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A U.S. Air Force officer told Congress that both Boeing and EADS handled "correctly and professionally" a situation in which each received data from the Air Force about each company's bid to build a fleet of refueling tankers. Major Gen. Wendy Masiello also testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee that the Air Force unintentionally sent Boeing and EADS the rival bids on compact disks. The reason for the hearing was to determine whether EADS is in a better negotiating position after one of its employees briefly viewed a summary of the Air Force's assessment of rival Boeing's bid, according...

The U.S. Air Force will respond to a lawmaker’s inquiry on whether the Integrated Fleet Aerial Refueling Assessment (Ifara) can be eliminated from the service’s KC-X aerial refueling tanker competition, as well as comment on how important Ifara is to the award, an Air Force representative told the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) this morning. Moreover, USAF will respond to a question about what options were considered to “level the playing field” after a data-release mistake last year, defense officials said during a wide-ranging and mostly theatrical hearing on the error. The 2.5-hr. hearing, which quickly became more contentious among...

The Airbus Military A330 MRTT has successfully passed fuel to receiver aircraft using the Fuselage Refuelling Unit (FRU) for the first time – meaning that all of the aircraft's refuelling systems have now been demonstrated. In a three hour 10 min sortie from Getafe near Madrid on 21st January, the Future Strategic Transport Aircraft (FSTA) variant for the UK Royal Air Force conducted a series of “wet contacts” with two F-18 fighters of the Spanish Air Force. Contacts were successfully performed with both fighters at an altitude of around 15,000ft and at speeds from 250kt to 325kt. The FRU is...

Contractors submitted revised proposals for the U.S. Air Force’s KC-10 CNS/ATM upgrade work this month after the service discovered it botched the first competitive round last year that resulted in a $216 million award going to Boeing. Boeing was ordered to stop work on the contract in October owing to a mistake made by the Air Force in the original competition. Air Force Col. Michael Schmidt, contractor logistics support program director for the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center (where the contract is managed), acknowledged a “need for corrective action associated with the original source selection,” but has not specified the...

Israel Aerospace Industries has offered some air forces a deal that would enable them to have an aerial refuelling capability on a "power-by-the-hour" basis. The plan is based mostly on the use of converted Boeing 767s to be operated either by a local airline or by Israeli pilots. It has been prepared for nations that cannot afford to buy their own tankers. Negotiations are under way with air forces that have shown an interest in the proposal, says a senior IAI source. In 2008, IAI won a contract to convert one secondhand Boeing 767-200ER as a tanker/transport and VIP aircraft...

European defense giant EADS expects the Pentagon to award the $35 billion KC-X tanker contract as early as next month. "The contract award … was to have been around the middle of November last year. It has moved toward next month," EADS North America Chief Executive Officer Sean O'Keefe said Wednesday in Paris, citing information from the U.S. Defense Department. European Aeronautic Defense and Space Co. is in a fierce competition with U.S. arch-rival Boeing for the contract to outfit the U.S. Air Force with 179 in-flight refueling tankers.

After an Air Force mix-up sent Boeing and EADS computer disks with crucial data on each other's bid for the air-refueling tanker contract, Boeing initially was left at a disadvantage, contrary to previous reports. The Air Force then had to scramble to level the playing field in the $40 billion competition. When Boeing tanker-team officials got the errant disk last month, they recognized from the labeling that the disk was intended for EADS, and did not open it. But their EADS counterparts did open the disk they received and looked at a spreadsheet of data on the mission performance of...

Air Force officials have said the KC-X source selection process will continue despite a mistake in November, where a limited amount of identical source selection information was provided to both KC-X offerors concerning their competitor's offering. Air Force officials are ensuring a level playing field with regards to the information actually accessed by one of the offerors. The information concerned was limited to a single page of non-proprietary data on a CD that did not include any offeror-proposed prices. "This clerical error does not affect our source selection schedule," said Lt. Gen. Mark Shackelford, the military deputy from the Office...

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...

European plane-maker Airbus will decide in two to three weeks whether to compete for a US military contract to build an aerial refuelling tanker, its chief said in an interview published Monday. Airbus's parent company, EADS, and its US partner Northrop Grumman dropped a joint bid for the contract earlier in March as the companies alleged that the Pentagon's requirements were skewed in favour of US aerospace giant Boeing. "The Pentagon has asked us to decide if we would like to participate, but this time as the main contractor," Airbus chief executive Thomas Enders told the Financial Times Deutschland. "It...

European airspace giant EADS has called for a 90-day extension to the tendering process for a multi-billion-dollar deal to supply the US air force with tanker jets, a Pentagon official said Friday. "They've indicated to the department that they would like to see us extend the time frame 90 days," spokesman Bryan Whitman said. The tendering process is due to close around mid-May. "We would consider reasonable extensions," Whitman said, adding that the "next step is for them to give us some specifics in terms of what they need the additional time for." He confirmed that EADS could put in...

Yesterday, US Air Force and Department of Defense (DoD) acquisition officials informed Congress and members of the press on the revised request for proposal (RfP) for the competition for a new aerial tanker. The officials claim that RfP for the controversial KC-X programme, which is now entering its second attempt of finding a solution for the future of US Air Force air-refuelling, is designed to promote fair, open competition. However, it is still questionable if there will by any competition, as the Northrop Grumman-EADS consortium, having been awarded a contract in 2008 which prompted a protest from rival bidder Boeing,...