By B.C. Kessner
The Navy, Raytheon [RTN], and Britain’s Ultra Electronics Precision Air Systems are working together closely on development of the BRU-69 Multi-Purpose Bomb Rack (MPBR), a program that could save the Navy hundreds of millions of dollars and potentially create billions in sales for the companies, executives said.
“One of the things that is unique about this program as we go forward is that we’re actually integrating all of the elements of the program more significantly than you would see on a traditional program,” Rudy Lewis, director of depot support services at Raytheon Technical Services Company (RTSC), told Defense Daily Wednesday. “The customer’s design team will actually be participating in interim reviews with us…having access to the same datasets that the designers have, and likewise we have a very integrated team from a development perspective with Ultra and number of other key suppliers.”
Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) is the customer and co-designer on MPBR, and recently awarded Raytheon a $32.4 million cost-plus-incentive-fee contract for engineering and manufacturing development (EMD). NAVAIR in March originally awarded Raytheon’s team the win over two competitors (Defense Daily, April 5). The award was protested and the original decision was upheld in October.
The close teaming for design development is to ensure success on major milestones, and keep the program on track for delivering the first racks to NAVAIR’s PMA-201 for flight tests in 2014, Lewis said.
PMA-201 is the Navy’s Precision Strike Weapons Program Office, responsible for research, development, acquisition, and sustainment of the Navy’s air-to-ground precision guided weapons, general-purpose bombs, aircraft armament-related equipment, and all cartridge/propellant actuated devices.
The recent contract also has three options for low-rate initial production (LRIP) at the conclusion of EMD phase, Steve Hansen, MPBR program manager at RTSC, said. The LRIP deliveries are the main reason that full production does not begin until 2017, he added.
According to the executives, the Navy had looked at the life cycle costs of supporting its current BRU-33, -41, -42, and -55 rack systems, and then looked at replacing them with MPBR, a single configuration for multiple stores. “They found that they could get about $697 million in cost avoidance,” Lewis said.
MPBR is designed as a low-maintenance, high-reliability, and exact functional replacement for the above four bomb racks currently deployed on Navy aircraft. Advanced electronics built into the bomb rack will ensure the new system is compatible with current and future precision-guided weapons, or “smart bombs.”
MPBR uses pneumatic energy instead of an explosive charge to release the weapon from the rack. Ultra’s Precision Air Systems received about $6 million to make a variant of its airborne High Pressure Pure Air Generator (HiPPAG) that produces the pneumatic energy for the release system.
“It’s based on the current technology that we’ve used with the U.S. Navy, where we’ve supplied over two and a half thousand systems to the Navy for the F/A-18,” Andy Yates, managing director of Precision Air Systems, said. “It’s the same technology that’s used on the F-35 stores ejection system…and the same technology used on small diameter bomb, therefore it’s an extremely high TRL [technology readiness level] and a high degree of reliability,” he added.
The use of HiPPAG eliminates pyrotechnic cartridges, and the reduced associated maintenance tasks are another factor reducing life cycle costs.
“The MPBR global market is clearly of interest to Raytheon and Ultra Electronics,” Art Spooner, director of business development at RTSC, said. Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps aircraft including the F/A-18, F-16, F-35, and others both foreign and domestic are candidates for MPBR, he added.
“Our analysis suggests a potential $2 billion market with a good balance of opportunities for both foreign and domestic sales,” Spooner said. “The real near term opportunities for MPBR represent several thousand aircraft.”
There are significantly more candidate aircraft in the current global inventories, Spooner said. “However, market conditions and other factors will dictate their viability for MPBR.”