Originally Posted by
ORAC
Can’t order off the shelf - has to be bespoke….
I can understand Boeing playing hardball, they’ve lost a fortune on all their recent fixed price contracts, and this is a sellers’ market…..
The level of engineering work needed to adapt the E-7 to the Air Force’s specifications was “above and beyond what we anticipated,” Hunter said.
“The big surprise there was an unexpected amount and degree of non-recurring engineering required to meet the requirement that the Air Force specified, which we thought was very close to what the U.K. is currently procuring from Boeing,” Hunter said. “Those discussions have been challenging.”….
As I posted earlier, messing with the avionics - especially on something as electrically complicated as an AWACS type aircraft - is a minefield. Getting everything to talk to each other - and do it without any interference to other systems - is really hard with tons of uncertainty.
With all the losses Boeing has taken recently, perhaps they had a heart-to-heart talk with the contracts people about how much 'minor' changes can cost.
Many years ago, we had a nightmare on the 767/CF6-80C2 when sales gave a guarantee to some small operator that their fancy new 767s could take off from a particular island runway with a full load on a hot day. Simple - thrust bump, right? Except 'thrust bumps' for sea level are a nightmare - because if you exceed the max SL thrust of the engine listed in the TCDS, they need to recertify the
entire engine to that new thrust level - mega bucks (probably 9 figures).
After looking at a number of options, it was concluded that the cheapest, easiest, and fastest solution was for Boeing pay to have the runway extended...
