PROTESTS HAVE been lodged by Cessna Aircraft and Lockheed Martin over the Pentagon's selection of the Raytheon Aircraft PC-9 Mk11 as the US military's next-generation primary training aircraft.
Losing competitors in the US Air Force/US Navy's Joint Primary Aircraft Training System (JPATS) programme were given ten days to appeal against a Pentagon procurement decision after the formal announcement on 22 June. Cessna Aircraft has filed its formal protest with the US General Accounting Office (GAO).
The congressional watchdog agency can force the Pentagon to re-open a weapons competition, but it has done so in only a few cases. The Pentagon has 25 working days from the date of filing to justify its procurement decision. The GAO has 90 working days from the filing date to make a recommendation.
Lockheed Martin protested to the procurement agency before the ten-day deadline. By doing so, it gained ten additional days to file a formal appeal to the GAO.
Cessna says that it does not routinely protest against Pentagon contract decisions, but argues that "...it appears that the ground rules changed significantly during the bid process from a 'best- value' based request for proposal to a 'lowest-cost-price' decision. If that is the case, we don't think our submission was fairly evaluated."
The JPATS project includes procurement of over 700 PC-9 Mk II aircraft.
Source: Flight International