KC-X RFP Questions And Answers Continue

November 6, 2009 by Matthew Potter · Comment
Filed under: Boeing, EADS, KC-X, KC-X Tanker News, Syndicated Industry News 

The U.S. Air Force put out a draft Request for Proposal (RFP) in late September. It has proceeded apace with the receipt of questions related to the RFP and putting out answers. The idea is that the type of questions received should help write the final RFP to make it better and get better proposals.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports that so far two sets of answers have been put out and they already run to several pages. Considering that it is expected only the same two teams will bid it indicates the new RFP is significantly different.

This will be a long, hard slog of a contract award again.

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Congressman Murtha Makes Inefficient Recommendation for KC-X

January 30, 2009 by Matthew Potter · Comment
Filed under: Alabama, Boeing, Business Line, Companies, Congress, Contract Awards, Department of Defense, EADS, Events, Federal Budget Process, GAO, Military Aviation, Northrop Grumman Corp., Protest, Restructuring, Services, Suspensions, U.S. Air Force, Washington, commercial aviation, development program, logistics, production program 

Congressman Murtha, the powerful Democratic head of the House Appropriations Subcommittee for defense, was visiting Mobile, AL and made a rather stupid recommendation for the KC-X program. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports that he said the Air Force should split the work between Boeing and the EADS-Northrop Grumman team. Unless the military is going to buy large numbers of a system — and 150 odd tankers does not count — the costs associated with having two training, support and parts systems are unjustifiable. The aircraft would also end up more expensive as there is less economy of scale available with small lot buys. Murtha is just trying to split the knot but the suggestion is not practical.

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Reaction to the KC-X award

February 29, 2008 by Matthew Potter · Comment
Filed under: Boeing, Contract Awards, EADS, Northrop Grumman Corp., U.S. Air Force, commercial aviation, logistics 

Here are some links that are commenting on the win by Northrop Grumman and EADS.

http://www.aero-news.net/ – KC-45A Wins Deal Over Boeing’s KC-767 Note: I think no matter what aircraft was chosen it would be called the KC-45A.

Wichita, KS News on MSNBC – Key phrase from Sen Roberts of KS: “”I am deeply troubled by the Air Force’s decision to award the KC-X tanker to a French company that has never built a tanker in its history. We should have an American tanker built by an American company with American workers. I can not believe we would create French jobs in place of Kansas jobs.”

Seattle Post-Intelligencer – “Tanker award caps tumultuous period” – Good round up of the history of the KC-X program.

Leeham Company LLC Analysis by Scott Hamilton – “Boeing will be out of the tanker business for the next 20-40 years if it loses the KC-45A
award, its spokesman predicted, which helps explain why Boeing is fighting so hard to win the competition.”

Oh yeah, how they feel at Northrop Grummand and EADS: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YX5oqEfAydg

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