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Home » The Tanker Tango » Some New Tanker Gouge

Some New Tanker Gouge

KC-45.jpg

Ok, so I met today with a senior Northrop Grumman offi­cial who chat­ted with me about the ongo­ing Tanker Tango from the NorGrum/​EADS perspective.

Sure, a lot of the con­ver­sa­tion was about KPPs this, and job oppor­tu­ni­ties that. But he dropped a cou­ple news tid­bits I thought I’d throw your way.

First of all, the offi­cial told me the Air Force had for­mally sub­mit­ted a request to the GAO to throw out the Boeing protest on Wednesday.

This is dif­fer­ent from an ear­lier request to dis­miss. That one con­cerned issues Boeing had brought up in their protest that the Air Force con­sid­ered invalid, such as WTO con­flicts and gov­ern­ment subsidies.

GAO rejected that request for dis­missal, so the Air Force com­piled its case against the Boeing protest on the mer­its of the company’s spe­cific alle­ga­tions, this offi­cial told me. The ser­vice has asked the GAO to dis­miss the protest in its entirety.

I asked for a copy of the AF protest, but couldn’t get it because the com­pa­nies need to redact any pro­pri­etary infor­ma­tion before it can be released.

Second, and kind of along the same lines, it turns out the Air Force, stung by the last tanker implo­sion that forced its sec­re­tary out of office and jailed two Boeing offi­cials, Red Teamed the heck out of the tanker award before it was announced. I’ve been think­ing all along that it seems to me the Air Force wouldn’t risk a mis-​​dotted “i” or an un-​​crossed “t” given its pre­vi­ous experience.

Well, the NorGrum offi­cial told me that for a month and a half, the Air Force con­vened a Red Team of the Army and Navy’s top pro­cure­ment offi­cers, staffers from Pentagon acqui­si­tion chief John Young’s office and Pentagon IG offi­cials at Wright Patterson Air Force base. The team was tasked with pok­ing holes in the con­tract process to make sure there could be no protest from either side on how the Air Force han­dled the competition.

So it seems, on the face of it, that if pro­po­nents of the protest are try­ing in some way to impugn the Air Force on a slip shod process, assum­ing this Red Team hap­pened, it doesn’t hold much water.

Again, I just thought I’d pass along the info. And, I’d be happy to speak with Boeing’s tanker team any time to get their side of the story if they offer.

– Christian

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April 17th, 2008 | The Tanker Tango | 279016 Comments »http://defensetech.org/2008/04/17/some-new-tanker-gouge/Some+New+Tanker+Gouge2008-04-17+18%3A09%3A32Ward You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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  1. Penta says:
    April 17, 2008 at 4:37 pm

    AF should, all the ser­vices should actu­ally, be red-​​teaming [b]every[/b] major con­tract like that. Why not?

    Reply
  2. pfcem says:
    April 17, 2008 at 10:35 pm

    I’m going to play the KC-​​30/​NG/​EADS Kool-​​Aid drinkers game here…
    Its from a senior Northrop Grumman offi­cial so OBVIOUSLY it is total pro­pa­ganda BS with NO merit what­so­ever. ;)
    ***
    But seri­ously I have another the­ory. Basically the USAF did what it was told & is just wait­ing (hop­ing actu­ally) for the GAO to tear this con­tract apart [think like so many had hoped that the US Supreme Court would stop McCain-​​Feingold]. Then the USAF can say “we did what your wanted so now thanks to YOU we waisted 4 years & mil­lions of dol­lars. And now that it is known all that we HAD to do just to make the KC-​​30 com­peta­tive we can go back to aquir­ing the 767-​​based tankers which were so OBVIOUSLY the right choice to replace the aging KC-​​135s back in 2002.”

    Reply
  3. irtusk says:
    April 18, 2008 at 1:53 am

    > But seri­ously I have another the­ory. Basically the USAF did what it was
    > told & is just wait­ing (hop­ing actu­ally) for the GAO to tear this con­tract apart
    i like to visit imag­i­na­tion­land occa­sion­ally
    i wouldn’t want to live there all the time

    Reply
  4. WR says:
    April 18, 2008 at 5:05 am

    Pardon my igno­rance, but what does “Red Teamed” mean in rela­tion to this?

    Reply
  5. ibig says:
    April 18, 2008 at 5:14 am

    Why should we be shocked to have US buy­ing euro­pean derived air­craft?
    Most of the dollar-​​value is US made. It comes from allies that have spent and spend a huge amount of money in US mil­i­tary equip­ment.
    Strategic rea­sons? We are not talk­ing about F22 or the B1s. And most of tech there is US Northrop Grumman made any­way…
    http://​www​.meta​cafe​.com/​w​a​t​c​h​/​2​5​9​2​2​0​/​k​c​_​3​0​_​t​a​n​k​e​r​_​a​i​r​c​r​a​ft/

    Reply
  6. Speartip says:
    April 18, 2008 at 6:06 am

    Jeez… what use­less dis­cus­sions.
    That’s what you get with your free-​​market democ­racy. I say a enlight­ened dica­tor­ship is bet­ter.
    Me dic­ta­tor, me say what goes. If I say air­force buy tanker X, then end of dis­cus­sion. If other firm protests, let them stick their plane where the sun don’t shine. Case closed.
    And what is it with you Americans only want­ing to buy US stuff? I mean, if your stuff is best, why not close off your bor­ders and revel in your excel­lence? It’s a f*ing PLANET, peo­ple. We’re all brothers.

