Three F-16s from the 93rd Fighter Squadron prepare for takeoff at Homestead Air Reserve Base on Aug. 3, 2022, during the Golden Gecko Airmen Readiness Exercise 2023. (U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Lionel Castellano)
WASHINGTON — The Air Force is formally recompeting a deal with Collins Aerospace to provide modernized ejection seats for the service’s F-16 fleet, and could do the same for the F-22 and B-1 based on the results, the service announced tonight.
Work already underway to integrate Collins’s ACES 5 ejection seat on the Air Force’s F-15 fleet will continue, according to the service’s press release. But officials will now compete a deal to reseat the F-16, and “decisions following the competition could extend to other platforms, including the F-22 and B-1,” the release said. A new request for proposals will be issued, the Air Force said.
As Breaking Defense covered last month, the decision puts up for grabs the safety of upwards of thousands of Air Force pilots, hundreds of millions of dollars and a chance for sole competitor Martin-Baker to steal away at least some business from RTX subsidiary Collins.
“With 713 lives saved, ACES is the safest ejection seat available. We look forward to working with the US Air Force to qualify and install the latest generation of our ejection seats, the ACES 5, on the F-16 fleet,” Collins said in a statement.
Martin-Baker, whose US18E seat is on contract for foreign sales of the F-16, said in a statement that “[w]e have a qualified seat for the F-16, and we look forward to the opportunity to compete.”
The service said an original sole-source award to Collins under the Next Generation Ejection Seat (NGES) program was “based on previous market research and assessment of technological maturity.” But the program has been hit by delays, and officials decided to review the deal with Collins by querying industry again in August. Officials chose a new approach based on that market survey, as well as “new data” and “evolving operations demands,” according to the release.
“The decision to re-open the competition underscores our commitment to continually assess our strategies to ensure we meet warfighter needs and timelines,” Air Force acquisition chief Andrew Hunter said in the release. “By reassessing market conditions and fostering competition, we ensure industry delivers the best possible solutions for both current and future Air Force requirements.”
The Air Force’s original NGES plan called for reseating the A-10, though officials have since decided to retire the platform — mirroring a shrinking fighter fleet. Collins is on contract separately to provide a new seat for the B-2 fleet, and the first bomber got its new seats last month.
It’s unclear how a competition might impact the already-delayed seat plan. For each platform under the NGES effort, “the Air Force projects a 36-month integration and test program, followed by a 24-month manufacturing lead-time, followed by aircraft modifications,” an Air Force spokesperson previously told Breaking Defense. Asked how a competition could impact that timeline, the spokesperson replied that “[i]nformation gathered from industry in the [August] sources sought notice will inform us on potential impacts to platform integration timelines.”
