Boeing workers want strike, union postpones

Update - The machinists started their strike last night. While some work could be done, no aircraft assembly is possible. This will delay the 787 further, and have a negative impact on their bid for the KC-45.

See a The New York Times story here.

The Boeing machinists voted to strike effective Wednesday night, but the leaders of the Union have given Boeing 48 more hours to come to an agreement. The strike will start tonight if no deal is reached. The leadership decision was controversial and not well received by the members who had voted overwhelmingly to strike. Any extended strike, as Sikorsky illustrated in 2006, will be very disruptive to the delivery schedules for all Boeing problems. It is especially key now as Boeing is expected to turn in their new proposal for the KC-45 soon.

See the St Louis Business Journal for some more information.

Air Force leadership interfered in contract award, disciplined

It turns out, according to this article, that the Air Force violated all sorts of laws and regulations in awarding a media company a contract to help promote the Thunderbirds aerial demonstration team. The company that won cost twice as much as the other bidder, who protested the contract award in 2006. It turns out that the company that won had a recently retired Air Force general as a partner and the current uniformed leadership of the Air Force interfered to steer it to that company. Now several people have been admonished and reassigned. Read more

Boeing claims USAF cost estimates for KC-45 favored EADS

As part of the source selection for any program the Government does an Independent Cost Estimate (ICE) for the various proposals. If it is for an ACAT ID program the OSD Cost Analysis Improvement Group (CAIG) does it, and if it is ACAT IC then the service’s cost people do it. Boeing is claiming that the ICE for their aircraft was flawed and that the USAF deliberately favored the Northrop Grumman proposal. See the story here. Having been involved in the process of generating these estimates I find it hard to believe that the independent cost analysts would deliberately do this. Read more

KC-45 contract riles FY08 supplemental debate

According to this article in Congressional Quarterly the debate on the FY08 supplemental bill for DoD operations may become a forum for debating the recent KC-45 award. Congressman Tiahart of Kansas, a major opponent of the award to EADS, had wanted to use it to propose amendments related to the award. This has been frowned upon by leadership as it is felt it may delay the bill. Congress will use the FY09 appropriations bill to deal with the controversial award.

The Weekly Standard on US Army personnel issues

February 20, 2008 by Dagpotter · Comment
Filed under: Commentary 

This article in The Weekly Standard is an excellent discussion of the problems facing the Army with their officer corps. Due to the heavy rotations of tactical forces through Iraq and Afghanistan you now have company grade and field grade officers, those who lead small groups of troops, with a lot more combat experience then their senior officers. Read more