After meeting with DoD and the US Air Force to discuss the new tanker RFP due to the GAO upholding their protest, Boeing is now saying that without significantly more time to prepare a proposal they may have to drop out. The new schedule is for the Boeing and Northrop Grumman teams [...]

Rumors are swirling that Boeing may not bid on the new contract for the KC-45. See an article here. Supposedly Boeing is piqued that the new requirements supposedly favor Northrop Grumman and EADS and will not submit a bid. If there is only one bid it may require the whole process to [...]

The House Appropriations Committee marked the FY09 budget before taking their August recess.  See a story here. The Army’s struggling Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter (ARH) program was marked to delete 13 aircraft, and the Navy’s Presidential Helo was also decremented. The House also ordered that consideration of jobs would be a criteria for the [...]

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 [...]

In this article entitled Boeing Wins Tanker Protest, But Drama Is Far From Over, the Seattle Times states:
The saga of the Air Force refueling tanker contract is not over by a long shot, though Boeing won a huge victory Wednesday when the Government Accountability Office (GAO) comprehensively backed the company’s protest of the initial contract [...]

The GAO ruled today in Boeing’s favor on the KC-45 protest.  They decided that the Air Force failed to properly apply its source selection criteria and did not calculate some of Boeing’s costs correctly.  See a story here.  The GAO recommended that the competition be reopened.  This is what happened with the CSAR-X contract, ironically [...]

This article is a good summary of the KC-45 contract. The GAO is supposed to rule on Boeing’s protest within the next two weeks. One would have to bet that they will disallow the protest. There is a chance though, that somehow the Air Force screwed up in how they applied the [...]

According to this article the Air Force is expected to award the GPS III contract this week following a successful DAB a few weeks ago. Boeing and Lockheed Martin are in the running, and some are inevitably expecting a protest by the loser. Lockheed Martin won most of the GPS II work and [...]

This article discusses the idea that Finmeccanica, the Italian defense conglomerate, is looking at DRS Technology for an American acquisition. Like EADS and BAE the Italian company has been expanding its presence in the US. Its helicopter arm, Augusta Westland, won the VH-71 Presidential helicopter teamed with Lockheed Martin and is also trying [...]

As previously discussed here the US Navy awarded the Broad Aeriel Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) contract to Northrop Grumman. The two losers were Boeing and Lockheed Martin. Now according to this story Lockheed is protesting. Northrop Grumman won with a version of the Global Hawk, Lockheed had proposed a scaled up version of [...]

In this story Mr. Young, the Assistant Secretary of Defense of Acquisition, Technology and Logistics expresses concern over the recent amount of protests with large systems. Part of the story is letting Boeing know not to focus on the recent lost KC-45 award, but to look to future competitions. He also generally agreed [...]

As reported here in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Northrop Grumman continues to point out that the KC-45 contract if it survives the Boeing protest will bring lots of jobs to the US. Especially to the South. Not only is the main plant going to be at Mobile, AL; but this article shows that [...]

According to The Hill Boeing is using its lobbyists to push Members of Congress to receive a briefing from the CIA on “foreign companies” using questionable means in their attempts to win contracts. See the article here. Of note the only two Congressman to talk on the record about this were Tiahart from [...]

The Saint Louis Post-Dispatch has a good article summarizing the protest process. See the story here. It stresses that the GAO will overturn only if they find that the acquiring agency did not apply their criteria correctly during the source selection process, and even if they uphold the protest, the most likely result [...]

As expected Northrop Grumman filed a motion with the GAO to dismiss the Boeing protest of the KC-45 award. Most likely that will not happen, but it does allow Northrop and EADS to get some information on the record. See the story here. The gist of Northrop Grumman’s argument is that Boeing [...]

This story is about how BAE Systems possible expanded production of MRAP’s and their submission of a bid for the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) contract may allow them to enlarge their Michigan facility. Right now no production is done there, but the demand for the MRAP or JLTV may lead that to be [...]

The Financial Times reports that the political war over the KC-45 contract is intensifying. According to the article, Northrop Grumman is busy lining up lobbyists and support in Congress to fight Boeing’s protest of their contract award.

Dyncorp was cleared to go ahead and begin work on a $4.6 B contract it had won to provide translation services in Iraq to the US DoD. It had been protested by one of the losers. See the story here. L3 dropped the protest after it became part of the team that [...]

Press reports indicate that Boeing filed their protest with the GAO today. The key complaint is that the requirements were changed to accomodate the larget KC-30 aircraft. Key quote is “Emotion did not play into this,” McGraw said of Boeing’s decision to file a protest. “We were deliberate in this process and we [...]

Based on this story run in The Hays Daily News, Senators and Congressmen from the losing states are beginning the process to use politics to overturn the KC-45 award to Northrop-Grumman and EADS. Unfortunately there are Senators and Congressman from the states that stand to gain from the award.

In this article in The Seattle Times, noted aerospace analyst Loren Thompson explains why Boeing lost to Northrop-Grumman and EADS. Basically, the 767 wasn’t competitive.

5:00 PM EST came and went with no contract announcement yet. I guess we will need to wait until tomorrow. The SeattlePI.com Boeing blog says it now looks like Friday, according to this entry. Governor Gregoire of Washington says that there is a good chance of a protest or Congressional action if [...]