Boeing not chosen for tanker contract with US Air Force

[Broken-Wrench]

Under its agreement with Northrop, EADS will supply green A330 airframes from its plants in Europe. Those planes will be flown to a new facility in Mobile, AL to be outfitted with the EADS refueling equipment, and other military-spec gear to be supplied by Northrop

[BLR]

Boeing beaten on tanker must-haves
By Dominic Gates

Seattle Times aerospace reporter

Boeing was comprehensively beaten on almost every aspect of the competition for the $40 billion Air Force tanker contract awarded Friday, according to a report published Monday by a defense analyst with close Pentagon connections.

If so, Boeing may have only the slimmest chance of reversing the victory of Northrop Grumman and Airbus parent company EADS.

Loren Thompson, a defense analyst with the Lexington Institute, issued a memo Monday that discussed the outcome based on "weekend conversations with government officials intimately familiar" with the Air Force decision.

On the five specific criteria used to decide the winner, Thompson wrote, "Northrop Grumman's victory was not a close outcome. ... The Northrop-EADS offering was deemed much better in virtually all regards."

Responding to the firestorm criticism about the award, the Pentagon's chief weapons buyer, undersecretary of defense for acquisition John Young, issued a statement Monday saying a team of independent civilian and military analysts appointed by him would vouch that the Air Force "conducted a very open, fair and detailed competition process."

Those two assessments suggest Boeing's hope of a reversal of the award may now rest on largely political grounds — opposition to the outsourcing of U.S. jobs on a government defense contract.

The Air Force had scheduled its first formal briefing to Boeing for March 12, a couple of days before Congress' Easter recess.

But a bipartisan delegation of lawmakers from Washington state and Kansas — including Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, both Democrats from Washington; and Sens. Sam Brownback and Pat Roberts, both Kansas Republicans, called Monday on Defense Secretary Robert Gates to debrief Boeing this week on the decision.

Both Democratic presidential contenders, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, criticized the award Monday.

Thompson, who last week used his government contacts to call the surprise outcome of the tanker contest an hour before the official announcement, said in an interview Monday that Air Force officials "were very convinced early on that there were problems with the Boeing proposal."

According to his conversations with officials, said Thompson, "Northrop offered a superior proposal in every measure and Boeing simply did not do a competent job of presenting its case."

The Northrop proposal, which put forward the much bigger A330 against the 767, even swung the Air Force around from its original thinking.

"The Air Force started out believing that the larger aircraft was a liability," Thompson said. "Northrop did such a superior job of analysis that they convinced a reluctant Air Force to treat the larger aircraft as an asset."

His memo listed the five key criteria as capability, risk, past performance, cost and "integrated fleet aerial refueling assessment," a score from a computer model that measures performance in various war scenarios.

"Boeing didn't manage to beat Northrop in a single measure of merit," Thompson wrote.

The two proposals were assessed as equal on the perceived risk that the contractor would not perform as required.

By every other measure, Northrop won. On past performance, the big delays to the Japanese and Italian 767 tanker programs weighed heavily against Boeing, Thompson said.

And Thompson, who was considered by EADS to favor Boeing in the competition, added this damning endnote to his memo:

"The reviewers concluded that if they funded the Northrop Grumman proposal they could have 49 superior tankers operating by 2013, whereas if they funded the Boeing proposal, they would have only 19 considerably less capable planes in that year."

Scott Hamilton, an Issaquah-based analyst who has long considered the Northrop-EADS proposal superior, described that bottom line as "astounding."

Hamilton criticized Boeing's public-relations campaign during the contest for focusing on aspects such as the creation of U.S. jobs and government subsidies to EADS, rather than the merits of the two planes.

"Boeing doesn't seem to have a leg to stand on for a successful protest," said Hamilton. "I think that [local] anger really ought to be directed at Boeing for putting together such a poor proposal."

Although the Northrop-EADS tanker will be assembled in Mobile, Ala., the major A330 airframe sections will still be built in Europe and shipped across the Atlantic.

Boeing declined to comment Monday as it awaits its debriefing from the Pentagon. But reaction to the political elements of the contest continued to build Monday.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said Monday he hadn't made up his mind on the outcome of the contract award.

McCain, the likely Republican nominee for president, helped scuttle a previous 2001 deal that gave the contract to Boeing.

"Having investigated the tanker lease scandal a few years ago, I have always insisted that the Air Force buy major weapons through fair and open competition," McCain told The Associated Press. "I will be interested to learn how the Air Force came to its contract award decision here and whether it fairly applied its own rules in arriving at that decision."

Obama, of Illinois, expressed disappointment Sunday that Chicago-based Boeing lost out.

Obama said it was hard for him to believe "that having an American company that has been a traditional source of aeronautical excellence would not have done this job."

