Raytheon/EADS North America Team JCA is formally challenging two key points in the US military's selection of the Alenia Aeronautica C-27J Spartan for the Joint Cargo Aircraft contract award, citing acquisition and life-cycle cost concerns.
Based on EADS Casa's C-295, the team's bid lost to the C-27J offered by L-3 Communications, Alenia Aeronautica and Boeing.
After receiving a debriefing from the JCA joint programme office on 19 June, Raytheon filed an official protest with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) four days later.
The team was told during the debriefing that programme officials selected the C-27J despite a wide price margin between the two candidate aircraft that appeared to clearly favour the C-295 bid, says Jim Hvizd, Raytheon's vice-president for JCA.
"We did not feel the government had sufficiently explained the decision on a best-value basis," he says. "That led us to go forward with the protest."
The JCA contract is for a medium-sized airlifter to fill a capability gap between the Boeing CH-47 Chinook helicopter and the Lockheed Martin C-130J tactical transport.
The US Army and US Air Force have called for buying as many as 148 aircraft, although the latter is continuing to evaluate its requirement for intra-theatre airlift, with an analysis to be complete by December.
In seeking to overturn the JCA selection, the Raytheon team has revealed at least two grounds included in its appeal filed to the GAO.
Its first point hinges on a statement by the programme office to the rivals that a higher-priced bid that offered only slightly better performance would not be considered a "best value" proposal, Hvizd says.
The programme office graded the bids as equal on all technical and performance factors except procurement price, where Team JCA's bid was 15% lower than the C-27J offer, he adds.
A second claim focuses on the programme office's apparent decision not to include estimates for life-cycle costs in its evaluation, Hvizd says.
The Raytheon team believes the C-295 bid offers a dramatic reduction in life-cycle fuel costs alone, equivalent to the purchase of about 140 aircraft compared with an all-C-27J fleet, he says.
If life-cycle costs were factored into the programme office's evaluation criteria, "the 15% cost number would have ballooned to a much higher number", he claims. L-3 Communications declined to comment about the protest.
Raytheon's action continues a series of awkward moments for the JCA programme, with the programme office and L-3 Communications having previously announced conflicting information about the value of the contract and the number of aircraft to be supplied.
On 13 June, the programme office said that the JCA award would amount to $2.04 billion for up to 78 aircraft, but on 19 June said this was a "misprint", with the actual value being $1.5 billion for the first 40 aircraft to be ordered between fiscal year 2007 to FY2011, including 32 for the army and eight for the air force.
The remaining 38 will be purchased between FY2012 and FY2013, it said.
But L-3 Communications said during the Paris air show that the original value would cover the purchase of 54 aircraft for the army and one for the air force over the first five years.
The GAO has until 1 October to make a final decision on the appeal.
Related story
- Raytheon to launch official protest against C-27J Spartan's victory in JCA contest
Source: FlightGlobal.com
