AviationWeek.com, August 30th, 2023 - An underdog bid by a midsize private company to take on America’s aircraft and defense giants is starting to take shape in a sparkling new hangar in a desolate corner of the Dayton, Ohio, airport complex.
SNC recently cut the ribbon on this 90,000-ft.2 maintenance, repair and overhaul hangar, one of four with a separate 120,000-ft.2 paint facility that the company is planning. The construction is part of a self-funded bid for what would certainly be one of the company’s biggest programs, if SNC can pull it off: The U.S. Air Force’s Survivable Airborne Operations Center (SAOC). The program has a development budget of more than $8 billion over the next five years to replace the Air Force’s aging Boeing 747-based E-4B Nightwatch fleet, also known as the Doomsday Plane.