The sad shape of US military contracting.

[Whoha]

Originally posted by Mr Snuggles
There's a very famous very important person who once made a very insightful speech about the military-industrial complex...his wisdom was wasted in the US.

Yea but that was back when it was a democrat institution.

Originally posted by Oerdin
Basically this one has it all. Protectionism, government corruption, shady backroom deals, and international drama.

Of course the reason Gates has said his office and not the Air Force will decide this contract is because the Air Force actually decided based on the airbus costing billions less and not how much money Boeing gave Congressmen. It's a joke. A transparent joke.

I won't be thumbing up this one until it pulls through.

[Bosh]

I think what you're missing here Oerdin is that Airbus & Northrop-Grumman is also up to just as much ****ed up **** as Boeing...

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Lonestar

So was Northrup(In the Tanker instance).

They never built a tanker before but Northrop is at least an aircraft manufacturer. Where as with that cargo plane deal you mentioned earlier neither of the bidders had ever actually made an airplane before and instead they were just reselling someone else's plane and putting different avionics or what not on it. It seems like it would be cheaper to just cut out the middle man and buy it direct from the manufacturer.

The Northrop-Airbus deal was much more direct. Northrop is to use its US factory to build an Airbus plane. Basically, Airbus has the plane but no domestic manufacturing plant while Northrop has the plant but no plane.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Bosh
I think what you're missing here Oerdin is that Airbus & Northrop-Grumman is also up to just as much ****ed up **** as Boeing...

I agree they both played the give money to politicians game but at the end of the day cheaper is cheaper and as a tax payer I want them to spend less money not more.

[Asher]

Where's the prices, beyotch?

[Dinner]

Boeing's bid was $40 Billion while Northrop-Airbus's bid was $35 billion.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/29/AR2008022903652.html

Boeing is now crying big crocodile tears claiming that over the 30 year life of the planes they would be cheaper but given that Boeing has a poor record of cost over runs in their military contracting business this claim is doubtful.

The Air Force stated the reasons Northrop-Airbus won was they were cheaper, their proposed production schedule was much faster, the airbus was a larger plane, and that the Air Force wanted to develop a competitor to Boeing's 50 year old monopoly on Air Force tanker contracts.

Those sound like good reasons but now we're seeing a nationalist backlash demanding the contract be awarded to an American owned company. Several Congressmen are pointing out that the Boeing planes would be 85% American built while the Northrop-Airbus planes would only be 60% American built. Personally I don't care about that. I like that Northrop-Airbus will become a direct competitor to Boeing in the defense business and that their bid was $5 billion less.

[Winston]

Another misleading thread title.

The U.S. military is expanding, not contracting.

[PLATO]

1.) The results of the audit were conducted by the GAO, not Congress.

2.) Even Senator Shelby from Alabama, the state that has the most to gain from Northrup getting the deal, said that rebidding was the right thing to do.

3.) This does not award anything to Boeing other than the ability to compete with Northrup on a level playing field. If Northrup has the better product then they should still get the contract.

4.) Oerdin.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Boeing's bid was $40 Billion while Northrop-Airbus's bid was $35 billion.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/29/AR2008022903652.html

Boeing is now crying big crocodile tears claiming that over the 30 year life of the planes they would be cheaper but given that Boeing has a poor record of cost over runs in their military contracting business this claim is doubtful.

Sounds to me like we don't know what this will cost and that's why we're looking at this again?

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Oerdin
....The Air Force stated the reasons Northrop-Airbus won was they were cheaper, their proposed production schedule was much faster, the airbus was a larger plane, and that the Air Force wanted to develop a competitor to Boeing's 50 year old monopoly on Air Force tanker contracts. ...

I recall a news story at the time the contract was first awards saying that the Air Force had laid out five performance criteria, that Airbus and surpassed all five and that Boeing had failed all five. Is this incorrect?

While costs are important, the importance of costs is dwarfed by the importance of getting our service people the best quality equipment.

[BeBMan]

On the plus side I read somewhere Boeing wants to develop a cargo zeppelin now

[Asher]

Yes, there's actually huge demand for that in Alberta due to oil sands development.

[UnOrthOdOx]

Originally posted by Zkribbler


I recall a news story at the time the contract was first awards saying that the Air Force had laid out five performance criteria, that Airbus and surpassed all five and that Boeing had failed all five. Is this incorrect?

Yes, and no.

Both planes met all the critical areas, and differed in some of the optional ones.

The Request for Proposal (rfp) laid out some specific criteria, and some optional objectives, and specifically stated there would be no credit given for exceeding the criteria.

Airbus/Northrop had a bigger plane, and thus exceeded the capacity criterias. This was a main 'selling point' according to the original AF statements. But, the RFP specifically said it could NOT be a selling point.

According to the GAO the cost analysis were also flawed to some degree. Making the Northrop/Airbus bid cost less and the Boeing bid cost more.

Among other things.

You can read the GAO statement here if you really want to know what all the hubbub is about: http://www.gao.gov/press/boeingstmt.pdf

From my perspective, it seems the Boeing team was lazy, frankly. They should have known long before the bid was announced about many of the complaints and had them resolved prior. The whole thing smells fishy on all sides. Looks like Northrop/Airbus was paying the AF to fudge numbers prior to the bid, and Boeing was buying off the investigators after.

Did that really happen? Who knows? It just don't smell right.

And now it's all politics.


And, for the record, I work for Boeing, but in missiles, not planes. With Northrop personell in the next cubicle. We've kind of bemusedly watched this play out as we work together on a joint contract. Laughing at the airplane folk. As a result, I do see every tiny tidbit of info from both sides on this damn thing whether I like it or not

[Asher]

So what you're saying is it's a complicated issue and not cut and dry like Oerdin is portraying it? Interesting!

[UnOrthOdOx]

Yeah, I know, I'm breaking form. I'm supposed to come into OT and say it's cut and dry, but Oerdin's wrong.


I'm an OT newb, what can I say?