Bid Exclusion Puzzles Aerospace Firms (Obama is Stalin)

An unusual turn of events on a U.S. military procurement contract has lightly side-swiped three of Quebec’s largest aerospace firms.

Wichita-based aircraft maker Hawker Beechcraft Corp. was excluded without explanation last week from a competition to supply 20 AT-6 Texan II light-attack and training planes to the Afghan air force.

Its four main suppliers on the bid to the U.S. air force – which would then turn the aircraft over to the Afghan forces – were all Canadian: Longueuil’s Pratt & Whitney Canada for the PT6A-68D 1,600-horsepower engine, St. Laurent’s CAE Inc. for the crew training, St. Laurent’s CMC Esterline for the flight management system, as well as Burlington, Ont.-based L-3 Wescam, which was to provide daylight sensors, infrared cameras with zoom and various lasers.

The elimination of Hawker Beechcraft apparently makes a winner of the Super Tucano trainer and light-attack aircraft produced by Brazil’s Embraer, the only other bidder for the contract.

Matthew Perra, spokesperson for Pratt & Whitney Canada, said by email that “as with any competition there was some investment made, but this amount is not material to P&W Canada.”

But it does not signify a loss for Pratt & Whitney Canada – it also supplies the same engine for Embraer’s Super Tucano.

Hawker Beechcraft said it was “confounded and troubled” by its unexplained elimination from the bid, and asked the U.S. air force for a formal debriefing to review the reasons for its exclusion from the 20-plane Light Air Support order.

>>Hawker Beechcraft was eliminated in favor of a Brazilian manufacturer? Wow. And the Keystone pipeline was nixed, meanwhile Obama bankrolls Brazilian explorations and says "we will be your best customer".

Goodbye North Dakota and Kansas, hello Rio. Obama has a funny way of focusing on jobs in the US.

From Wikipedia... Hawker Beechcraft Corporation (of Kansas) is an aerospace manufacturing company that builds the Beechcraft and Hawker business jet lines of aircraft.

But I'm sure its all a coincidence...

Its a coincidence that Soros was invested in Brazilian Petrobras at a time when we shut down our Gulf drilling and those oil drilling rigs needed to go elsewhere.

Its a coincidence that the US taxpayer happened to fund Brazilian offshore oil drilling at the same time

Its a coincidence that Soros is invested in Brazilian Embraer (the only other bidder on that contract)

Its a coincidence that the American contract for these 20 "LIGHT AIR SUPPORT" planes was written with hurried 'timeline' rules that force out American competition. (we've apparently never heard of loaning some of our older planes to Afghanistan in the meantime. And doesn't Britian also have a lot of existing planes they cant afford to keep flying?)

Its a coincidence that Kansas is in the heart of RED state country.

Its a coincidence that our pres__ent recently indicated that corporate jets are a sign of greed, and proposed tax changes that would negatively impact the entire general aviation industry.

Its just a coincidence that at an aviation convention LAST MONTH, Hawker Beechcraft chairman Bill Boisture Jr., shocked colleagues with his verbal attacks on U.S. President Barack Obama for allegedly "killing U.S. jobs" by asking the industry to pay a $100-per flight user fee.

BTW, I don't believe in coincidences.

There are 46 used Hawker aircraft for sale on THIS page alone. It seems like the US could have somehow found 20 'light air support' planes for Afghanistan, short of funding Brazil with US tax dollars and shifting our war-readiness manufacturing to foreign lands.

I think this IS also partly a punishment for RED states, (along with his stopping the Keystone pipeline decision). Just look at the dotted blue line in THIS MAP, and note which states the expansion of that existing pipeline will serve most. Illinois already gets the lion's share of the Canadian oil sands crude, so it now has an economic advantage over other states in the region. The blue dotted line expansion of the pipeline will serve red states more than blue, and he KNOWS it.

...hmm, I wonder if we are going to borrow the money from Brazil, to pay Brazil to manufacture 20 planes, to give to Afghanistan? Is our country so insolvent we have to resort to that kind of crap? If these jobs went to Kansas, the US would have to borrow from Brazil to pay Kansas. (I smell economic blackmail)

Its a coincidence that Soros is invested in Brazilian Embraer (the only other bidder on that contract)

He's not.

He's invested in Harbin-Embraer, that's Chinese Embraer, a Chinese firm set to to build Embraer EMB-145 Regional Jests, In China.

Its a coincidence that the American contract for these 20 "LIGHT AIR SUPPORT" planes was written with hurried 'timeline' rules that force out American competition.

The US Navy has wanted these aircraft for OPERATIONS in Afghanistan for 2½ years. It was the Congresscritters who turned it into a makework project for their state. (The Navy progam was known as Imminent Fury - I guess the big word was too hard for the congresscritters to understand)

There are 46 used Hawker aircraft for sale on THIS page alone

Now you've achieved an OWSer level stupidity

Those aircraft are Hawker 800s: executive jets

What the military wanted was a light bomb truck

A-29 Super Tucano: In production, In Service, In Combat

What the congresscritters are pushing is

Hawker Beechcraft AT-6B: Brochureware, in development

And it's not as good a design as the A-29. For one thing, it's shorter. Not a problem in flying training. But hang stuff beneath the wings, and directional instability problems mainfest

Ostrich, I don't get many know-it-all hecklers. They are almost all banned.
But thank you for your apparent service.
Feel free to nitpick with HotAir.com and others who say Soros is heavily invested in a subsidiary of Embraer...

Air Force bounces US manufacturer for Brazilian competitor « Hot Air

hotair.com/.../air-force-bounces-us-manufacturer-for-brazilian-comp...Cached

3 days ago – George Soros has a major shareholding in Harbin-Embraer, the Chinese subsidiary of Embraer. Soros is also a major share holder of ...

In fact, the HotAir artice sheds MORE light on this topic...

Oddly enough, Embraer has been in the news lately. Less than three weeks ago, the Brazilian airplane builder announced that the SEC had begun a probe — for corruption...

Corruption? I am SHOCKED that someone dealing with Obama might be accused of corruption! The going rate for kickbacks on contracts in Illinois used to be 5%. I'd bet Brazil offered even better than that, while Beechcraft probably offered Zero zero.

It seems that to you, your 'stupidly' friend can do no wrong.

A jet is a jet as far as the Afghans are concerned. Any of them can be retro-fitted with bombs or missles, and Afghans are good at 'retrofitting stuff'.

And the US Navy already has its own jets.
We're giving these jets away to a country of illiterate goat herders and toothless opium farmers who ride camels because they have no roads. They don't need the best fighter jets in the world. That would be a 'stupid' waste of taxpayer funds.

I 'cc'ed almost everyone on this thread previously, plus others I thought might be interested, but I tried to not address or 'cc' you because you looked like an argumentative jerk. Now you've removed all doubt. Please do not address me again. Afghanistan is a landlocked country that is about 900 miles from the ocean. The 'Navy' does not 'need' these for Afghanistan. Your pal already single-handedly killed OBL, so 'that' war is almost over. (Now, on with the next one). These jets will be given away as a parting gift, so they hardly have to be state of the art.

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