Boeing just lost the contract to build the Air Force’s next bomber, but the Puget Sound area could still win big chunks of bomber work. There’s ample precedent, because Boeing workers in the Seattle area built wing and fuselage structures for the current B-2 bomber and the F-22 fighter. In recognition the fourth operational B-2 was named Spirit of Washington.
The long-range strike bomber will be no different, said Bryan Clark, a senior fellow and military expert at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, in Washington, D.C.
“It will work out that Boeing will get some of that business, but in a different form than they might have hoped,” he said, adding that the Defense Department’s intent is that the share of work for the major defense primes will “end up being almost the same, regardless of who wins it.”