Pentagon Defers Senate KC-X Questions

Aviation Week and Space Techology ^ | 1/28/2010 | Michael Bruno

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

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 senators than between the panel and the witnesses, follows the Nov. 1, 2010, incident and comes just weeks before the long-expected award announcement (Aerospace DAILY, Jan. 17).

Responses to these questions may become the most relevant outcome from the hearing and the mistake as Ifara, a model used to gauge how each aircraft will handle various operational scenarios, is important to the competition. The assessment is one of three areas that could impact the final price that the bidders can offer.

As reported by Aviation Week since the now-defunct 2008 attempt to award the KC-X program to a team of Northrop Grumman and EADS, Ifara was added to the KC-X competition after pressure from that team. Boeing proponents see Ifara as favoring the EADS proposal, which calls for a larger aircraft.

[MHalblaub]

“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”

Wow, Boeing's IFARA score must be worse than expected.

[Yo-Yo]

I watched the hearings yesterday (Archived Webcast here) and none of the released data will make a difference in the awarding of the contract. The USAF have given the files to both teams, so now everybody knows how their offering and the opponent's offerings scored on the Fleet Refueling Assesment.

Move along and score the damn proposals, already!