SecDef says KC-45 meddling by Congress may provoke retaliation
Filed under: Boeing, Contract Awards, EADS, GAO, Military Aviation, Northrop Grumman Corp., Protest, U.S. Air Force, logistics
According to this story during testimony about the FY09 Defense budget Secretary of Defense Gates warned that adding a requirement to contract awards for US jobs would only provoke retaliation by US allies in Europe and Asia. Currently Federal procurement law does not have increasing or protecting US jobs as a consideration for evaluating and awarding contracts. Congress can certainly add that to the law, and some have mooted they will, but it would come at a price. The US defense industry is now dependent on non-US companies for many parts and products. US allies are also dependent on US companies for a large amount of their systems as they do not have the capability to produce them. Any attempt by the US government to prevent foreign companies from competing could backfire and reduce the market for US companies. As we have stated here many times with the consilidation in the US industry in the Nineties it is hard to get decent competition for these kind of procurements. Only Boeing, EADS and Russian companies could have bid on it; McDonald Douglas is long gone, so Congress needed to expect this kind of situation.
Romania to buy F-16’s
Filed under: Contract Awards, FMS, Lockheed Martin, production program
According to this article the US DoD has proposed selling 48 F-16 fighters to Romania. This would be one of the biggest FMS sales to a former Warsaw Pact nation. The addition of the F-16 would be a major upgrade to the capability of the country. The Czech Republic has looked at buying some Western equipment and there has been some purchases of companies like Poland’s PZL by Western countries. The movement into NATO of some of these countries will also accelerate these kind of purchases as there will need to be movement towards standardization.
Congress begins to debate KC-45 FY09 funding
Filed under: Boeing, Congress, Contract Awards, Department of Defense, EADS, Federal Budget Process, GAO, Northrop Grumman Corp., Protest, U.S. Air Force, commercial aviation, logistics
As part of the beginning of the mark-up of the FY09 President’s budget by the various House and Senate committees Congress is beginning to debate the future of the KC-45. According to this article, Congressman Young from Florida has suggested that the US Air Force split award the tanker contract. This would mean half goes to EADS, the winner, and half to Boeing. While this may be a politically judicious solution it has many impracticable aspects. First the cost increase to the total program would be significant as there would now be two sources of parts and two training systems set-up for the different aircraft. Second the Air Force would have to revisit the whole concept of basing and deployment as you would now have a mix of larger and smaller aircraft. The basis for the whole program is a capability requirement that feeds from larger OSD requirements to support the actual warfight. The split might mean more then the current planned buy would be necessary - another cost increase. The DoD and USAF are taking a position of waiting for the GAO ruling in about 40 days before anything is decided. Congress would be advised to do the same.
Congress states the obvious
Filed under: Congress, Department of Defense, Federal Budget Process, development program, production program
In response to this GAO report a while back Congress had some hearings to bash DoD acquisition programs. The article is here. The title is a little unfair in that “wastes” is a strong word. Few programs are terminated or canceled outright and those that do usually have some technology spill over. Developing, testing and producing major weapon and IT systems is hard. The system often does underestimate time and costs at the beginning, but it takes only one failed test to blow a schedule and millions of dollars. This is especially true of missile systems where your test assets are expensive enough and get expended in the test. Software development is often much more complicated and costly then originally thought, even though DoD has several decades of experience in this kind of matters. That doesn’t mean there is not room for improvement, but the only way to severely reduce time and money is to allow only incremental steps in capability. It is the never ending paradigm of weapon acquisition.
Australia cuts bait
Filed under: Australia, Boeing, Contract Awards, McDonnell Douglas, Military Aviation, production program
The Australian government decided after all to go ahead with the purchase of the F/A-18 to gap fill until the JSF is available. An article is here. The new more liberal government had discussed canceling the contract to save money. Now they claim they have been able to reduce the total cost, so it is worthwhile. See a previous article here. Read more
New management for the US dining facility in Kuwait
In this press release, on Albawaba.com of all places, Agility Defense and Government Services announces that they will take over the running of the Kuwait Dining Facilities (DFAC) utilized by the US military. Kuwait is the transfer station for a lot of soldiers and gear heading North to Iraq. The DFAC capability is key to this operation.
Connecticut politicians lobby for Sikorsky for VH-71 contract
Filed under: Contract Awards, Federal Budget Process, Lockheed Martin, Sikorsky, U.S. Navy, commercial aviation, development program
A group of 11 Congressman, mainly from Connecticut, wrote a letter to DoD asking for the Lockheed contract be canceled and put out for re-bid. See Hartford Courant for more. The hope is that Sikorsky will win the recompete. Read more
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