Boeing Formally Protests US Air Force Tanker Contract Award

Jeff Dougherty wrote in
:

On Mar 13, 1:14*pm, Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
Jeff Dougherty wrote
innews:1c300e63-969f-4e
:







On Mar 13, 9:46 am, Kingfish wrote:
On Mar 13, 12:18 am, Jeff Dougherty
wrote:

I believe that the design Boeing offered to the USAF was not the
same as the one currently being built for Italy and Japan- it's
based on the 767-200LRF airframe rather than the 767-200ER. *And
while the airframes themselves have been flying since 2005, they
only started testing the refueling systems last year and none
have actually entered service yet. *First deliveries are
supposed to be in the first quarter of 2008. *It's still been
around longer than the A330-MRTT variant, but the disparity
isn't as large as it first appears.

Boeing still has a great deal more experience building tankers,
of course, but I'd hesitate to call either of these designs
significantly more mature than the other.

I recall Boeing's Advanced Tanker was some kind of hybrid, like
you said it's based on the 767-200LRF but it has a different wing.
(can't find a source for this) The 767 has been around longer than
the A330 for sure, but I don't think that lessens the risk in
developing a refueler based on that plane. Either airplane would
be a huge improvement over the creaky KC-135 (now I'm reading they
may not be in as bad a shape as was previously believed)

Per Aviation Leak at:
http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/gener...y_generic.jsp?
channel=awst&i
d=news/aw031008p2.xml

The airframe that was actually being offered, the -200LRF, appears
to still be in development. *According to the article, it had the
airframe of a 767-200, wings from the -300F freighter, and cockpit
and empennage from the -400ER model. *The 767 is a proven airframe,
but I'm not sure that putting together all those parts and trying
to make them work together is a low-risk strategy.

It's been done for years by all sorts of manufacturers, including
Boeing.

Fair enough. The AvLeak article made it sound like a relatively high-
risk approach that turned off the Air Force, but the key word there
may be "relatively". Thanks for the clarification- I'm not even
remotely familiar with airliner manufacture and I guess it showed.


Well, they're just like any other airplane for the most part. Douglas
made up 'new' DC-8s by mixing wings fuselages and engines. Boeing did
roughly the same. all of the skinny ones from the 707 onwards have the
same fuselage. The 757 was initially suppose to have th esmae nose as
the 707, 727 etc but they wanted the glass out of the 767 in it so they
put them in and built the nose up around it. The new 737 has the 757
wing. Avweb could be right, of course. I can't see a big deal in doing
as they suggest, though. Boeing generally seem to know what they are
doing.

It'll be interesting to see how this all turns out. At the risk of
pontificating (again) about something I don't really understand, it
seems to me that the real take-home lesson is that we can look forward
to pretty much every major defense contract award being protested
unless and until the rules are changed. There's pretty much no
downside to losing the protest, and it gives you the potential to
swing the contract and all the associated millions. I wonder how long
it will be before procurement officers start building time into their
project schedules to deal with "routine" protests? :-)


Well, I would assume the military looked at the mission fist, a fact
that's often lost in the shouting and roaring that goes on in a case
like this. Presumably the 'Bus had some advantages in an actual
operational situation. No point buying a machine that's going to let you
down. I don't know that htis had anything to do with anything for sure,
but they don't buy toys like this without looking into these sorts of
things.


Bertie

Bertie the Bunyip wrote:


Well, I would assume the military looked at the mission fist, a fact
that's often lost in the shouting and roaring that goes on in a case
like this. Presumably the 'Bus had some advantages in an actual
operational situation. No point buying a machine that's going to let you
down. I don't know that htis had anything to do with anything for sure,
but they don't buy toys like this without looking into these sorts of
things.


Here's where you might be wrong Bertie. The US Military has a long
history of buying hardware for political not strategic or tactical reasons.

On Fri, 14 Mar 2008 10:02:24 -0500, Gig 601XL Builder
wrote:

Bertie the Bunyip wrote:


Well, I would assume the military looked at the mission fist, a fact
that's often lost in the shouting and roaring that goes on in a case
like this. Presumably the 'Bus had some advantages in an actual
operational situation. No point buying a machine that's going to let you
down. I don't know that htis had anything to do with anything for sure,
but they don't buy toys like this without looking into these sorts of
things.

Here's where you might be wrong Bertie. The US Military has a long
history of buying hardware for political not strategic or tactical reasons.

It's called "maintaining the industrial base." My guess is if Boeing and MacDac
were still separate companies and had submitted separate entries, EADs probably
wouldn't have stood a chance. But the military prefers to keep a bit of
competition going, for obvious reasons.

It's not unique to government contracts. I knew a company planning on deploying
a new civilian space system that used large subcontracts to entice concessions
from various world governments. The problem was, the cost of the hardware
obtained this way was about double that of the low bidder. Maybe worth it to
the company, but its own engineers kept getting hammered by management because
they couldn't get the per-vehicle cost of the satellites down to the level
management needed to make the system viable....

Ron Wanttaja

Ron Wanttaja wrote in
:

On Fri, 14 Mar 2008 10:02:24 -0500, Gig 601XL Builder
wrote:

Bertie the Bunyip wrote:


Well, I would assume the military looked at the mission fist, a
fact that's often lost in the shouting and roaring that goes on in
a case like this. Presumably the 'Bus had some advantages in an
actual operational situation. No point buying a machine that's
going to let you down. I don't know that htis had anything to do
with anything for sure, but they don't buy toys like this without
looking into these sorts of things.

Here's where you might be wrong Bertie. The US Military has a long
history of buying hardware for political not strategic or tactical
reasons.

It's called "maintaining the industrial base." My guess is if Boeing
and MacDac were still separate companies and had submitted separate
entries, EADs probably wouldn't have stood a chance. But the military
prefers to keep a bit of competition going, for obvious reasons.

OK, I can buy that. I guess I was just looking at it as I might have done
it!
Just got a new car for Mrs Bunyip and about the only test it didn't go
through before I "approved" it was it's combat capability...



Bertie