Antonov's KC-X bid was submitted 5 minutes too late. Or was it
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U.S. Aerospace Protests KC-X Source Selection
Aug 4, 2010
By Amy Butler
The Pentagon is assessing only two bids for the U.S. Air Force KC-135 replacement competition because a last-minute proposal from U.S. Aerospace/Antonov was not received before the deadline, according to Geoff Morrell, Pentagon press secretary.
This has sparked a protest from U.S. Aerospace filed Aug. 2 with the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).
Company officials say that the “conduct of the Air Force was unreasonable,” among other complaints, according to an industry executive.
They claim that personnel at the Aeronautical Systems Center at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, where the KC-X program office is located, discriminated against their bid.
Bids for the KC-X competition, estimated to be worth about $35 billion for 179 tankers, were due at 2 p.m. July 9 local time at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio (which is in the Eastern time zone).
EADS submitted its proposal a day early, and dispatched two copies — one by air and one by ground — to be sure it arrived.
Boeing’s submission was received at around 9 a.m. July 9, according to Morrell.
“Those deadlines count,” he says. “They mean something. They are there for a reason and any professional contractor knows that.” Both EADS and Boeing said their proposals were more than 8,000 pages in length.
According to an industry executive, a messenger carrying a bid from U.S. Aerospace arrived at the Wright-Patterson gate at about 1:30 p.m., 30 minutes before the deadline.
“Air Force personnel intentionally denied the messenger entry to the base” and later provided “incorrect directions,” and forced the messenger to wait when he got turned around.
The proposal was marked 2:05 p.m., but this executive says that the bid was under Air Force control prior to that time
Morrell, however, stands by the Pentagon’s view that the proposal was not received on time.
“This is a $30-40 billion bid,” he says. “This is not a high school homework assignment. Deadlines count here.”
“The proposal was late and by law we are not allowed to consider it,” Morrell said in response to a query from AVIATION WEEK. “We are considering two proposals and U.S. Aerospace is not one of those being considered.”
Chuck Arnold, a senior advisor to U.S. Aerospace, says the company is proposing an An-112 concept based on the four-engine An-70 transport.
The design features a boom capable of offloading 1,600 gal. per minute (more than the 1,200 gal. per minute required by the Air Force), and he boasts that it would be far less expensive than the Boeing 767-based design or the EADS A330-200 tanker platform.
The current competition is the Air Force’s most recent attempt to replacing aging KC-135s. A downselect is expected in November shortly after the national elections.
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