So, about those Super Hornets ...
The day after media outlets, including the Post-Dispatch, reported that the Navy had begun the process of soliciting bids for another 36 F/A-18 Super Hornets, Navy officials apparently changed their minds.
A notice on a federal procurement website that the Naval Air Systems Command intended to negotiate a contract for up to 36 more of the St. Louis-built fighter jets was canceled Thursday, about two weeks after it was posted and just a day after it was widely reported in defense industry trade publications. A spokeswoman for the Naval Air Systems Command did not respond to questions as to why.
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The “pre-solicitation notice” — a preliminary step in the military contracting process — was seen as a sign that the Navy might be hedging its bets on an upcoming order for Lockheed Martin’s Joint Strike Fighter, by keeping the door open to buy more F/A-18s instead.
Such an order would be a boon for St. Louis, where thousands of people work at Boeing Co. and its suppliers building the Super Hornet. Production on the F/A-18 will start to wind down next year; another 36 jets would sustain it for a year or more, and make it easier to land foreign order that might prolong assembly beyond that.
It’s not clear why the pre-solicitation notice was quietly posted. Or why it was suddenly taken down once people noticed. But it seems apparent that there are at least some people in the Pentagon who want to keep the Super Hornet line open. And others who don’t.
