Appel d'offre USAF pour avions ravitailleurs

Northrop Threatens To Drop Tanker Bid

Northrop Grumman has told Pentagon acquisition chief Ash Carter that it will not submit a bid for the KC-X tanker program unless the government makes significant changes to the final request for proposal. The company made its declaration in a letter today from incoming Northrop CEO Wes Bush to Carter: “As a result, I must regrettably inform you that, absent a responsive set of changes in the final RFP, Northrop Grumman has determined that it cannot submit a bid to the department for the KC-X program.”
Bush left the door to a vibrant competition somewhat open, adding that the company hopes the Pentagon “will elect to modify its approach to this procurement in a way that will enable us to offer our product for your consideration.”
Company spokesman Randy Belote confirmed the letter’s contents. Belote said the company is “convinced that they want a prefer smaller tanker with less multirole which puts our tanker at a terrible disadvantage.”
A veteran aerospace analyst was more direct. “This is the stupidest contest you’ve ever seen,” said Joel Johnson, a consultant for various international clients, including Northrop Grumman. “It’s a Boeing RFP. When air forces have been able to decide on merit and price, every one of them has gone with the KC-45 clone.”
Belote said the company does expect “the final RFP will take our concerns into account.”
Northrop has considered this approach for some time and it was known as “the nuclear option.” The company decided to go nuclear after a Nov. 4 letter to the Pentagon in which the company first said it might not be able to bid under the terms of the current RFP elicited a negative response.
“The process has not allowed us to actually have a dialogue,” Belote said.

In the previous competition, Pentagon officials adjusted criteria in order to keep Northrop Grumman from dropping out of the competition. Bush noted the government's desire to have more than one bidder, writing: "we are aware of how important it is to the credibility of the ultimate KC-X tanker award that it be arrived at competitively."

The Pentagon's response to Bush's letter appeared to preclude changes to keep Northrop in the bidding.

"The Department wants competition but cannot compel the two airplane makers to compete," the statement said. "Both offerors have suggested changes to the RFP that would favor their offering. But the Department cannot and will not change the warfighter requirements for the tanker to give advantage to either competitor. The Department has played this right down the middle and will continue to do so."

The Pentagon said it is still reviewing comments and questions about the draft request for proposals and will probably release a final request in January.

One problem in trying to set up a fair competition is that the Air Force's requirements were virtually certain to favor one of the two tankers, because they're very different aircraft.

"You either decide that you want just a tanker or you decide that you want a highly capable multi-role tanker transport," Seattle-based analyst Scott Hamilton said Tuesday. Boeing's plane is the "just a tanker" option.

As for Barksdale's "what's changed" question, one answer is that there's a Democrat in the White House. Boeing has more of a Democratic constituency than Northrop, whose tanker would be assembled in Republican-heavy Alabama.

Responding to Northrop's letter, U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash. -- who chairs the Senate's Appropriations Defense Subcommittee -- said in a statement that the "Airbus" was attempting to tilt the competition in its favor.

"This is a new competition, but the players are the same and Airbus is up to its same old tricks," she said. "When the last draft Request for Proposal was released, Airbus threatened to drop out unless the requirements were tilted in its favor and they are using the same tactics this time around. The end result was a bad deal for our warfighters, our taxpayers, and yet another delay in getting a new tanker into the hands of our military.

"It's time to move forward with a fair and transparent competition based on the needs of our military, not the bullying of an illegally subsidized foreign competitor who has made no secret of its attempts to undermine the American aerospace industry and the jobs it supports."

Wall Street interrogates Northrop CFO on tanker

By
Stephen Trimble on December 2, 2009 3:17 PM

Northrop Grumman CFO Jim Palmer desperately tried to avoid making news on the KC-X program while appearing this morning in New York at the Credit Suisse First Boston 2009 Aerospace & Defense Conference. Palmer mostly succeeded.

Asked to explain the strategy behind CEO Wes Bush's letter yesterday to the Pentagon, Palmer parried.

"I think first of all we don't intend to negotiate here in public ... We did issue a letter to DOD yesterday that outlined our concerns. They are well aware of those issues. I don't want to comment too much more than what has already been in the press. We will have to wait until the final RFP to make a final decision. Based on where we are today, if there are not any changes it is our conclusion that we can not compete for this program."

