Boeing eliminated from USAF's 'Doomsday Plane' replacement competition

Boeing has announced that the USAF has eliminated it from the Survivable Airborne Operations Center (SAOC) competition – an $8bn programme that aims to procure a successor for the air arm’s fleet of E-4B Nightwatch (or so-called ‘Doomsday Plane’) advanced airborne command post aircraft. The firm’s withdrawal from the competition leaves just the privately owned defence contractor, Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC), as the sole bidder for the SAOC contract. It is understood that Boeing and the USAF were unable to