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Air Chief: Even Without Senior Officials, USAF Can Run Tanker Competition
September 16th, 2009 | AFA AWS 2009 | Posted by John Bennett
The U.S. Air Force can complete its latest KC-X tanker competition at the speedy pace desired by Pentagon brass even with several top posts still vacant, says Gen. Norton Schwartz, Air Force chief of staff.
The Obama administration has not yet nominated individuals for several key Pentagon jobs, including Air Force undersecretary and acquisition executive.
But that situation should not impact the soon-to-launch KC-X competition, Schwartz told reporters.
The chief’s comments came just hours after Defense Secretary Robert Gates told the conference the service had been given back control of the embattled KC-X program.
The defense secretary took over the program in June 2008 after government auditors found flaws with the service’s process used to award a 179-plane, $35 billion KC-X contract to EADS and Northrop Grumman.
That team beat out Boeing. The Chicago-based defense giant is again expected to compete for the contract against the EADS-Northrop team.
Industry sources have whispered during the conference that another protest is almost guaranteed — perhaps even of the draft request for proposals (RfP). That initial solicitation should be issued in the next few weeks, sources say.
Schwartz said the Air Force must “make sure the [competition] is as pristine as possible to prevent even the temptation of a protest.”
The onus, the air chief said, “is on us to do this in a way that minimizes the likelihood that there will be a protest.”
Gates has said for months the service had to prove to him it was up to the test of running the competition.
Schwartz said he feels the defense secretary saw enough n the last few months to think the air service “has the right kind of team, with the right oversight, to move this across the goal line.”
Tags: boeing, EADS, gates, kc-x, Northrop Grumman, schwartz, tanker
Gates: Keep Down Next-Gen Bomber Costs, Requirements
September 16th, 2009 | AFA AWS 2009 | Posted by John Bennett
The Pentagon should field a new long-range bomber, but not one so expensive that losing one would be “a national disaster,” said Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
Gates wants the next bomber effort to lead to planes that “realistically can be produced and deployed in the numbers originally envisioned.”
The last U.S. bomber program led to the B-2 fleet. But those planes cost $2 billion each, meaning the nation could afford only a fraction of the 132 initially envisioned. And at that price, the loss of a single B-2 is a major event.
“That is why it is so important that with aircraft — as with all of our major weapons systems — schedules are met, costs are controlled and requirements are brought into line with reality,” Gates said.
Gates Gives Tanker Back to USAF
September 16th, 2009 | AFA AWS 2009 | Posted by John Bennett
Defense Secretary Robert Gates has given the Air Force control over the KC-X tanker program back to service brass.
“I am pleased to announce that source selection authority is returning to the Air Force,” according to a copy of his speech.
Still, he will tell the conference, “my office will continue to have a robust oversight role.”
Gates wants to avoid the kinds of “letdowns, parochial squabbles, and corporate food fights that have bedeviled this effort in the past.”
The secretary was a competition “done soon and done right.”