But Palmer's Wall Street audience didn't so easily let him off the hook. Northrop's letter took issue with the DOD's plan to make KC-X a firm fixed price contract. So, Palmer's questioner asked, could KC-X be DOD's attempt to adopt a new paradigm for acquisition policy, and could Northrop's rejection be construed as an industry-wide rejection of that policy? Palmer:

"I think you have to ask that question to someone else. I don't know. I can't speak for anyone else. I can only speak for Northrop Grumman."

Still undaunted, a third tanker interlocutor asked how the US Air Force could write requirements that don't favor either one or the other competitor, since both bidders are stuck with offering only existing platforms? Palmer seemed to want to dodge the question initially, but concluded by conceding the point.

"I don't know. In a way, unlike any other development program, where you essentially are desinging from scratch, here we have a program that is based on an existing platform, so to some extent those existing platforms have an impact or govern what you can do with those platforms. So, to a certain extent, yes, it is governed by what you can do with those platforms."

Northrop Not Expected To Walk Away From KC-X

Dec 9, 2009



By Amy Butler


The decision by Northrop Grumman/EADS North America not to submit a bid for the U.S. Air Force’s KC-135 replacement competition is largely seen as continued posturing by the team, rather than an end to its ambitions to win back the $35-billion deal to rebuild aerial refuelers.

Northrop Grumman officials have publicly criticized the Pentagon’s KC-X plans—specifically the draft request for proposals (RFP) released last September—but so far the Defense Dept. appears unmoved.

“We very much want a competition,” Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn said during the Credit Suisse/Aviation Week Aerospace and Defense Finance conference here last week. “But we are very cognizant that we have to do what we’ve done all the way along, which is play this down the middle. We can’t favor one side over the other. We can’t compel the contractors” to enter the competition.

His steadfastness is a stark contrast to the KC-X competition of two years ago under the oversight of his predecessors. At that time, Northrop Grumman threatened not to bid, complaining the Pentagon’s source selection process would favor a smaller aircraft than its Airbus A330 option. The Pentagon then added another factor to the evaluation criteria—a factor many observers believe helped the company’s bid win.

Financial analysts are not taking seriously Northrop Grumman’s threat to walk away. Robert Spingarn of Credit Suisse says Northrop Grumman’s announcement is “merely a posturing move” and is “part of a negotiation process because [Northrop Grumman] has concluded it would have to bid the current RFP at a massive loss in order to win.”

Another financial analyst suggests the timing for the no-bid threat was plotted to ensure the company’s options are kept open. If Northrop Grumman were to pull out after the final RFP is issued, it would have less leverage and room to maneuver to possibly re-enter the competition.

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill could get involved if the team sticks with its plans not to bid. They could again embrace an option to buy both tankers at once, splitting the work with the lion’s share annually going to the best-performing team.

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz seemed chagrined during a luncheon speech at the conference here. “I do find it curious that some have indicated they understand our requirements better than we do,” he said. Industry should be postured to “satisfy the needs of the customer long before satisfying the marketing imperatives of the producer,” he noted.

By default, Northrop Grumman’s decision to walk away from the deal would mean the Pentagon could justify a sole-source deal to Boeing, but the Senate Armed Services Committee, and especially ranking member Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), have pushed for a competition. The Pentagon may be compelled to make some concessions if Congress rejects a sole-source contract.

The draft RFP emphasizes low cost, prompting the Northrop Grumman/EADS North America team to cry foul. Northrop Grumman President/Chief Operating Officer Wes Bush outlines two primary complaints in a Dec. 1 letter to Pentagon
acquisition chief Ashton Carter: the perceived draft RFP’s preference for a smaller aircraft and the Pentagon’s plans for a fixed-price development contract, which would shift risk onto the contractor.

"For all of the reasons we have provided, Northrop Grumman cannot proceed to submit a bid to the department against the RFP as currently planned,” Bush writes. “The department’s responses to date to our submitted questions suggest that the department is not planning to substantially address our concerns in the final release of the RFP,” Bush states.

Jim Palmer, Northrop Grumman’s chief financial officer, declined during a presentation at the finance conference last week to say whether a concession on one of those points would be enough to entice the company to re-enter.

