An A330 Multi-Role Tanker Transport simultaneously refuels two F/A-18 fighters via its all-digital hose-and-drogue refueling pods on each wing
Posted on 03/08/2010 11:28:46 AM PST by jazusamo
Northrop Grumman has decided not to bid in the Air Force refueling tanker contract, leaving Boeing's Everett-built 767 as the sole airplane competing for the $40 billion program.
A person familiar with the details said Northrop will announce its decision after the market closes today...
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.nwsource.com ...
Bad news for the country, because sole-bid contracts are not as likely to turn out as cost-effective as when two companies are fighting each other for a contract.
One thing is certain now, these planes will cost a lot more than they would have, and will likely be delivered much later than they would have been.
And some democrats are going to get some nice campaign contributions when this is all done.
WASHINGTON, D.C. - March 8, 2010 - The following is a statement from Wes Bush, Chief Executive Officer and President of Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC), concerning the U.S. Air Force aerial refueling tanker program.
"After a comprehensive analysis of the final RFP, Northrop Grumman has determined that it will not submit a bid to the Department of Defense for the KC-X program. We reached this conclusion based on the structure of the source selection methodology defined in the RFP, which clearly favors Boeing's smaller refueling tanker and does not provide adequate value recognition of the added capability of a larger tanker, precluding us from any competitive opportunity.
"Northrop Grumman fully respects the Department's responsibility to determine the military requirements for the new tanker. In the previous competition, Northrop Grumman was selected by the Air Force as offering the most capable tanker for the warfighter at the best value for the taxpayer. However, the Northrop Grumman and EADS team is very disappointed that the revised source selection methodology now dramatically favors Boeing's smaller refueling tanker. We agree that the fundamental military requirements for the new tanker have not changed since the last competition, but the Department's new evaluation methodology now clearly favors the smaller tanker.
"We continue to believe that Northrop Grumman's tanker represents the best value for the military and taxpayer – a belief supported by the selection of the A330 tanker design over the Boeing design in the last five consecutive tanker competitions around the globe. Regrettably, this means that the U.S. Air Force will be operating a less capable tanker than many of our Allies in this vital mission area.
"Our prior selection by the Air Force, our firm belief that we provide the best value offering, and the hard work and commitment of the many individuals and communities on our team over many years made this a difficult decision for our company. But we have a fiduciary responsibility to our shareholders to prudently invest our corporate resources, as do our more than 200 tanker team suppliers across the United States. Investing further resources to submit a bid would not be acting responsibly.
"We have decided that Northrop Grumman will not protest. While we feel we have substantial grounds to support a GAO or court ruling to overturn this revised source selection process, America's service men and women have been forced to wait too long for new tankers. We feel a deep responsibility to their safety and to their ability to fulfill the missions our nation calls upon them to perform. Taking actions that would further delay the introduction of this urgent capability would also not be acting responsibly.
"We recognize that our decision likely creates a sole-source outcome for Boeing. We call on the Department to keep in mind the economic conclusions of the prior round of bidding as it takes actions to protect the taxpayer when defining the sole-source procurement contract. In the previous round, the Air Force, through a rigorous assessment of our proposal, determined that it would pay a unit flyaway cost of approximately $184 million per tanker for the first 68 tankers, including the non-recurring development costs. With the Department's decision to procure a much smaller, less capable design, the taxpayer should certainly expect the bill to be much less."
Northrop Grumman Corporation is a leading global security company whose 120,000 employees provide innovative systems, products, and solutions in aerospace, electronics, information systems, shipbuilding and technical services to government and commercial customers worldwide.
Thanks for posting.
It's now a $50 billion contract.
An A330 Multi-Role Tanker Transport simultaneously refuels two F/A-18 fighters via its all-digital hose-and-drogue refueling pods on each wing
Boeing clearly had the better bid, from the start, all along.
Boeing clearly had more political capital... This was all politics which makes me wonder why we even had this unnecessary proposal process.
http://militarytimes.com/static/projects/pages/080222af_tanker.pdf
Fly by wire still makes me nervous. I still remember watching that Airbus fly itself into the ground because the computer decided to land, though the pilot was trying to crawl back into the sky.
55
60
65
$70 billion is my guess according to the C-17.
Any bets on delivery date? - 2018?
Same hangars, same runways.
Also, the Boeing model will be made, mostly, in the United States. Though I am a “free trade” person, at heart -— the “cost” of the Boeing project must include the fact that American workers will pay American taxes!
Also, some allowance should be made for the huge European subsidies, in the Airbus plan.
So, for political reasons. I figured as much.
In the other thread I’ve already predicted IOC 2020.
Blame Northrop Grumman for a one-bid project. This is NOT a “no-bid”, it is open for anyone to bid.
With respect to the Italian KC-767A I think you're right.
The aircraft for Italy was a standard 767-200. I don't know what kind of aircraft the KC-767NewGen will be.
More military equipments and requirements than for Japanese and Italian tanker together.
NewGen is maybe a hint. Generation length is about 25 years.
First, I wasn’t blaming anybody, I was saying it was bad for America.
Second, if I was going to blame someone, it would be the government, for being incapable of running this bid process properly.
This is the 3rd time they’ve done this contract. The first time, it sent a person to jail for fraud, and we were going to lease the planes.
The second, if you believe the stories, either they failed to apply their own requirements, or they mis-weighed the adherance to requirements, or they wrote the requirements stupidly to begin with and had to change them mid-stream. Or something. We had a bid, we had acceptance, and then we cancelled the thing.
Now the third is apparently written in a way that the only company that thinks they can make money is Boeing, my guess is either because they defined the requirements so narrowly that only Boeing has a plane that can be cheaply modified (making a company change an airframe probably prices them out of the contract), or Boeing is willing to take a loss on initial bid, assuming that once the project starts, there bought politicians will be able to get them additional funds when they inevitably complain that the requirements were too broad or that the government didn’t understand the bid and all the stuff the government wants is extra.
When a company walks away from a potential 40 billion dollar contract, it isn’t usually because they are being obstinate.
Of course, one interpretation is that Boeing really had the only airframe that was acceptable, which means the original “lease the planes sole-source” was the cheapest solution, and the last 5 years or so has been a waste (I made up the 5 year part, don’t remember how long ago that really was).
However you look at this, the whole bid has been a complete screw-up from day one, and in my opinion the EADS decline-bid is a sign that the process was still flawed.
After Northrop got screwed by the F-20 project, and Boeing got screwed on another project, neither company is exactly in love with the government. Let the chips fall. My main concern is with a foreign subsidized company like EADS taking profits, and the U.S. military becoming dependent on a foreign controlled project.
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