By Andrea Shalal
PALMDALE, Calif., Dec 15 (Reuters) - Northrop Grumman Corp , riding high after its selection to build the next U.S. long-range bomber, says it is investing heavily and hiring workers as part of a focused plan to unveil at least one "big, bold and ingenious" new technology each year.
Tom Vice, president of Northrop Aerospace Systems, told reporters that Northrop aims to drive innovation and develop new technologies that the Pentagon says it needs to stay ahead of Russia and China.
Northrop, the third-largest U.S. weapons maker, scored a huge win in late October when it beat out Boeing Co and Lockheed Martin Corp to win the Air Force bomber contract, a deal analysts say could be worth up to $80 billion.
"The bomber win positions them as one of the two long-term combat aircraft players in the United States," said Richard Aboulafia, vice president of analysis at the Virginia-based Teal Group. "They're getting back into a leadership position."
Northrop builds key parts of both Lockheed's F-35 fighter jet and Boeing's F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, as well as the high-altitude Global Hawk and Triton unmanned planes, but it has not been the prime contractor on a major combat plane for years.
Vice declined to discuss the bomber program, which remains classified, or a protest filed by the losing team.
But company officials showed reporters an advanced manufacturing facility in Palmdale, California, where Northrop built all 21 B-2 bombers and now builds the center fuselage for the Lockheed F-35 fighter jet, and a composites plant in El Segundo, California.
About half the Palmdale building stands empty, with 1 million square feet of capacity available for new work on advanced aircraft, according to company officials. A huge photograph on display shows the building crammed full of B-2 bombers, each of which has a wingspan of 172 feet (52.43 m), during the heyday of that program.
Vice, who started at Northrop Grumman in 1986 as an engineer testing the B-2 program, said the company is boosting spending on research and development of new technologies that might not be harnessed for a decade under its NG NEXT program.
The company is also working on capabilities that could be available sooner, including hypersonic systems and new fiber-based lasers, he said.
Northrop has set its gaze on two key aerospace programs: an $11 billion program to build 350 new training planes for the Air Force, and separate early efforts by both the U.S. Air Force and Navy to develop sixth-generation fighter jets.
Vice showed reporters a model of the company's design for the so-called T-X trainer, which bears some resemblance to the T-38 trainer that Northrop built from 1961 to 1972. He said the first flight of the newly designed aircraft is scheduled for early next year, and declined to provide photographs of the new design.