop Drone Costs Rising `Unacceptably,' Must Be Held, Pentagon Says
By Tony Capaccio - Wed Sep 15 04:01:00 GMT 2010

The price of Northrop Grumman Corp.’s Global Hawk unmanned reconnaissance plane is rising too quickly and must be reined in, the Pentagon’s top weapons buyer said.

“Its costs have been growing unacceptably and have to be gotten under control -- and will be,” Undersecretary for Acquisition Ashton Carter said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. “We are not happy with the productivity we are getting. We are very much discussing that program and going through its management in detail.”

A Defense Department and Air Force review of the $11.1 billion program to buy 77 planes is almost done, the service said in a statement. The per-aircraft procurement cost has increased 11 percent to $100.8 million since the project started in 2000, according to the Air Force.

Global Hawk is one of several unmanned planes being used to meet Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ goal of expanding 24-hour drone patrols to 65 a day by 2013 from about 39 now. Gates has said he plans to save as much as $100 billion through 2015 by wringing out inefficiencies and overhead in the defense industry and the Pentagon itself.

The objective of the “very intensive” review is to avoid cost increases that would trigger the 1982 Nunn-McCurdy law requiring the Pentagon to certify to Congress the program’s importance to national security and show why it shouldn’t be canceled, Carter said. The measure takes effect when a program’s expense exceeds its initial cost estimate by 15 percent.



unhappycamper comment:
Bloomberg sez a single Global Hawk costs $100.8 million dollars.
Wikipedia sez a single Global Hawk costs $123.2 million dollars.

Northrop Grumman isn't looking all that good.

[LWolf]

1. A decade ago,

when I was married to someone working for General Atomics on their Predators, which were, at that time, strictly reconnaissance drones (no combat,) and already working in the field for more than one branch of the military, the Global Hawk was known as the "Chicken Hawk."

I lived in aerospace alley. Northrup was going to be competing with GA with the "chicken hawk."

At THAT time, GA sent a support crew out in the field with Predators. The air force "pilots" assigned to the predator were those deemed not competent enough to handle the more expensive manned aircraft. They resented being "downgraded" to drones, and didn't take very good care of them. Unlike the "real" planes, they only cost a million or so a piece; almost disposable. :eyes:

It's been 9 years since my divorce; I don't know how things have played out since then, since I don't talk to my ex. But $100 million for one drone? :wow: