Airframe Not Heavy Enough, According To US Army

The Embraer ERJ-145 won't be the platform after all for the Army's new Aerial Common Sensor project. The reason? It's just not able to accomodate all the equipment the Army wants it to.

As ANN first reported last month, the ERJ-145 (file photo of type, below, right) was originally picked as part of Lockheed-Martin's winning proposal. But nobody considered that the airframe itself might be unable to accomodate all the necessary equipment.  

The light bird colonel in charge of the Army's oversight on the project, Steven Drake, told Pentagon officials in an April 25th report that "weight issues are severe enough that it has been recognized that a reliable solution, which meets all performance requirements within cost and schedule constraints, will be a significant challenge." The report was quoted by Bloomberg News.

That indeed turned out to be too much of a challenge for the ERJ airframe. "The team concluded that an alternate airframe was necessary to provide the best solution," Drake said August 8th in an e-mailed statement to Bloomberg News.

Somebody bring a checkbook.

Lockheed has already spent $270 million of the $879 million it was awarded in a preliminary contract, trying to cram all that gear and its related cooling equipment into the ERJ-145. Now, it's back to the drawing board.

"Lockheed Martin is the prime contractor and, as such, shares responsibility for the unanticipated size, weight and power-cooling issues," Drake said in the e-mail. "They have demonstrated their commitment to the success of this program by bringing the full resources of their corporation together."

Embraer isn't out of the running for the project, which is to begin deliveries to the Army in 2010. The team also includes Argon Engineering, BAE Systems, Harris Corp., L-3 Communications and Raytheon.

FMI: www.lockheedmartin.com