Boeing has been less overt about its concerns, but Dennis Muilenburg, CEO of Boeing Integrated Defense Systems, also sent the Pentagon a Dec. 1 letter of concern about the RFP. “We are not questioning the warfighter’s requirements,” Muilenburg told Aviation Week at the conference. “This is not a negotiating process. This is a comment process.”

Boeing objects to the use in the forthcoming competition of the Integrated Fleet Aerial Refueling Assessment (Ifara), a tool that measures performance of aircraft in various operational scenarios. Ifara was the factor added in the 2007-08 competition after Northrop Grumman threatened not to bid. The Pentagon’s annual escalation rate of 2.5% projected for fuel cost, is too low, Muilenburg says. And, he takes issue with the method used to just military construction costs.

Like Northrop Grumman, Muilenburg is worried about the risk associated with a fixed-price contract, which would call for requirements discipline from the Air Force.

The Defense Dept. plans to review these issues and Lynn says the final RFP will be out in January.

EADS réaffirme sa menace de boycotter l'appel d'offre américain

EADS a réaffirmé vendredi son intention de boycotter, faute de modification importante dans la procédure, l'appel d'offres de 50 milliards de dollars (34 milliards d'euros) prévu par le Pentagone pour renouveler sa flotte d'avions ravitailleurs.

EADS s'était associé à l'américain Northrop Grumman pour affronter Boeing sur ce marché portant sur 179 avions. Mais Northrop a annoncé le 1er décembre son retrait du dossier en arguant du fait que le projet d'appel d'offres (RFP) favorisait Boeing. EADS a alors approuvé sa décision.

"Il ne s'agit pas d'une manoeuvre de négociation", a déclaré vendredi à des journalistes Sean O'Keefe, le directeur général d'EADS pour l'Amérique du Nord.

Le directeur général de Northrop, Ron Sugar, a démenti que son groupe cherche à imposer ses conditions à l'armée de l'air américaine, ce qu'affirment certains partisans de Boeing, mais il a ajouté que la détermination du tandem formé avec EADS ne devait pas être sous-estimée.

"Que personne ne s'y trompe: nous ne pouvons pas faire d'offre sur la base du RFP actuel", a-t-il dit à Reuters lors d'un entretien téléphonique.

Il s'est refusé à prédire si le Pentagone apporterait au projet d'appel d'offres des modifications suffisantes pour permettre à Northrop et EADS de présenter finalement leur proposition.

Lors des précédents appels d'offres, annulés après des recours, le tandem Northrop-EADS avait proposé un appareil dérivé de l'Airbus A330-200 du groupe européen.

Le contrat est censé être attribué d'ici la fin du mois de juin.

Les candidats éventuels ont eu cette semaine des discussions avec des représentants de l'administration sur d'éventuelles modification au projet de cahier des charges dévoilé en septembre.

"Nous sommes réconfortés" par les discussions, a dit Sean O'Keefe. "Nous n'aurions pas pu souhaiter une réponse plus attentive et plus constructive."

Il a ajouté que l'administration semblait se fixer pour objectif la publication d'une version définitive du cahier des charges à la mi-janvier.

William Barksdale, porte-parole de Boeing, a déclaré de son côté que les discussions avec les représentants de l'armée de l'air avait permis aux représentants du groupe "d'exprimer à la fois des observations et des inquiétudes" sur la procédure.

Northrop et EADS avaient remporté en février 2008 le contrat de construction de 179 ravitailleurs pour l'US Air Force mais celui-ci avait été annulé après un recours de Boeing sur les critères d'évaluation des offres.

Les nouveaux avions sont censés remplacer la flotte de KC-135 de l'Air Force, dont l'âge moyen avoisine 50 ans. Les premières livraisons sont prévues pour 2015.

Pas de modification majeure du cahier des charges des tankers

WASHINGTON, 14 décembre (Reuters) - Il est peu probable que le Pentagone modifie sensiblement son cahier des charges pour une flotte d'avions de ravitaillement en vol, en dépit des objections soulevées par Northrop Grumman et EADS, a déclaré lundi le secrétaire à l'Air Force Michael Donley.
Northrop et EADS ont fait savoir ce mois-ci qu'ils ne participeraient plus à l'appel d'offres pour un contrat de tankers de $50 milliards si ses conditions qui, affirment-ils, favorisent son concurrent Boeing, n'étaient pas modifiées en profondeur. (Plus de détails [ID:nGEE5B10HQ])
"Le cahier des charges est très solide", a dit Michael Donley lors du sommet annuel Reuters de l'Aéronautique, de l'Espace et de la Défense. "Je n'anticipe aucun changement majeur dans ce domaine".
L'équipe Northrop/EADS avait remporté ce contrat de 179 tankers en février 2008 mais l'appel d'offres a été relancé à la suite des protestations de Boeing.

