Wes Bush: Northrop Undecided on Whether to Bid on Air Force T-X Trainer Program

Northrop Grumman CEO Wes Bush has said the company has not reached a decision on whether to submit a proposal for the U.S. Air Force’s $16 billion T-X trainer aircraft program, Defense News reported Thursday.

Bush said at a quarterly earnings call Thursday that Northrop is still evaluating the request for proposals and that it is more interested to compete in programs that have “a little bit of a trade space between cost and performance and value,” Valerie Insinna writes.

“We are looking at the way the customer is communicating around its view of the business deal and what’s important to them to make sure that our offerings really line up the right way in a very competitive environment,” he added.

Northrop and its Scaled Composites subsidiary partnered with BAE Systems and L3 Technologies to design, build and test a trainer prototype for the T-X program, Insinna reports.

Bush’s statement comes a month after the Air Force issued the RFP for the T-X program, which seeks a replacement aircraft for the T-38 plane, and a day after Raytheon and Leonardo decided to end their partnership for the program due to the companies’ inability to “reach a business agreement.”