Boeing is “very happy” in its partnership with Lockheed Martin to develop technologies and eventually a proposal for the next generation bomber, and the arrangement will stay intact for now, Boeing Military Aircraft President Chris Chadwick told reporters Wednesday. The team comprises the only two fighter primes left in the US, and “we complement each other” very well, he said. The partnership was announced last year on the assumption that money would be in the Fiscal 2010 budget to start designing the bomber. The team is awaiting guidance out of the Quadrennial Defense Review about new timing and direction for the bomber project and will stay together at least until those announcements are made. Chadwick declined to speculate whether the two would stay married if the bomber turns into a large unmanned platform; both companies have a goal of becoming a key prime in future unmanned systems.
President Joe Biden will nominate former Air Force acquisitions chief William LaPlante to serve as the Defense Department undersecretary for acquisition, one of the remaining vacancies at the Pentagon. LaPlante, who served in the Obama administration as assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, technology, and logistics from 2014…