USA/Ravitailleurs - Les termes ne devraient pas beaucoup changer

WASHINGTON, 18 décembre (Reuters) - Le secrétaire adjoint à la Défense, William Lynn, a annoncé jeudi devant les élus américains que le Pentagone ne devrait apporter que des modifications mineures aux termes de l'appel d'offres deportant sur le renouvellement de la flotte américaines d'avions ravitailleurs, a déclaré Todd Tiahrt, élu Républicain du Kansas.
Au lendemain d'une réunion avec les élus de l'Etat de l'Alabama qui soutiennent la proposition de Northrop Grumman Corp et de son partenaire européen EADS, Willian Lynn a rencontré les soutiens de Boeing sur le projet, Todd Tiahrt et Norm Dicks, élu démocrate de l'Etat de Washington.
L'appel d'offres est valorisé autour de 50 milliards de dollars (34,75 milliards d'euros)
Tandis que Boeing a prévu de construire ses appareils dans l'Etat de Washington et de réaliser leurs modifications militaires dans le Kansas, Northrop et EADS envisagent de produire leurs avions ravitailleurs dans l'Alabama.
"Les modifications ne seront pas importantes", a indiqué Todd Tiahrt à reuters après sa rencontre avec William Lynn. Il a ajouté que le secrétaire d'Etat adjoint avait suggéré que le Pentagone pourrait ajuster ses prévisions de coûts de carburant dans son dossier d'appel d'offres, et pourrait prolonger de 20 à 40 ans la période de garantie des coûts de production des appareils durant toute leur durée de vie.
Mercredi, William Lynn avait annoncé à Reuters que le Pentagone examinait les propositions des entreprises et des élus avant de lancer un appel d'offres modifié le mois prochain.
Todd Tiahrt a en outre prévenu qu'avec Norm Dicks, ils presseraient le Pentagone de tenir compte du jugement rendu par l'Organisation Mondiale du Commerce (OMC) sur des aides publiques européennes versées à Airbus et qualifiées d'illégales.
Mercredi, EADS, la maison mère d'Airbus, a salué les propos du Pentagone qui avait assuré qu'il apporterait des retouches appropriées à l'appel d'offres. Northrop et EADS avaient remporté en février 2008 le contrat de construction de 179 ravitailleurs pour l'US Air Force mais celui-ci avait été annulé après un recours de Boeing sur les critères d'évaluation des offres.

Schwartz: Tanker Fixed Price May Change

Jan 20, 2010



By Amy Butler abutler@aviationweek.com
Washington


The U.S. Air Force chief of staff, Gen. Norton Schwartz, says that changes to the much-awaited request for proposals (RFP) for the next-generation aerial refueler will “lessen the financial risk” for bidders.

Boeing and a Northrop Grumman/EADS North America are expected to bid for the work, which could total about $35 billion for the purchase of 179 KC-135 replacements. However, Northrop Grumman CEO Wes Bush has threatened not to offer his team’s Airbus A330-based option in part because the fixed-price development contract included in the draft RFP issued last fall exposed the company to too much risk. Northrop Grumman officials say that if the draft RFP stands, about 20 percent of the items needed would be developmental and thus more difficult to price.

Boeing officials have expressed dissatisfaction at the fixed-price approach as well, though the team has not publicly threatened to walk away from the competition. Boeing is expected to propose a tanker based on a 767 platform.

Pentagon acquisition chief Ashton Carter says the rationale behind the fixed-price structure is to shift more of the burden of performance to the contractor.

Schwartz also characterizes the changes to the forthcoming final RFP as “modest,” and he adds that the fundamental requirements remain untouched in the forthcoming competition. He made his comments during a press roundtable at the 38th IFPA-Fletcher Conference on National Security, Strategy and Policy in Washington this morning.

Schwartz says the final RFP will be issued within a month of the fiscal 2011 budget release scheduled for Feb. 1. Industry sources say they are expected the document to be out the week of Feb. 8, most likely on Friday, Feb. 12.

