Posted on 06/14/2013 9:07:26 AM PDT by KMR
Beechcraft hopes Congress will get involved to kill a U.S. Air Force contract with its Brazilian rival Embraer to make $431 million worth of fighter planes for Afghanistan.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
Hey, I didn’t read the particulars of the article like you guys did.
New Freeper Rule? /s
For $20 million+ a copy, I believe I could have one ready to go.
The contract specified an off the shelf aircraft ready for immediate purchase. Embraer had one, Beechcraft just had some pretty CGI pictures and no hardware.
The deal was for an off the shelf, no development aircraft. Embraer showed up with an actual airplane they have been selling for years. Beechcraft showed up with some pretty computer generated pictures and a promise to maybe build an airplane.
See post 23/24. Embraer showed up with a plane, Beechcraft showed up with promises.
See post 23/24.
$20 million apiece? For those?
Hell, A-10s only cost $16.3 million in current dollars.
This is a crooked deal. I wonder where the rest of money is going?
As the U.S. ended its direct involvement in the war, it transferred the remainder of its Skyraiders to the South Vietnamese, and by 1973, all remaining Skyraiders in U.S. inventories had been turned over to the VNAF.[27] Unlike their American counterparts, whose combat tours were generally limited to 12 months, individual South Vietnamese Skyraider pilots ran up many thousands of combat hours in the A-1, and many senior VNAF pilots were extremely skilled in the operation of the aircraft.
So it reads like that isn't an option.
I have thought that reactivating 10 to 24 A-37’s and T-37’s would be a nice idea until the Tascano or new Beech's were ready. Many years later still nothing has been delivered.
Seemed like a nice idea: clear a little room out near Tucson, get some support in the air in Afghanistan, get some stick time for their new pilots not sure when the new planes will be delivered. Also might be a chance for some of the countries still flying those airframes to get some parts as the refurb work was going on. Oh, well have a nice weekend.
Remember, these are for Al-Qaeda
Beech is pretty good at promises. Have flown Barons, King Airs, Queen Airs and Dukes.
Fabulous aircraft. Wish I'd bought a Baron instead of a 310.
Rather my tax money go to Americans in Kansas and East Hartford. They'll do just fine, thanks.
If I was Al Qaeda, I’d still be outraged. For $400 million, I’d want at least a hundred of the darn things; more like 200.
But, with a little luck, most of those planes will quickly be wrecks from incompetent maintenance or piloting.
Yeah, but again, the rules of the deal were ‘you must have an actual airplane that does not require any development.’
Beechcraft didn’t have an airplane. They had plans and promises and a planned dev program. Which is nice and all, but you have to admit that most aircraft dev programs go over budget and over schedule and this was something the contracting office didn’t want. Not to mention the time it would have taken.
We can’t make A-10s any more. The tooling was destroyed.
Beech’s proposal was not for box-stock AT-6s. It was for a new AT-6 variant that does not yet exist.
Correction to my last post. It wasn’t for a box stock T-6. It’s the AT-6 that doesn’t exist in production form yet.
“We don’t know those risk ratings, but the Beechcraft company just emerged from bankruptcy, and the AT-6 aircraft is still in prototype: While Beechcraft has built thousands of T-6 trainers for the US and its allies, the specific variant on offer — the armed ground-attack version, the AT-6 — is significantly different and not entirely proven.”
So, again - Embraer showed up with a proven plane they’ve been making and selling for years. Beechcraft showed up with some nice pictures and a promise instead of what the contract letters demanded - production aircraft.
That doesn’t mean Super Tucanos should cost $20 million per unit.
I didn’t say anything about that. :P
The thing is, only one outfit showed up with a proposal that met *all* the rules set forth ahead of time. Their price is their price. I would love to see Beech get the contract as well, because that would be a big boost for them. But if they can’t follow the rules, that’s too bad.
Also, the $427 mil of the contract isn’t just for the airplane. It’s also for training, parts and other support, rendered on site in Afghanistan. To put that in perspective, the Beech projection for their plane that does not exist in production form yet was $14.85 mil a copy when the T-6 it’ll be based on cost roughly $6 mil per copy.
It should also be noted that when Beechcraft bid the JPATS competition and got the contract for the T-6, they pulled a similar gag. They promised the planes for $3.9 million despite only having prototypes. The final delivery cost ended up being $6 mil, an 80% or so increase.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beechcraft_T-6_Texan_II
The T-6 is a development of the Pilatus PC-9, modified significantly by Beechcraft in order to enter the Joint Primary Aircraft Training System (JPATS) competition in the 1990s.[1] A similar arrangement between Pilatus and British Aerospace had also been in place for a Royal Air Force competition in the 1980s, although this competition selected the Short Tucano. The aircraft was designated under the 1962 United States Tri-Service aircraft designation system and named for the decades-earlier T-6 Texan.
The Beechcraft brand has since been purchased from Raytheon by Onex Corporation, a Canadian “private equity fund” which retained the name Hawker Beechcraft.[2]
The JPATS competition winning design was based on a commercial off the shelf Pilatus PC-9, with minor modifications. Additional requirements and conflicts between the Air Force and the Navy resulted in delays, cost increases (from initial estimates of $3.9 to roughly $6 million per aircraft) and a completely new aircraft that is 22% or 1,100 lbs heavier than the Pilatus.[3]
On April 9, 2007 the U.S. Department of Defense released their Selected Acquisition Reports, which reported that the T-6 JPATS program was one of only eight programs cited for Congressional notification for 25–50% cost overrun over initial estimates, which is referred to as a “Nunn-McCurdy Breach” after the Nunn-McCurdy Amendment. It is unusual for a program so far into full rate production to experience significant enough cost overruns to trigger this Congressional notification.[4]
So, yeah. This is the second time Beechcraft has showed up with pretty pictures and promises.
Well, I could see the training of pilots and ground crews being a lot more expensive than the aircraft...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.