Air Mobility Command General pessimistic on tanker

Gen Lichte, the commander of AMC, expressed concern with the pace of the KC-45 recompete. He is concerned that not only will there be further delays in the award, but that the loser will then protest the recompete. DoD, taking over the competition from the Air Force, had originally planned for proposal submission in August. At Boeing’s request they have delayed this until 1 October, with a goal of awarding the contract by the end of Calendar Year 2008. Boeing is asking for more time, claiming that the requirements may drive them to bid a different aircraft then the B767 previously proposed. EADS and Northrop Grumman will most likely use a proposal that is mostly like the one that won last time. They even had the first KC-45 under construction.

Business Week has an article here.

GAO slams multi-year procurement with Boeing

February 9, 2008 by Dagpotter · Comment
Filed under: Boeing, Federal Budget Process, GAO, production program 

The GAO wrote a report at Senate behest about performance on multi-year aircraft procurement contracts. See Business Week here. In the three they looked at, C-17, AH-64 and F/A-18, all cost more than original projections and did not deliver the savings hoped. Read more