Clinton, D-N.Y., a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said she was "deeply concerned about the Bush administration's decision to outsource the production of refueling tankers for the American military."

While details of the decision are not fully clear, Clinton said, "it is troubling that the Bush administration would award the second-largest Pentagon contract in our nation's history to a team that includes a European firm that our government is simultaneously suing at the [World Trade Organization] for receiving illegal subsidies."

Dominic Gates: 206-464-2963 or dgates@seattletimes.com

Material from The Associated Press was included in this story.

Copyright © 2008 The Seattle Times Company

[CAPFlyer]

The only overland SST flights in continental USA were a few by Braniff, and I'm not buying they caused a backlash. If the Boeing SST had survived to service, then, while it might have been (probably) crippled by the limitations of the changed market demand, anti-noise protest, and fuel costs, I'd bet that US airlines would have flown a US SST, at the least across the Atlantic and Pacific. The investment, plus the 'invented here' scenario meant it would've happened, IMHO. American's aren't quitters.

Actually, Braniff's flights were never supersonic. They flew at Mach 0.95 during the flights between New York, Washington and Dallas. This is directly from the ops profile and from 2 of Braniff's pilots.

The FAA passed the supersonic prohibition in 1973 after a series of tests as part of the US SST programme to study the effects of supersonic shockwaves at the proposed operational altitudes and speeds of the US SST on the ground. It was found after these tests that the disruption and damage done by these shockwaves was unacceptable leading to the proposed rule on 10 April 1970 to prohibit overland supersonic flight in the United States. This proposal became a regulation on 27 April 1973.

The timeline does jive with the fact that the regulation was borne out of the studies and that the regulation led in part to the cancellation of the B2707.

[Mark Nankivil]

Here's some added info regarding the RFP and the deal:

http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/the ... rfp-03009/

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ ... t/kc-x.htm

Enjoy the Day! Mark

[JDK]

The only overland SST flights in continental USA were a few by Braniff, and I'm not buying they caused a backlash. If the Boeing SST had survived to service, then, while it might have been (probably) crippled by the limitations of the changed market demand, anti-noise protest, and fuel costs, I'd bet that US airlines would have flown a US SST, at the least across the Atlantic and Pacific. The investment, plus the 'invented here' scenario meant it would've happened, IMHO. American's aren't quitters.

Actually, Braniff's flights were never supersonic. They flew at Mach 0.95 during the flights between New York, Washington and Dallas. This is directly from the ops profile and from 2 of Braniff's pilots.

Sorry, I wasn't clear. The flights were, as we agree, by SST types, but subsonic, which only goes to reinforce the point that overland supersonic flight wasn't generating a backlash as it didn't happen.

No one (except Russia) has undertaken overland supersonic transport flight. The opportunity for US airliners to use a SST over the Atlantic or Pacific on long haul (like ~um~ NY to Paris, for instance) was there.

That's all irrelevant. I think it's reasonable to believe there was a fair amount of 'not invented here' about the US resistance to Concorde use, and you can stack data to 'prove' it. Likewise one can build a case that it was all above board, honest trading. I don't believe that, It'd be a first.

You are clearly an informed, intelligent aviator. If you tell me that you really can't conceive that a even a smidgen 'not invented here' syndrome was even a slight consideration in the US resistance to an Anglo-French aircraft arriving in the US, I'd be surprised. Very surprised.

The US like a lot of other places has a strong desire to buy the home product. Nothing wrong with it. The US is also a notorious market to sell into, and US corporate buyers can be, and often are, one-eyed about US products and you seem to have to be significantly better to sell in. Perfectly normal, and the same the world over, but let's not kid ourselves that there's not sometimes a minor, or significant home-grown bias, against as good a foreign product.

Just my opinion,

[CAPFlyer]

James, the backlash was over the then-ongoing overland supersonic flight by US Military Aircraft. To ignore this as part of the discussion is to incorrectly bias the reader against the full scope of the background from which decisions about civil SST operations were made. Had it not been for the XB-70 USAF/NASA tests, the full scope of sonic boom damage would not have been realised until after civil SSTs had begun flying. Because of the XB-70 flights, the changes were made.

[JDK]

Sure, not an area I'm familiar with; the scope element also includes the 'darn foreign airplane' issue as well, that's all I'm trying to say.

Cheers

[CAPFlyer]

I'm sure that was part of the issue, but the biggest part was that (for years) there had been complaints about military supersonic flight and damage it was causing. Since they were (at the time) looking at regular supersonic operations across the US by both the US SST and foreign SSTs, the FAA felt the "critical mass" had been reached in public opinion and requested the rule to be imposed. Personally, I think had BA & Air France really wanted to, they could have negotiated a supersonic corridor to allow supersonic overland operations, but as Concorde was just barely able to make DC & New York non-stop with a full load, it never really became a real point of contention.