Tanker Contest Headed For Sole-Source Award
Author:Loren B. Thompson, Ph.D.
Date:Monday, February 1, 2010
Issue Brief
Senior executives at Northrop Grumman have made a tentative decision not to bid in the Air Force's pending re-competition of its KC-X aerial-refueling tanker. Only a year ago, Northrop looked like the odds-on favorite to win the contract for the future tanker, which will be worth about $35 billion for the first increment of 179 planes, but could ultimately be valued at over $100 billion as the service replaces the rest of its 450 Eisenhower-era refuelers. Northrop's startling reversal of fortune is traceable to the collision of two forces: a new administration determined to tighten up terms on contractors, and a new corporate CEO determined to assess rigorously the risks and rewards of business opportunities.

The new guard at the Pentagon is represented by acquisition czar Ashton (Ash) Carter, a widely admired Harvard professor who is a protégé of former defense secretary William Perry. The new Northrop Grumman CEO is Wesley (Wes) Bush, a hard-charging MIT graduate who has a mandate from his board to run a tight ship even if it means passing up big revenues because returns are too hard to quantify. That latter description certainly fits the tanker solicitation, since Carter's Pentagon team is demanding that offerors bid fixed prices on items stretching far into the future -- items that are intrinsically hard to predict. Because the winning contractor would have to absorb any cost overruns, the fixed-price features of the contract entail huge financial risk.

Carter's team recently has signaled that it might loosen up the fixed pricing demands, but that isn't the issue that most troubles Northrop execs. Their biggest worry is that the performance requirements set forth in the expected "request for proposals" would be scored in a way that makes cost the chief determinant of who wins, and the modified Airbus A330 that Northrop planned to offer is much more expensive than the 767 competitor Boeing plans to bid. When Northrop first entered the tanker contest, it hoped to convince the Air Force that a big plane with more range and carrying capacity was better suited to future refueling needs than the Boeing 707 airframes the Air Force currently uses. But now the Air Force wants each offeror to satisfy 373 equally-weighted "mandatory" performance requirements with no credit for exceeding the minimum thresholds, which eclipses the key advantages of the A330.

If both teams have to satisfy all 373 requirements and there is no extra credit for longer range or bigger fuel carriage, then price becomes crucial to prevailing. Northrop Grumman might still stay in the game by bidding a lowball price for its bigger plane, but Boeing has been so unrelenting in its attack of European aircraft subsidies (recently ruled unacceptable by the World Trade Organization) that any concessionary price is likely to bring heavy political scrutiny. So Northrop Grumman has good reason not to bid: the key virtues of its plane are nullified by the proposed selection criteria; its ability to offer a competitive price has been minimized; and even if it did somehow win, the fixed pricing features of the resulting contract would expose it to heavy financial risk.

For Boeing, the prospect of Northrop Grumman not bidding presents an interesting dilemma. Without the threat of being undercut by a competing bid, it could price its offering high to reduce the risks associated with fixed pricing of a development contract. But if it bids too high, that might produce a backlash in the Pentagon or in Congress. So what looks like a windfall could easily become a trap, and Boeing execs will have to think through how to assure the program is profitable without getting more controversy in the bargain.

USA/Ravitailleurs - L'appel d'offre publié après le 23 février

WASHINGTON, 9 février (Reuters) - L'armée de l'air américaine prévoit de publier prochainement mais pas avant le 23 février les termes définitifs de son appel d'offre pour le contrat de renouvellement de sa flotte d'avions ravitailleurs.
EADS s'était associé à l'américain Northrop Grumman pour affronter Boeing sur ce marché d'un montant total de 50 milliards de dollars (36 milliards d'euros) portant sur 179 avions.
Northrop et EADS avaient remporté le contrat en février 2008 mais celui-ci avait été annulé après un recours de Boeing sur les critères d'évaluation des offres.
Northrop a fait savoir le 1er décembre que le projet d'appel d'offres favorisait Boeing et qu'il se retirait du dossier, à moins que l'US Air Force n'y apporte des modifications substantielles.
L'US Air Force a annoncé lundi son intention de publier un appel d'offre à prix fixe pour le développement de nouveaux avions ravitailleurs dont quatre prototypes et des options portant jusqu'à 175 appareils en production sur la base de modèles existant au rythme de quinze appareils par an.
Northrop a indiqué que sa position n'avait pas changé et qu'il examinerait les conditions définitives lorsqu'elles seraient publiées.

