The Navy now has additional access to Boeing's F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and EA-18G Growler technical data, allowing the service to support full sustainment of the aircraft.
An increase of over $1 billion to a previously awarded contract will allow the Navy to receive Phase One of a technical data package, composed of “Boeing-owned technical data for aircraft support equipment tooling and some limited supplier technical data,” according to a Navy spokesperson.
The Navy will keep pursuing additional technical data owned by Boeing suppliers to continue long-term sustainment of the aircraft, Navy spokesperson Elizabeth Fahrner told Inside Defense.
This data allows the Navy to sustain the Super Hornet and Growler by “expanding I-Level capabilities, developing and implementing reliability improvements, managing obsolescence, performing organic upgrades, technology insertion and maintaining readiness and safety,” Fahrner added.
The Navy already had access to some of the data through Boeing’s data systems, yet this new contract “allows the Navy to take delivery of the technical data package into Navy data systems to support transition to full sustainment at the end of production,” Fahrner said.
The contract award follows a lengthy push by the Navy to acquire the intellectual property needed to maintain and repair Super Hornets. In March 2023, Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro told lawmakers at a House Appropriations defense subcommittee hearing that the service needs the data to perform repairs in the field.
In the event of conflict with China, for example, sending aircraft back to the United States for repairs could cost unnecessary time and money, he said.
“We’re going to have to repair those things ourselves, which means . . . we need -- on behalf of the American people and our service members -- the data rights, the full data rights package that we paid for and deserve to have in order to be able to repair and sustain those aircraft in combat,” Del Toro said at the time.
Rep. Mike Garcia (R-CA) pushed back against the secretary’s claim and told Inside Defense last July that the supply chain could be put at risk if the technical data package was fully handed over to the Navy.
“You’re asking companies to give up intellectual property that may actually compromise their seed corn,” he said. “Businesses run the risk of the government trying to replicate what [they] do for a living. You may not have an operation if they figure it out correctly.”