By Marina Malenic
The Defense Department is likely to face yet another industry protest when it finally awards a $35 billion-dollar contract for a new fleet of aerial refueling aircraft to either Boeing [BA] or Northrop Grumman [NOC], according to the chief of Air Force Air Mobility Command.
“When the [request for proposals] comes out, I’m not sure that one side or the other side doesn’t protest again,” Gen. Arthur Lichte said yesterday. His organization is responsible for Air Force lift and aerial refueling operations.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) last month sustained Boeing’s March 11 protest of the contract award to Northrop Grumman and industry partner European Aeronautic Defense and Space Co. (EADS). GAO found that the service “made a number of significant errors that could have affected the outcome of what was a close competition” and recommended that the bidding process be reopened (Defense Daily, June 19).
The Pentagon is expected to release a final version of a new request for proposals (RFP) for the KC-X tanker this week, according to officials. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has put his own acquisition shop in charge of the effort instead of again leaving it to the Air Force. Officials in that office have projected that a contract award could be made early in the new year.
While the Air Force wants a speedy resolution of the issue, Lichte told reporters that such an outcome is unlikely.
“I mean this is a lot of money, I understand the business nature of this,” said the four-star. “But I don’t understand how at some point you stop and say, ‘This company wins, and this company loses.'”
“I don’t know how we get through something like that,” he added. “With the poisonous nature of all the comments that are out there right now, I don’t know how we make peace with everybody to say, ‘OK, let’s go forward.'”
At issue now is the optimal size of the new tanker. The Defense Department reiterated last month during the draft RFP rollout that it plans to give “positive consideration” for the ability to offload fuel in excess of the Air Force’s threshold requirement for the capability (Defense Daily, Aug. 7).
Northrop Grumman has offered a modification of its A330 aircraft, which has greater fuel capacity than Boeing’s KC-767. Boeing has threatened not to compete unless an additional six months is added to the competition, giving it enough time to perhaps enter a different airframe into the competition.
Lichte said he would be happy with either tanker.
“I don’t care which tanker wins,” he said. “I just need a new tanker.”
Splitting the contract between the two companies is one possible solution, Lichte acknowledged. But such a move would certainly lead to increased training and support costs, he said, as both pilots and mechanics would need to be trained on two airframes instead of one.
“For every year or two that we delay up front, that means that we fly these things past 2040, and that means the KC-135 [will be] over 80 years old,” the general concluded. “It’s unconscionable that we’re asking people to fly in combat in 50-year-old airframes.”