McDonnell Team Expected to Win Bomber Contract

McDonnell Douglas and General Dynamics are virtually assured of being named the team to develop and build the Navy’s first ground attack bomber for the 21st Century, an award potentially worth more than $35 billion, sources said Sunday.

The Navy had planned to announce the winning team today if budget differences between the White House and Congress had been worked out, Pentagon sources said. But the House and Senate, while passing an emergency one-day spending bill to prevent a government shutdown, continued working on massive legislation funding the government through the next nine months.

The losing team of Grumman and Northrop submitted a bid for the new light bomber, called the Advanced Tactical Aircraft, that was substantially higher than their competitors, the sources said. About 500 ATAs will be built.

Unless there is a last-minute change for technical reasons, which the sources said was highly unlikely, the Grumman-Northrop team would not get the contract.

McDonnell Douglas builds such aircraft at its St. Louis facilities, and General Dynamics at its Fort Worth installation.

Grumman has traditionally been the Navy’s contractor and the loss of the ATA award marks the first time the Bethpage, N.Y., company will not be designing and building a new aircraft carrier warplane in more than 50 years.

The ATA will replace the aging fleet of Grumman-built A-6 Intruders, the aircraft carrier fleet’s mainstay all-weather, nighttime bomber since the early 1960s.