In a significant turn of events, despite having been seeing as one of, if not the leading firm involved the program, Northrop Grumman has revealed it will not submit a bid for the U.S. Navy’s MQ-25 Stingray tanker drone competition. The decision suggests that company felt it could not significantly redesign its existing X-47B unmanned aircraft, or develop an entirely new aircraft, and still make a competitive offer.
Northrop Grumman CEO Wesley Bush made the announcement during a phone call with reporters on Oct. 25, 2017. He added that this was the third time the company had decided to drop out of a major aircraft procurement program in the past decade. The firm pulled out of the KC-X tanker competition in 2010 and decided to withdraw its bid for the T-X trainer program earlier in 2017. The Navy released the final MQ-25 request for proposals (RFP) to Boeing, General Atomics, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman in October 2017 and the other three are still vying for the contract, which the service expects to award in September 2018.
We really look … under terms of [the] RFP to make sure we can execute,” Bush explained, according to a series of Tweets from FlightGlobal’s Leigh Giangreco. “You might say we’re a little tough on ourselves, but I demand and the company demands we’re clear eyed about that.”
Bush said Northrop Grumman did not feel it could “put forward an attractive offer” that met the Navy’s demands. However, he stressed that the decision wasn’t solely based on whether or not the company could win.
The announcement offers important hints as to how the competition might go over the coming months. Aviation analysts and experts had widely viewed Northrop Grumman as a leading candidate to build the MQ-25.
Source: The Drive