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What!?!?! Just when we thought this was going to be wrapped up soon, the Air Force has mistakenly given Boeing and EADS information on the other team’s respective bids for KC-X. Read the following from Defense News: “Earlier this month, there was a clerical error that resulted in limited amounts of identical source selection information being provided to both KC-X offerors concerning their competitor’s offer,” Air Force spokesman Col. Les Kodlick said Nov. 20. “Both offerors immediately recognized the error and contacted the Air Force contracting officers.” Kodlick said the service is analyzing the information that was inadvertently disclosed and...

Defense Department officials here March 31 informed companies interested in bidding on the KC-X aerial refueling tanker contract that if the European Aeronautics Defense and Space Co. formally expresses an intention to compete, the bidding deadline would be extended 60 days, the Pentagon press secretary said March 31. "We are committed to a fair, open and transparent competition in order to get the best airplane to our warfighters at the best value to the taxpayers," Geoff Morrell announced in a late-afternoon news conference here. Officials announced the final request for proposals, the Air Force requirements for the refueling tanker and...

Boeing’s biggest supporters roared out of the gate Tuesday after the World Trade Organization issued a final ruling that Airbus enjoyed unfair subsidies from European governments. “Enough is enough. For too long, workers in Washington state have had to fight an uphill battle. Instead of competing just with Airbus, they’ve been forced to compete with the deep pockets of European governments that supply Airbus with illegal launch aid,” Sen. Patty Murray of Washington said in a statement. Then she aimed straight at the tanker competition. “It’s clear that the A330, the very plane Airbus would offer our military, has received...

Russia’s United Aircraft Corp. isn’t planning to bid for the Pentagon’s $35 billion Air Force aerial-refueling tanker program, Chief Executive Officer Alexei Fyodorov said, contradicting U.S. media reports. The Wall Street Journal reported March 19 that United Aircraft, the maker of Ilyushin transport planes, was preparing a bid to be announced as early as today. The Washington Post also wrote about the plan on March 20. Both media reports cited John Kirkland, an attorney at Luce Forward in Los Angeles who said a venture would be announced between United Aircraft and a small, unidentified U.S. defense contractor on March 22...

Here's the latest twist in the Air Force tanker saga: The Russians are coming. Russia's government-owned aerospace company will announce Monday it is competing against Boeing for the $40 billion refueling-tanker contract, a Los Angeles attorney for the company said Friday. United Aircraft of Moscow plans to unveil a U.S. partner and offer a modified version of its Ilyushin Il-96 wide-body plane, said John Kirkland, a Los Angeles lawyer representing the group. The still-unidentified partner, "a U.S. public company and existing defense contractor," would assemble the planes in the U.S., he said. The Russian interest in the tanker bid was...

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said on Thursday the Pentagon will drive a hard bargain with Boeing on a contract for a new aerial refuelling tanker after Airbus parent EADS dropped out of the competition. "I wish that we had had a competition. I wish both companies had stayed in it," Gates said. But he said that "we will certainly be sharpening our pencil when it comes to negotiating a contract with Boeing", the sole bidder for the troubled tanker aircraft project. He said he saw no reason why the decision by EADS and partner Northrop Grumman to bow out...

<p>Air Force and Pentagon officials made more than 230 changes from the draft to final request for proposals for new aerial refueling tankers but kept the approach that may make Boeing the only bidder.</p> <p>"Where we haven't changed things is in the basic requirements for the airplane," Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn said in a Webcast news conference Wednesday afternoon. "In the end this is about what the Air Mobility Command needs to meet the warfighting needs of the nation."</p>

House Armed Services ranking member Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., may attempt to use the fiscal 2009 defense authorization bill to overturn Friday's Air Force decision to award a contract worth up to $40 billion to Northrop Grumman Corp. and EADS, the European consortium behind Airbus, for a new fleet of aerial refueling tankers. Hunter, a fierce "Buy America" advocate who has sharply criticized the contract, is weighing his legislative options, a spokesman for committee Republicans said Monday. Options may include attaching language to the authorization bill to strengthen laws governing the amount of foreign content in U.S. defense hardware, or a...