That's what I said. Boeing was a co- on B-2 and a partner with
Lockheed on F-22. Gosh, you think maybe some secrets leak across
programs?....nah, never happen. I wasn't implying that Lockheed was a
partner in B-2.
Sorry Ed. I misread and your statement went right past me.
Gee, if you had come to me first I could have picked up the phone and called my
buddies next door in the F-117 program at Wright-Patt :).
Speaking of sharing stealth data, DoD has has a $3 Billon lawsuit against it
for 6 years or so from GD/McAir, cum Boeing, over the cancellation of the Navy
A-12 program by Cheney,the then SecDef. Their claim is that the program was
terminated at the convenience of the government and that the reason for the
cost/schedule overruns was that the government chose not to share stealth
secrets across F-117 and B-2 programs with A-12 developers contrary to
contractural arrangements. Also that the program was cancelled by Cheney who
was not a warranted contracting officer. The government's position was that it
was cancelled for cause, ie, GD/McAir were concealing the delays and not
performing.
The incident was triggered by a phoney show and tell to Cheney at GD. He had
told the USN program director that he wanted to see proof of program progress
after warning the contractor and USN several times to get their act together .
So they set up a hangar with some A-12 looking parts from their scrap pile and
had some people look like they were fabricating and assembling them to "show"
Cheney.. Cheney learned of the scam and cancelled the program.
The USN program manager retired and fled to England to avoid prosecution.
At least from the AF side there was no issue we were aware of preventing us
from sharing stealth information with the A-12. The decision and subsequent
appeals have gone on for years and at this point Boeing is the loser but as
usual it is on appeal. The case required that the F-117 and B-2 programs
catalog and store over a million pages of classified information. I guess the
makers of the suit hoped to prove there was information that the A-12 program
needed but to my knowledge, none has ever been discovered. Instead, the
complaint and appeals are now based more on "alleged" procedural errors than
anything else.
Wonder how much this plays in Washington in theBoeing KC-767 miniseries drama
still unfolding.
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