Northrop’s Late B-2 Work Spurs U.S. Cut After $2 Billion Outlay
- Pentagon official says Northrop ‘didn’t have the right talent’
- Project to evade air defenses reduced to new cockpit display
Photographer: Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images
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The Air Force has largely abandoned a planned upgrade of its aging B-2 bombers after spending almost $2 billion because Northrop Grumman Corp. couldn’t provide the software expertise needed to complete it on time and within budget, according to the Pentagon’s chief weapons buyer.
The project to make the 1990s-era planes better able to evade the improving air defenses of China, Russia and Iran was running almost three years late, and its projected cost had risen by $285 million to $3 billion last year, according to the Air Force’s latest Selected Acquisition Report on the program.