Posted on 02/24/2011 8:21:33 PM PST by Nachum
Boeing gets the tanker contract. I smell a rat. A crooked rat. Even Boeing thought it was going to lose. EADS under-bid it, and its plane was bigger and could do more. But Boeing is headquartered in Obama's Chicagoland, and Defense Secretary Gates will retire to his Seattle-area home -- Seattle being the main historic base of Boeing and still the site of the largest portion of its jobs, including the jobs for the tanker project. It's all so very convenient...... as it was convenient for Boeing to get the first contract after a major kickback scheme, as it was convenient for Gates to throw out the legit award to EADS and re-open the competition even after the Air Force corrected for the eight small procedural errors identified by GAO in an otherwise perfectly fair process. The rat is big and hairy, and it smells like the sewer from which it crawled.
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
The list, ping
Let me know if you would like to be on or off the ping list
http://www.nachumlist.com/obamaethics3.htm
errr.....why is it a problem that an American company...that will produce American jobs...got this contract?
Wouldn’t there be even more screaming if it had been given to a foreign company?
My brother in law works at Boeing and he told me they didn’t expect to get it.
Boeing should have based the design on the newer 777 instead of the older (and smaller) 767. That would have made the deal more believable.
There are obvious problems either way.
I am surprised by this, after saying just a little while ago that Airbus was going to get it. They’ve been going back and forth and hemming and hawing for years now.
Yes, there are problems with Boeing. But there are also problems with Airbus. Even if they do some of the work here, it’s still a Euro/French company. And Boeing used to be technically superior. I really don’t know if that still is the case, but it was last time I heard expert opinions on the matter.
I was not rootin’ for a Euro Company to send my tax dollars to in spite of the Chicago connections, and possible skullduggery involved here, so I guess I’m probably pleased with the results. Maybe. Perhaps.
The whole thing has been one long soap opera as far as I am concerned, but that seems to be the way things are anymore. I don’t like it this way. Whatever happened to ethics?
Sorry Alabama.
>>>>Sorry Alabama<<<<
You mean, sorry Alabama, Mississippi and Florida
Quin Hillyer can shove it up his ignorant ass
Boeing should have based the design on the newer 777 instead of the older (and smaller) 767. That would have made the deal more believable.
The 777 is larger airframe than required for job.
Though I don't know, I expect the 767 avionics would be updated for this program, at least to the level of the 777.
The larger 777 can lift much more cargo and carry more passengers than the 767 and fly them to a farther destination. Much better for deployments when it counts. The avionics are close enough not to be a big factor.
Evidently, that was not what the Air Force desired.
The entire passenger area of the 767 is available for cargo/passengers. All of the fuel in the tanker is stored in the area formerly used for baggage/cargo.
What, no longer any wing tanks or center tank for fuel??? Ha!
The 777 is way too big to replace the KC-135. The proposed 767 tanker can carry a little bit more fuel than the KC-135R from the same runways and use the same hangers with minimal modifications. A 777 tanker would still just have one boom, so there would be fewer booms available for refueling aircraft.
That line right there shows how bogus this article is. The previous award was legit? The author clearly has no idea how difficult it is to successfully protest a contract award of this magnitude. The author is also clearly not aware that Boeing did not get the award because they were still being punished for the misdeeds of Darleen Dryun. The author also isn't aware that Boeing's protest was upheld because the two contractors were evaluated using different standards, which is a direct violation of contract law. It was so blatant that the Air Force couldn't begin to defend it.
Here's some highlights from the official decision, since the author didn't bother to read it:
1. The Air Force, in making the award decision, did not assess the relative merits of the proposals in accordance with the evaluation criteria identified in the solicitation, which provided for a relative order of importance for the various technical requirements. The agency also did not take into account the fact that Boeing offered to satisfy more non-mandatory technical “requirements” than Northrop Grumman, even though the solicitation expressly requested offerors to satisfy as many of these technical “requirements” as possible.
2. The Air Force’s use as a key discriminator that Northrop Grumman proposed to exceed a key performance parameter objective relating to aerial refueling to a greater degree than Boeing violated the solicitation’s evaluation provision that “no consideration will be provided for exceeding [key performance parameter] objectives.”
3. The protest record did not demonstrate the reasonableness of the Air Force’s determination that Northrop Grumman’s proposed aerial refueling tanker could refuel all current Air Force fixed-wing tanker-compatible receiver aircraft in accordance with current Air Force procedures, as required by the solicitation.
4. The Air Force conducted misleading and unequal discussions with Boeing, by informing Boeing that it had fully satisfied a key performance parameter objective relating to operational utility, but later determined that Boeing had only partially met this objective, without advising Boeing of this change in the agency’s assessment and while continuing to conduct discussions with Northrop Grumman relating to its satisfaction of the same key performance parameter objective.
5. The Air Force unreasonably determined that Northrop Grumman’s refusal to agree to a specific solicitation requirement that it plan and support the agency to achieve initial organic depot-level maintenance within 2 years after delivery of the first full-rate production aircraft was an “administrative oversight,” and improperly made award, despite this clear exception to a material solicitation requirement.
6. The Air Force’s evaluation of military construction costs in calculating the offerors’ most probable life cycle costs for their proposed aircraft was unreasonable, where the agency during the protest conceded that it made a number of errors in evaluation that, when corrected, result in Boeing displacing Northrop Grumman as the offeror with the lowest most probable life cycle cost; where the evaluation did not account for the offerors’ specific proposals; and where the calculation of military construction costs based on a notional (hypothetical) plan was not reasonably supported.
7. The Air Force improperly increased Boeing’s estimated non-recurring engineering costs in calculating that firm’s most probable life cycle costs to account for risk associated with Boeing’s failure to satisfactorily explain the basis for how it priced this cost element, where the agency had not found that the proposed costs for that element were unrealistically low. In addition, the Air Force’s use of a simulation model to determine Boeing’s probable non-recurring engineering costs was unreasonable, because the Air Force used as data inputs in the model the percentage of cost growth associated with weapons systems at an overall program level and there was no indication that these inputs would be a reliable predictor of anticipated growth in Boeing’s non-recurring engineering costs.
We recommended that the Air Force reopen discussions with the offerors, obtain revised proposals, re-evaluate the revised proposals, and make a new source selection decision, consistent with our decision. We further recommended that, if the Air Force believed that the solicitation, as reasonably interpreted, does not adequately state its needs, the agency should amend the solicitation prior to conducting further discussions with the offerors. We also recommended that if Boeing’s proposal is ultimately selected for award, the Air Force should terminate the contract awarded to Northrop Grumman. We also recommended that the Air Force reimburse Boeing the costs of filing and pursuing the protest, including reasonable attorneys’ fees. By statute, the Air Force is given 60 days to inform our Office of the Air Force’s actions in response to our recommendations.
Information about GAO’s bid protest process can be found at www.gao.gov. For further information please contact: Michael R. Golden, GAO’s managing associate general counsel for the procurement law division, 202-512-4788.
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