    Reply
  7. Harlequin says:
    April 18, 2008 at 6:52 am

    Its quite sad to see that , from all the com­ments posted over the last few weeks , pfcem is engaged in a CONINTELPRO and works for boeing.

    Reply
  8. WR says:
    April 18, 2008 at 7:55 am

    ‘Tis NOT sad to see as pfcern, whether he works for Boeing or not, has been the only one that makes the most tech­ni­cal sense whereas the rest have not pre­sented any­more than tech­ni­cal garbage. (and I work for Boeing’s com­peti­tor as a defense mechan­i­cal engi­neer.) This is not to say that he makes the most non-​​technical (pol­i­tics, etc.) sense.

    Reply
  9. WR says:
    April 18, 2008 at 8:00 am

    “enlight­ened dica­tor­ship“
    Enlightned dic­ta­tor­ship, or rather, Enlightened Communism fairs no bet­ter as it impedes tech­no­log­i­cal progress and leads to com­pro­mis­ing safety in order to keep updated. No dic­ta­tor should singly have all power but rather if it should be, a dic­ta­tor that shares power with a small (again, SMALL) coun­cil of state. Unless he is a Benevolent Dictator, he will accom­plish noth­ing good for him­self or his nation.
    Free enter­prise is not infe­rior as it weeds out the weaklings.

    Reply
  10. SMSgt Mac says:
    April 18, 2008 at 8:33 am

    RE ‘Tis NOT sad to see as pfcern, whether he works for Boeing or not, has been the only one that makes the most tech­ni­cal sense whereas the rest have not pre­sented any­more than tech­ni­cal garbage.
    Gyro drift and do-​​looping = ‘tech­ni­cal sense’?
    Good one!
    Wait.…you were seri­ous?
    Example please. (AKA “Pull!”)
    PS: ‘Red Teamed’ is an extremely well known euphemism in aerospace/​defense that in this case means they had a dis­in­ter­ested party try to poke holes in their deci­sion, logic and process before final­iz­ing the award.

    Reply
  11. Speartip says:
    April 18, 2008 at 8:48 am

    “Enlightned dic­ta­tor­ship, or rather, Enlightened Communism fairs no bet­ter…“
    Sadly, agreed. But you’ll have to admit free mar­ket econ­omy isn’t ‘free’ as well; that would mean the best or cheap­est gets picked, end.
    That doesn’t hap­pen when the loser throws a fit and starts law­suit­ing the win­ner. And I’m not just talk­ing tankers here, see the pre­vi­ous M16 vs. H&K debate here. There’s a lot of non-​​economic but polit­i­cal faces to the story. It smells of pro­tec­tion­ism, which is arguably one form of com­mu­nism.
    Nothing is per­fect. Not even me.

    Reply
  12. C4Casey says:
    April 18, 2008 at 9:14 am

    Well, of course a Northrup offi­cial is going to assure any­one he talks to that the deal was com­pletly fair and water tight. I highly doubt the GAO will grant the Air Force’s request to throw out the protest after deny­ing the pre­vi­ous motion, and the fact that the GAO didn’t throw out parts of Boeing’s protest leads me to believe that what­ever Boeing is telling the GAO, it’s bring­ing at least some of its mem­bers on to Boeing’s side.

    Reply
  13. pfcem says:
    April 18, 2008 at 2:17 pm

    Harlequin,
    No I do not work for Boeing & as I have said before whether the KC-​​X is built by Boeing or not is not my issue. My issue is that a 767-​​based tanker is the right tanker to replace the KC-​​135. Back in 2001/​2002 it was a “no brainer” as the only other “com­pe­ti­tion”, a A330-​​200-​​based tanker was a “non starter” because (among other things) it is too big & too heavy.
    It is the the KC-​​30/​NG/​EADS Kool-​​Aid drinkers who have engaged in the coun­ter­in­tel­li­gence pro­gram. They delib­er­ately (or out of igno­rance) over sim­plify &/​or mis­rep­re­sent the facts & issues.

    Reply
  14. irtusk says:
    April 18, 2008 at 2:26 pm

    > Back in 2001/​2002 it was a “no brainer” as the only other “com­pe­ti­tion”,
    > a A330-​​200-​​based tanker was a “non starter” because (among other
    > things) it is too big & too heavy.
    no, it was a ‘non starter’ because they didn’t bribe the right offi­cials like Boeing did

    Reply

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