This arti­cle first appeared in Aerospace Daily & Defense Report.

The Pentagon attempted to force the U.S. Air Force to forego an open com­pe­ti­tion for the service’s $15 bil­lion com­bat, search and res­cue (CSAR-​​X) heli­copter replace­ment pro­gram and wanted the ser­vice to con­duct a directed buy of Bell-​​Boeing CV-​​22s, Boeing MH-​​47s, Sikorsky MH-​​60s, or a mixed fleet of these types, Aerospace DAILY has learned.

A Defense Department study guid­ance and the sup­port­ing e-​​mail trail show that the depart­ment was push­ing for sole-​​source pro­cure­ment for the mixed CSAR-​​X replace­ment fleet as late as the fall of 2005 and well into 2006 — even though Air Force CSAR-​​X require­ments ruled out MH-​​60s, and con­cerns over costs, down­wash and suf­fi­cient weaponry dropped the CV-​​22 out of the run­ning. This meant only one air­craft in the analy­sis would likely meet the Air Force require­ments — the MH-​​47 Chinook.

A Chinook vari­ant wound up win­ning the first go-​​around of the even­tual CSAR-​​X com­pe­ti­tion in 2006, but that effort is now being rebid after mul­ti­ple indus­try protests.

In a tele­phone inter­view with Aerospace DAILY, DOD acqui­si­tion chief John Young ques­tioned the valid­ity of the entire CSAR-​​X process prior to his 2007 appoint­ment as acqui­si­tion chief, say­ing Air Force and even Pentagon offi­cials failed to ask some of the most basic ques­tions, includ­ing: should the ser­vice even have a ded­i­cated CSAR force, and if so, what should the aircraft’s require­ments truly be?

DOD has declined to com­ment about moves made before Young’s tenure.

The Air Force started look­ing for a CSAR heli­copter replace­ment about a decade ago. The ser­vice said it needed a better-​​armed air­craft that was more agile, net­worked, pow­er­ful and mod­ern to sur­vive the high-​​threat mis­sions it would per­form.

After the ser­vice formed and vet­ted its require­ments through the Pentagon process, the three remain­ing poten­tial replace­ment heli­copters were vari­ants of the Boeing H-​​47, Lockheed US101 and Sikorsky S-​​92. The three pre­pared timely and expen­sive pro­pos­als for the pro­gram.

But ser­vice doc­u­ments and related e-​​mails show the Pentagon was look­ing to bypass the required selec­tion route. An Air Force brief­ing dated Sept. 26, 2005, about the Pentagon guid­ance says: “Selection of OSD-​​recommended mixed fleet solu­tion would require sole-​​source acqui­si­tion strat­egy.“

The brief­ing also says the Pentagon’s plan would most cer­tainly lead to protests, includ­ing by con­trac­tors like the Northrop Grumman-​​EADS team, which had pulled its NH-​​90 out of the run­ning because of require­ment issues.

“Any com­peti­tor that bids to CDD [capa­bil­i­ties devel­op­ment doc­u­ment] require­ment but loses will claim that they would have won had they been allowed to bid less than CDD offer­ing,” the brief­ing says.

Congressional staffers also have con­firmed they pushed the Air Force toward a Chinook vari­ant because law­mak­ers wanted an air­craft already in pro­duc­tion.

The Pentagon inter­fer­ence set up a ques­tion­able par­al­lel pro­cure­ment track out­side the one the ser­vice had already started with CSAR-​​X bid­ders, the e-​​mail trail and other doc­u­ments show.

So con­cerned was Gen. T. Michael Moseley in March 2006 when he was Air Force chief of staff that he wrote to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that he was “trou­bled” by all the “dis­cus­sions” of a pro­gram “path” that has been twice approved by DOD’s Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC).

Young said he thought the JROC acted too hastily with its CSAR-​​X approvals, fail­ing to ask the appro­pri­ate ques­tions about the real need for a ded­i­cated CSAR force and the true require­ments for such aircraft.

Read the rest of this story, learn why the Euros are out of the Air Force One busi­ness, see the first shots fired since Gaza’s cease fire and get a glimpse of German defense from our friends at Aviation Week exclu­sively on Military​.com.

– Christian

This story first appeared in Aerospace Daily & Defense Report.

In the fourth and largest F-​​22 deploy­ment so far, a squadron of the U.S. stealth fight­ers has shifted from Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska, to Andersen AFB, Guam.

Another 12 fight­ers from Langley AFB, Va., flew to Kadena AFB in Okinawa, Japan, ear­lier this month.

The first F-​​22 deploy­ment was from Langley to Elmendorf, the sec­ond was from Langley to Okinawa and the third was from Elmendorf to Guam. All were tem­po­rary sin­gle squadron moves to test the new air­crafts logis­tics and reli­a­bil­ity and in the last two moves to par­tic­i­pate in the rota­tion of units to the west­ern Pacific Ocean.

Moving the F-​​22s to non-U.S. bases, like Kadena, which belongs to Japan, is con­sid­ered risky because intel­li­gence gath­er­ing can be con­ducted from both the island and from ships in the area. Of par­tic­u­lar con­cern are elec­tronic and sig­nals intel­li­gence (sig­int) that might be gath­ered by the exten­sive Chinese mer­chant fleet, accord­ing to senior U.S. intel­li­gence offi­cers. Russian Tu-​​95s with sig­int capa­bil­i­ties recently flew close enough to Guam to cre­ate an oper­a­tional stir.

U.S. offi­cials say the two units are part of an ongo­ing rota­tion of forces to ensure secu­rity and sta­bil­ity through­out the Asia-​​Pacific region. In case of a mil­i­tary emer­gency in Asia, U.S. fight­ers from Hawaii, Guam, Alaska and Kadena would shift to for­ward bases in Japan, South Korea or Singapore. Then addi­tional air­craft from the con­ti­nen­tal United States would shift to the inter­me­di­ate bases, ready for fur­ther deployment.

Read the rest of this story, see more about the USMC/​F-​​35/​Obama nexus, find out of the French are going to nab Gaza smug­glers and see how they’re upgrad­ing fight­ing vehi­cles in Afghanistan from our friends at Aviation Week exclu­sively on Military​.com.

– Christian