GAO Upholds Boeing Tanker Protest

[Sabre]

Today the Government Accountability Office (GAO) notified Boeing that it had found in its favor in their protest of the aerial refueling tanker award.  Sanity and fairness may yet be returned to this process.

[Reschke]

First you should say partially agreed with the Boeing protest and in my opinion that was the wrong decision.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25246267/

While I am all for things being done in the US for US military it is pretty obvious that this project is a partnership between a US based company that has tons of current US military hardware already in service. If we are going to go down the road of US vs. foreign developers then the US military and its suppliers needs to rethink the whole global economy and stop buying things from weapons to bolts from overseas suppliers...BUT the truth of the matter is that isn't going to happen.

[Ripsnort]

When one changes the requirements without notifying all parties interested mid-way through a project proposal, that is unfair in my opinion. This was just one of the issues in the Tanker contract.

[bustr]

Didn't Northrop hire a just retired Airforce General at the begining of the competition who had freinds in the Pentagon and Congress and he helped slam the airbus offering through? And this was because a handful of Airforce brass liked the bigger size for more payload in the face of the fact that it would consume more money in facility rebuilds and maintence over the long term by the airbus being too large for site integration at most Airforce facilities world wide?

Airforce crews liked the Boeing aircraft better and it is desinged to Airforce facility specifications for handleing, storage and mission turn around time which costs money the more time turn around takes on the ground. The aribus is so big it blows turn around to heck and will require rebuilds of existing facilities.....it will fleece us the taxpayers if airbus wins the next go around. But hey... generals eventualy retire and need money like the rest of us.

[Sabre]

Reschke, Boeing's protest was not based on any "America First" logic, but rather on technical aspects of the acquisition that were mis-handled by the Air Force.  There are too many to go into here, though Boeing's website has a "Tanker Blog" that explains the rationale behind the protest.  I've been on both sides of the military aquisition process, and Boeing had strong grounds for filing a protest.  It should also be noted that Boeing rarely (as compared to some other aerospace companies) files protests.  The violations in this case were so flagrent, and the importance of this aquisition to Boeing and the Nation, that it was inevitable that they would.  The Air Force should be in no way surprised by this GAO finding.

[Reschke]

While I don't disagree with Boeing protesting the matter. In fact have read extensively what both sides have expressed on this tanker acquisition and I have followed this for a long time since it could possibly impact my financial future here in Alabama...job wise.

At any rate it is the unions in WA and KS that have started the whole America First ideology on the protest and while it is a wonderful can of worms to look at don't dare open it up because those aren't worms but some angry snakes for having been trapped in that can for a long time. And they will come out to bite someone because I don't think Boeing would have the same or similar number of US based suppliers to supply components for their tanker. Not to mention they are synonymous with cost over runs but so is Northrop for that matter; just look at the cost per plane of the B2 and the Apache from Boeing's group.

Lastly if all things are or were as open as they were touted by both of the competing bidders and the government then what is the problem with creating 48,000 jobs in a several state region over 44,000 jobs in just two states? It is ultimately going to come down to who is willing to give up all the political clout to make it happen and in this case it would likely be several of the final nails in one aerospace company's coffin here in the USA. I hope they do the right thing here but it isn't going to happen no matter what they say. Ultimately the US military is going to get screwed out of having a tanker/cargo aircraft that is going to get the job done at a lower cost over the long term with better capabilities than what they currently have. BTW I live about 15 minutes from where the refit work takes place on the KC-135 tankers.

[Sabre]

Here's the GAO's summary findings...

http://www.gao.gov/press/boeingstmt.pdf

Hopefully the Air Force will get it right this time and the warfighter get's what it needs.  The facts in this case are clear in that the Air Force violated numerous acquisition rules in order to allow the Northrup/EADS offering to even compete, then pretty much threw the rest of the rules out to award it to them.

[Ripsnort]

Airforce re-opens tanker contract;
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121561843569339477.html?mod=yahoo_hs&ru=yahoo