Beechcraft Protests Light Air Support Award; Kansas Lawmakers On Warpath

http://defense.aol.com/2013/03/08/beechcraft-protests-super-tucano-las-award-kansas-delegation-on/



Beechcraft Protests Light Air Support Award; Kansas Lawmakers On Warpath
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
Published: March 8, 2013

WASHINGTON: Wichita Congressman Mike Pompeo and Kansas senators Pat Roberts and Jerry Moran have written the Pentagon to protest Wichita-based Beechcraft's loss of the bitterly contested Light Air Support contract, Rep. Pompeo told AOL Defense this afternoon. Beechcraft, which had offered its AT-6 Texan II aircraft, announced plans earlier today to file a formal protest against the award to Sierra Nevada Corp., which offered the Brazilian-designed Embraer Super Tucano. Depending on how you count, this marks the second or third time the military has tried to buy Super Tucanos only to run afoul of Beechcraft and its backers.

"Had Beechcraft not been best value, I don't think you would hear a peep from anyone in the Kansas delegation," Pompeo said, minutes before the letter went out to newly-installed Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. "[But] they chose the less qualified, more expensive aircraft," he said -- and, the Kansan claimed, the Air Force's own assessment backs him up.

"More expensive" is clearly true. The Air Force announced that Sierra Nevada would provide 20 aircraft plus spare parts, training, and other support for $427 million. Beechcraft's bid for its AT-6 Texan II was about 30 percent less, $297 million.

~snip~

Of course, there is the definite possibility that the Air Force screwed up the contest. That's what the Air Force's own "command directed investigation" (CDI), the Government Accountability Office (GAO), and a federal judge all found about the previous attempt to award the contract to the Super Tucano, in December 2011. "The court finds that ample evidence was before the Air Force to support its concern that the procurement was likely tainted by bias," the judge wrote in November 2012, "bias in favor of SNC [Sierra Nevada Corp.]." So the Air Force tore up the 2012 award and started over -- only to re-award the contract to Sierra Nevada last week.