USAF issues KC-X update, ignores Northrop demands
By Stephen Trimble

The US Air Force has issued a "presoliciation notice" for the KC-X tanker contract that suggests at least two of the three changes demanded by the Northrop Grumman/EADS North America team will not be incorporated in the final request for proposals (RFP).

The notice released on 8 February on the Federal Business Opportunities web site precedes the publication of the final RFP, which the notice says will not occur before 23 February.

The USAF plans to award a fixed-price contract for the four-year development phase, the notice says.

Northrop and EADS executives have demanded that the USAF adopt a traditional "cost-plus" contract policy for KC-X, arguing the fixed-price plan makes the contractor assume all of the risk of schedule delays and cost overruns.

For its part, Boeing supports the USAF's fixed-price approach for the KC-X development phase. "Even though it's [a] firm-fixed-price [strategy], I believe there is shared risk," says Chris Chadwick, president of Boeing Military Aircraft, speaking on 3 February at the Singapore Airshow.

The notice also appears to indicate that the performance requirements for the KC-X aircraft will be based on the existing KC-135R. For example, the USAF calls for a fuel offload capability "at least as good as the KC-135R".

The USAF's decision to make the KC-135R the baseline for its desired performance for the KC-X tanker has raised concerns for the Northrop/EADS team, which is proposing the KC-45 (formerly known as KC-30). The tanker version of the Airbus A330-200 airliner is significantly larger than the Boeing KC-767, which is one of the aircraft Boeing could propose. Both aircraft are larger than the KC-135R.

How the final RFP will address the Northrop-led team's third major concern is left unclear by the presolicitation notice. Northrop executives have criticized the draft RFP for evaluation criteria heavily focused on price, calling the strategy a "race to the bottom".

The presolicitation notice says the contract will be awarded on a "best value" basis, in which price can be balanced against performance and risk.

Northrop is not backing off of its threat to withdraw from the competition.

"Northrop Grumman feels that the draft RFP, as structured, fails the test of true competition and, without a responsive set of changes, is not an RFP to which Northrop Grumman can respond," the company says in a statement.

Boeing referred questions about its response to the presolicitation notice to a statement posted on its tanker blog on 9 February.

"We must offer and deliver an American designed and built combat-ready tanker at the lowest cost to the taxpayer," Boeing says. "And in 15 days, Boeing will do just that."

Murtha death bad news for Northrop tanker bid

The death today of US Rep. John Murtha (D-PA), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, means US Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Boeing/WA) will likely succeed him, and this is bad news for Northrop Grumman and its bid for the KC-X USAF aerial tanker.
Murtha supported a plan to split the buy between Northrop’s KC-30, based on the Airbus A330-200, and Boeing’s KC-767 despite opposition from the Department of Defense for a dual procurement. Murtha believed a split buy was the only solution that would win Congressional funding to replace the 50-year old Boeing KC-135s.
Dicks not only has steadfastly supported the KC-767, he has equally steadfastly opposed a split buy. With Murtha’s voice now stilled, Dicks is in a stronger position to oppose a split buy.
The Final Request for Proposals is due out this month. Northrop threatens to not bid on the contract unless significant changes to the Draft RFP are made to account for the KC-30’s larger fuel, troop and cargo capacity vs. the KC-767. Boeing is prepared to offer a tanker based on the even-larger 777, but this is a conceptual airplane and the DRFP marks down developmental planes vs off-the-shelf offerings such as the KC-30 and KC-767.

Admin a écrit:
Bonjour,

En attendant

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2010/02/09/338214/usaf-issues-kc-x-update-ignores-northrop-demands.html

....

Rien de définitif sur le plan des critères de jugements...
Mais confirmation que le marché est à prix fermes (fixed price ?) et que les performances doivent être au moins supérieures au KC135R...

Bonne journée

Pentagon will consider changing fixed-price tanker rules
Pentagon officials Thursday put in writing a pledge to revisit fixed-price requirements for the aerial refueling tanker request.

