Warbird Information Exchange

CAPFlyer, I'm not arguing the "fairness" of the deal.

I'm arguing end-game capability. I don't care if they change location of the target every minute...so long as the end product shacks that target.

People are letting emotions get in the way of logically looking at the reasons the decision was made.

If Boeing were genuinely surprised by a real change in parameters, then someone at Boeing wasn't playing footsie closely enough, surely? This is b i g deals, big organisations. If they aren't 'reality checking' as they go, someone's screwed up.

Using that type of criteria, no contract signed by the USAF is worth the paper it's written on.

I still think the decision to buy the F-22 was stupid. The aircraft wasn't ready and its competitor was much more maneuverable and capable to be in production 10 years prior to the F-22 even back then because it was a lower-risk design that used more off-the-shelf components and didn't suffer from the weight gain that the YF-22 had.

But Randy, you gat to admit the YF-23 ranked way up their in the cool factor ! Not sure how that would help you in a firefight but it probably counts for sumthin !

The can be demonstrated by the fact that this contract was already won twice by Boeing, once for a lease and once for a purchase.

Airbus protested that they were being unfairly treated because of the aircraft size put forth in the specification, so then the USAF changed the specification to include the proposed Airbus aircraft. Now Airbus won, is anyone surprised?

March 07, 2008
Boeing: Uncertainty About Process Remains After Air Force Tanker Debrief
The U.S. Air Force has completed a debriefing for The Boeing Company [NYSE: BA] during which acquisition officials sought to explain why they selected a team of Northrop Grumman and the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS) for a contract to replace aerial refueling tankers.
The debriefing on Friday came one week after the Air Force’s surprising announcement that it had chosen the Northrop-EADS team over the Boeing KC-767 tanker offering.
“We spent several hours with Air Force leaders, listening and probing, all in an effort to better understand the reasoning behind their decisions,” said Mark McGraw, Boeing vice president and program manager of the KC-767 tanker. “While we are grateful for the timely debriefing, we left the room with significant concerns about the process in several areas, including program requirements related to capabilities, cost and risk; evaluation of the bids and the ultimate decision.
“What is clear now is that reports claiming that the Airbus offering won by a wide margin could not be more inaccurate,” said McGraw.
Boeing officials said that they will take the next few days to evaluate the data presented and will give serious consideration to filing a protest.
“Our plan now is to work through the weekend to come to a decision on our course of action early next week,” said McGraw. “It will be a very rigorous and deliberative process to ensure we’re balancing the needs of the warfighter with our desire to be treated fairly. For decades Boeing has been recognized as a defense company that never takes lightly protests of our customers’ decisions.”

The Government also uses past performance in selecting a contractor, and with two of Boeings exec's in jail for the leasing fiasco is not a good thing.