The Boeing Company and Lockheed Martin Corporation are teaming to compete for the United States Air Force’s longrange strike bomber programme, with Boeing acting as the prime contractor and Lockheed Martin as the primary teammate.

To this critical mission, the team brings together nearly two centuries of combined experience designing, developing and testing aircraft for defence customers around the world. The companies also bring expertise in integrating proven technologies, and their skilled workforces and critical infrastructure and scale, to meet the US Air Force’s cost and schedule requirements.

“Boeing and Lockheed Martin are bringing together the best of the two enterprises, and the rest of industry, in support of the longrange strike bomber programme, and we are honored to support our US Air Force customer and this important national priority,” said President and Chief Executive Officer Dennis Muilenburg, Boeing Defense, Space & Security. “Stable planning, along with efficient and affordable development and production approaches, enables our team to reduce development risk by leveraging mature technologies and integrating existing systems.”

Separately the companies are developing two of the Air Force’s top priorities, the KC-46 tanker and F-35 Lightning II, respectively, and they partnered on the F-22 Raptor stealth fighter. Each has delivered key Air Force capabilities including the B-1B bomber, F-15E strike fighter, and F-117 and F-16 fighters. The team will be able to produce unique and affordable solutions that could not be achieved without partnering.

“Building on decades of manned and unmanned weapon systems experience, we’re proud to bring our collection of technologies, capabilities and resources to affordably design, develop, produce and sustain the bomber programme,” said Orlando Carvalho, Executive Vice President of Lockheed Martin Aeronautics. “We’re confident that our team will meet the well-defined system requirements and deliver a world-class next-generation longrange strike bomber to the US Air Force within the budget and time frame required.”