KC-45 protest summary report released

June 25, 2008 by Dagpotter · Comment
Filed under: Boeing, Contract Awards, Department of Defense, EADS, GAO, Northrop Grumman Corp., Protest, U.S. Air Force, commercial aviation, development program, logistics 

The GAO released a summary of why they upheld the protest by Boeing over the KC-45 award. See an article here. The chief reason was due to the Air Force’s failure to properly apply the criteria for source selection. Of the several reasons listed two ones that stand out is that they gave EADS credit for exceeding a requirement when they should not have, and rather than just noting the risk associated with the Boeing bid the Air Force calculated a dollar figure to overcome that risk. This alone drove up the cost proposal of the Boeing K-767 aircraft. The Air Force technically still does not have to withdraw the award to Northrop Grumman and EADS, but they would be best off reopening the competition.

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Two rivals team together for missile contract

April 14, 2008 by Dagpotter · Comment
Filed under: Boeing, Department of Defense, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman Corp., Raytheon, development program 

Two of America’s largest defense contractors will join together to pursue the next generation air launched missile. Raytheon and Boeing announced that they signed a teaming agreement to prepare for the Joint Air to Ground Munition (JAGM) development program. See the press release here. The JAGM will replace Hellfire and Maverick missiles for launch from both fixed wing aircraft and helicopters. JAGM is at the early stages of its life and was started after the failure of the Joint Common Missile (JCM) program. See this for more on that. There is certainly no denying that the aging Hellfire and Maverick need replacing, although the Hellfire especially has seen a lot of use from OH-58D, AH-64 and Predator UAV in Afghanistan and Iraq. If Boeing and Raytheon team that leaves Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics as the only other US companies that might bid on such a program.

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