You would think that, by now, the US Department of Defense would know better than to even attempt a controversial KC-X acquisition strategy pre-loaded with political landmines.
DoD officials are slightly changing the rules for the "re-compete" of the $35 billion contract. Neither of the two key changes is bad. Weighting the amended requirements to give less credit to life-cycle cost estimates and more credit to an aircraft with larger fuel offload capacity makes perfect operational sense.
The problem is that both changes appear to tilt the competition in favour of the Northrop Grumman KC-30B, at the expense of the smaller, more fuel-efficient Boeing KC-767.
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In the charged atmosphere of an election year in Washington DC, this simply will not do. Undermining a century of painfully learned experience, some US politicians (namely, Rep Duncan Hunter) even want to impose their own ground rules for the competition, as if political acumen is a qualification for judging the relative merits of combat aircraft.
But don't blame the politicians for simply doing what politicians always do in an election year.
The blame for this budding debacle rests squarely with the DoD's leadership. Their pretence that politics still do not matter in the KC-X contract decision demonstrates an almost delusional naivety.
The KC-X competition is fuelling a political furore
Source: Flight International