Executives from both Boeing and Northrop Grumman have complained that the draft request's provisions for an 18-year, fixed-price contract put too much risk on the bidders because the planes aren't fully developed and it's pretty much impossible to predict costs 18 years out.

Pentagon officials have countered that the tankers use mature technologies, but have said they would revisit the criteria. They addressed the issue in writing Thursday, in their latest batch of answers to questions from potential bidders, Pentagon officials.

Specifically, the Pentagon addressed questions about the 18-year, fixed-price term.

"Contractors, and their suppliers, do not establish rates or business models that far into the future, and will be forced to become speculative in nature on a number of cost elements," a potential bidder wrote, asking: "Why does the USAF believe that contractors can sufficiently estimate their costs that far into the future."

In response, the Pentagon wrote: "The government will consider restructuring the production options to reduce contractor risk."

Pentagon officials so far have resisted calls from Northrop and its main tanker partner, EADS, to revise criteria they say skew the request toward of Boeing's smaller 767-based tanker and against their Airbus A330-based offering. Northrop officials have said they won't bid without such changes.

The Air Force has said it will release a final tanker request for proposals as soon as Feb. 23

USA/Ravitailleurs - Un appel d'offre d'ici la fin février

WASHINGTON, 18 février (Reuters) - L'armée américaine devrait rendre publics les termes de son appel d'offre portant sur la livraison d'avions ravitailleurs entre le 23 février et la fin du mois, a annoncé jeudi le général Mark Shackelford, responsable adjoint des acquisitions pour l'armée de l'air.
S'exprimant lors d'une conférence, il a indiqué que le Pentagone était préparé à l'éventualité de n'avoir qu'un candidat à l'appel d'offres, à savoir Boeing.
Northrop Grumman, allié dans ce dossier à Airbus, a en effet prévenu qu'il n'y répondrait pas si des modifications sensibles n'étaient pas apportées aux termes du projet d'appel d'offres dévoilé en septembre.
Le fait de n'avoir qu'un seul candidat est un risque que l'armée de l'air américaine peut se permettre, a-t-il expliqué.

Tanker now; tanker-transport later?
A new Pentagon report could hint at the outcome to the upcoming Air Force aerial refueling tanker competition, an analyst wrote Thursday.

The 2011-2040 Aircraft Investment Plan submitted with the 2011 fiscal-year budget says (page 21):



The Air Force plans to develop and procure 109 new KC-X tankers by 2020. It will be able to refuel other aircraft in flight, and be refueled itself while airborne, transferring fuel to either boom or drogue receivers without having to be reconfigured for those deliveries in advance.

Over the longer term, the Air Force will evaluate options for recapitalizing its tanker fleet and assess the potential of including secondary capabilities, such as airlift, communications support, and aeromedical evacuations.



Such "secondary capabilities" are a key selling point for the Northrop Grumman-EADS Airbus A330-based tanker. Northrop officials have said they won't bid on the current tanker request without changes because they feel it favors Boeing's smaller 767-based offering.

Pentagon officials have said they don't plan major changes from the draft for their final request, which could come out as soon as Tuesday.

"The AIP, in the two short paragraphs about the KC-X, appears pretty clear: tanker now, secondary capabilities later," analyst Scott Hamilton wrote.

The draft request clearly puts little premium on the extra cargo space that the Northrop-EADS tanker offers, and Pentagon officials seem unlikely to change that.

When they get around to asking for a larger tanker-transport, I imagine Boeing will put forward a 777-based offering. How that would that stack up against the Northrop-EADS plane might, again, depend a lot on how the request is written

WASHINGTON, 22 février (Reuters) - Le secrétaire américain à la Défense Robert Gates a déclaré lundi que selon lui deux parties soumettraient une offre pour le contrat d'avions ravitailleurs (tankers) de l'US Air Force.

"Nous avons très bon espoir d'avoir deux compétiteurs", a-t-il dit.

L'Air Force a dit la semaine dernière qu'elle comptait soumettre le cahier des charges définitif d'ici la fin du mois et qu'elle se préparait à l'éventualité de voir Boeing seul en lice.

Northrop Grumman, qui fait équipe avec EADS sur ce dossier, a dit qu'il ne soumettrait pas de nouvelle proposition à moins que l'Armée de l'air ne modifie sensiblement un cahier des charges rendu public en septembre.

(Tabassum Zakaria, version française Wilfrid Exbrayat)