Also, as the FAA does have purview over Military Operations, the "no supersonic flight" rule that was enacted covered their operations as well. The military has several "automatic" exemptions like active intercept of an unknown aircraft in US's Air Defence Identification Zone, in designated supersonic corridors, or by standing Letter of Agreement, but otherwise, they have to send the FAA a request and get that request approved to be able to fly supersonic over land, just like the civilian owner of a supersonic-capable warbird must do.

[bdk]

Towards the end, wasn't Concorde flying supersonic over Canada when going between the East and West coasts of the US?

[JDK]

Thanks, CAPFlyer.

There certainly were issues about Concorde flying Europe Australasia which killed the Singapore Airlines project, despite a trial route being flown.

Back on the topic though, when I see a lot of noise about Boeing not getting the deal, or being gypped, I see a lot of "the home team didn't win". Certainly it seems the AF were playing games / moving the goalposts, but that's been the way of ity since we first started selling baskets for beads. The USAF isn't, in any sense 'foreign' to Boeing. If they failed to build a cosy enough working relationship with the AF and keep the congressmen off their back, then they failed at the reality of the job, however 'unfair' that may be.

As I keep saying anyone expecting to get a straightforward transaction with all the parameters laid on the table and a fair race to the finish in defenc/se sales is, frankly, based on the evidence, naive.

Fighting it now (however justified) is a waste of US private and tax cash, better spent elsewhere. Kind of suits the enemies of the US really.

Towards the end, wasn't Concorde flying supersonic over Canada when going between the East and West coasts of the US?

Not sure which 'end' you mean, bdk? End of trials, or end of service? Later ops, apart from the NY-Paris/London flights were special bookings like the burn around the Bay of Biscay, AFAIK, but I'm no expert.

Appreciate the discussion. I don't know much about current defens/ce deals, but they d@mn well look like all the historic ones I've seen.

[muddyboots]

before this gets too far, why don't some of you look at the LAWS passed by CONGRESS which required the Air Force to allow foreign conrtactors to bid? This didn't happen because the air force decided it wanted to throw France a bone. It happened because our country has viewed the NATO nations as an inherant part of our defense industry. Unless we decide to rebuild out defense industry to be capapble of providing quality weaponry, and as long as NATO countries are putting together equipment that surpasses our own bloated defense contractors abilities, and as long as there are laws that allow the air force to buy better equipment from foreign nations, you can bet that our equipment will be provided by France, Germany, Japan, and the EU.

Instead of bitching and moaning about how evil our Air Force is for buying the best equipment it could get, why not look and see if your congressman voted for these laws? And if he did fire his ass. Unless of course, you want out military to have the best equipment it can get. Far as I know, the Airbus far surpassed Boingboing in every stage of the competition. For you "buy Americans," who don't realize it, that is a decidedly bad thing. If we're going to compete, we need to actually compete. And hopefully this fiasco will force our fathat American contractors to get off their duffs and compete, instead of expecting to be given wads of cash for subpar, outdated equipment.

As for an air conditionsed helicopter: if that AC equiped chopper outperforms an American chopper due to outdated avionicst, which would have performed better WITH AC, I say screw the American equipment. Again, I'd rather win the firefight than get dead, due to shoddy equipment, made in the fine USA by beer gutted, undereducated, overegotistical rednecks simply because we think buying American is more important than America winning. It's fine to patriotic. Not so fine to be patriotic and dumb.

Mind, as a fat gutted American redneck, I'd REALLY rather our own equipment be as good as or better than everyone else's. Until our defense industry realizes (like our automakers are slwoly beginning to) that they have to PRODUCE, I say thank goodness Europe is enlarging our shopping arena.


*hides under helmet and waits for multiple fire missions*

[muddyboots]

double post *sorry bout that*

[JDK]

double post *sorry bout that*

No, no, don't delete... oh. too bad.

Your first post was so passionate, I'm wondering what you were going to say to yourself in response?

[bdk]

http://www.reuters.com/article/pressReleasesMolt/idUSN0453283420080305

Meanwhile, the Pentagon's inspector general's office continues to examine whether the Air Force wrongfully encouraged Boeing to spend hundreds of millions of its own dollars to maintain suppliers for C-17 production in recent years in anticipation of congressional funding boosts.

[bdk]

Ensuring competition among two sellers means giving both leverage over the buyer, because if one exits the process, competition is lost. What the press has not pointed out is that McCain’s insistence on competition gave Airbus the power to force changes in the Air Force’s criteria.

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2008/03/13/airbus-alabama-boeing-and-mccain