Italy to be punished for sole source aircraft contracts

October 17, 2008 by Dagpotter · Comment
Filed under: Agusta Westland, Contract Awards, Italy, Military Aviation, commercial aviation, production program 

Earlier this year the European Union had judged that Italy violated contract laws by awarding helicopter contracts only to state owned Agusta. Now that Italy has failed to take any mitigating steps they are moving to punish the country. Italy had claimed national security reasons for only considering Agusta to provide the aircraft. This is part of an effort by the EU leadership to allow competition across at least the countries of the EU.

For more see Rueters.com.

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KC-X haunts CSAR-X

September 17, 2008 by Dagpotter · Comment
Filed under: Agusta Westland, Boeing, Contract Awards, Department of Defense, GAO, Lockheed Martin, Military Aviation, Proposal, Protest, Sikorsky, U.S. Air Force, commercial aviation, production program 

With the decision to punt on the KC-45 recompete by the current administration there are some worries that this might affect the CSAR-X contract as well. Last word was that the announcement of who won the new GAO ordered competition would come sometime this Fall. Now some of the competitors; Sikorsky, Augusta Westland and Boeing; are concerned that perhaps this decision will delay the announcement of the winner. Boeing had won a contract only to have a protest upheld by GAO for the USAF not applying their criteria correctly.

See this short AP article for more.

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India goes with AW for new VIP aircraft

August 29, 2008 by Dagpotter · Comment
Filed under: Agusta Westland, Contract Awards, India, Military Aviation, Sikorsky, commercial aviation, production program 

Like the US Navy, India awarded a contract to Augusta Westland for their new VIP transport helicopter. The contract is worth about $300 M. Sikorsky was one of the unsuccessful bidders with their S-92 aircraft. The EH-101 selected will offer a larger cabin, although it is a more expensive aircraft. US companies have been trying hard lately to break into the Indian market as that country has turned away from its traditional English and Russian suppliers. India has also made a great effort to begin developing a sophisticated, indigenous arm suppliers.

See The Hartford Courant article about this contract here.

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US Air Force to award CSAR-X recompete soon

August 16, 2008 by Dagpotter · 1 Comment
Filed under: Agusta Westland, Boeing, Contract Awards, GAO, Military Aviation, Northrop Grumman Corp., Proposal, Protest, Sikorsky, U.S. Air Force, UTC, commercial aviation, development program, production program 

In a contract that has fallen to the back burner recently due to KC-45 events, the Air Force announced that they would complete the recompete for the CSAR-X by September. Contract award would be soon after. The CSAR-X contract to replace the HH-60 PaveHawk aircraft was originally awarded to Boeing with a variant of the CH-47. Sikorsky and Lockheed Martin protested and won with the GAO ruling that the Air Force did not apply the selection criteria properly. The whole contract was recompeted with Boeing, Sikorsky and Lockheed resubmitting bids.

For more see this article at www.pressconnects.com for the Binghamton area.

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Finmeccanica follows through

May 14, 2008 by Dagpotter · 1 Comment
Filed under: Acquisitions, Agusta Westland, Congress, DRS Technologies, Finemeccanica, IT, Italy, production program 

Bump - Fresh off good financial reports for the quarter, EADS is now looking at DRS Technologies as well. See an article here. This makes it sound like DRS might be a good buy.

As rumored this weekend Finmeccanica bought DRS today. The deal is for around $5 B. See an article here. This is the biggest acquisition so far by an European company. DRS has been an attractive take over target for a few years, one of the reasons its stock was so high. If this deal can make it through the necessary regulatory and legal review it will be quite stunning. Prior to this BAE and EADS had been doing smaller acquisitions, under a $1B. In today’s political environment due to the KC-45 deal and it being an election year it should be interesting to see Congress’s reaction.

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