In dettaglio .....
Fonte: AviationWeek.com
U.S. Aerospace Protests KC-X Source Selection
By Amy Butler (August 4, 2010)
The Pentagon is assessing only two bids for the U.S. Air Force KC-135 replacement competition because a last-minute proposal from U.S. Aerospace/Antonov was not received before the deadline, according to Geoff Morrell, Pentagon press secretary.
This has sparked a protest from U.S. Aerospace filed Aug. 2 with the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). Company officials say that the “conduct of the Air Force was unreasonable”, among other complaints, according to an industry executive. They claim that personnel at the Aeronautical Systems Center at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, where the KC-X program office is located, discriminated against their bid.
Bids for the KC-X competition, estimated to be worth about $35 billion for 179 tankers, were due at 2 p.m. July 9 local time at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio (which is in the Eastern time zone). EADS submitted its proposal a day early, and dispatched two copies — one by air and one by ground — to be sure it arrived. Boeing’s submission was received at around 9 a.m. July 9, according to Morrell. “Those deadlines count,” he says. “They mean something. They are there for a reason and any professional contractor knows that.” Both EADS and Boeing said their proposals were more than 8,000 pages in length.
According to an industry executive, a messenger carrying a bid from U.S. Aerospace arrived at the Wright-Patterson gate at about 1:30 p.m., 30 minutes before the deadline. “Air Force personnel intentionally denied the messenger entry to the base” and later provided “incorrect directions,” and forced the messenger to wait when he got turned around. The proposal was marked 2:05 p.m., but this executive says that the bid was under Air Force control prior to that time.
Morrell, however, stands by the Pentagon’s view that the proposal was not received on time. “This is a $30-40 billion bid,” he says. “This is not a high school homework assignment. Deadlines count here.”
U.S. Aerospace/Antonov had requested an extension to the proposal due date, but that was declined by the Pentagon. On March 31, the Defense Department had already extended the deadline by 60 days to provide time for EADS to prepare its bid. Its longtime teaming arrangement with former prime contractor Northrop Grumman ended abruptly in March, forcing the company to step up in the prime role at the last minute.
“The proposal was late and by law we are not allowed to consider it,” Morrell said in response to a query from AVIATION WEEK. “We are considering two proposals and U.S. Aerospace is not one of those being considered.”
Chuck Arnold, a senior advisor to U.S. Aerospace, says the company is proposing an An-112 concept based on the four-engine An-70 transport. The design features a boom capable of offloading 1,600 gal. per minute (more than the 1,200 gal. per minute required by the Air Force), and he boasts that it would be far less expensive than the Boeing 767-based design or the EADS A330-200 tanker platform.
Arnold declined to identify the boom manufacturer or any U.S. partners other than U.S. Aerospace, a small firm based in Southern California that was to be prime; he citied a nondisclosure agreement with Antonov. Antonov is a state-owned manufacturer in the Ukraine, but Arnold insisted, without providing details, that some assembly of the tankers would take place in the United States.
The eleventh-hour emergence of the U.S. Aerospace/Antonov bid sparked many questions. U.S. Aerospace is a small company; in Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings the company has listed about 30 employees. It is not clear how such a small contractor would be able to manage a massive contract and supply chain, though Arnold touts the small company size as a benefit in lean management.
Additionally, the company has recently had financial problems, including debt. Arnold notes that board members recently secured an influx of funding to “clean up the books,” but this, too, calls into question the ability of the firm to manage a major Defense Department contract. A July 1 SEC filing notes additional cash on hand.
A new board of directors took over the company in March, renaming it from New Century to U.S. Aerospace and shifting the focus to address only aerospace products.
However, the company seemed even in its July 1 SEC filing to be aware that it may not meet the requirements called for by the Air Force. To compete in KC-X, each bidder must meet 372 mandatory requirements and demonstrate its ability to manage the contract. The Pentagon’s denial for the bid extension was “resulting in a significantly more rushed process than we desired, and substantially hindering our ability to submit a full and complete bid package,” according to the July 1 SEC filing from U.S. Aerospace. “The Air Force may find that our proposal does not meet all mandatory RFP requirement, that we do not have qualified subcontractors and teaming partners, that we are not a capable and responsible contractor, that we have not obtained or processed the classified information that is needed to prepare a proposal, that we have not demonstrated that the company has the facility and personnel clearances that are prerequisites to receiving, handling and storing classified information, and that our failure to meet the proposal submittal deadline was attributable to our failure to act diligently and promptly.”
Arnold says that “If our plane is looked at, we will be selected,” adding that he expects “obstacles” for the company in competing.
The Air Force’s tanker pursuits have been years in the making. A 2002 attempt by the service to lease Boeing 767 tankers crumbled after Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) found bloated pricing and began an investigation that eventually led to jail time for former senior Air Force procurement official Darleen Druyun and former Boeing Chief Financial Office Michael Sears.
A later competition won by Northrop Grumman/EADS was thrown out after a Boeing protest uncovered missteps by the Air Force during the source selection process. More recently, Defense Secretary Robert Gates himself stepped in last year to table a new competition; he called for a “cooling off” period between the contractors.
The current competition is the Air Force’s most recent attempt to replacing aging KC-135s. A downselect is expected in November shortly after the national elections.
Andando avanti di questo passo, l'USAF riceverà i suoi nuovi "tankers" ..... nen prima del 2050 .....
Rich...NE SAI!!... 
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