WILCOX ELECTRIC has issued a formal protest against the award of the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) contract to Hughes Aircraft, its former subcontractor on the $475 million programme.
Wilcox says that the protest follows discovery that the US Federal Aviation Administration "-had given Hughes more time to complete the project-and had eased technical and other requirements". The FAA and Hughes have no immediate comment.
The protest, which has been filed with the FAA's new Office of Dispute Resolution, asks the agency "-to terminate the letter contract with Hughes and open up the WAAS contract to bids from Wilcox and other companies".
The decision to award a single-source contract to Hughes, without competition, was "irrational and certainly not in the FAA's best interests", says former WAAS programme manager, now Wilcox president, Bill Marberg.Wilcox's contract gave the company 29 months to get the initial WAAS operational, providing en route navigation and Category I precision-approach capability, using the global-positioning system.
According to Marberg, Hughes has been given 30 months to get a "phase one" WAAS operational, without Cat I capability and with reduced availability, continuity and maintainability requirements.
In terminating Wilcox's WAAS contract in late April, the FAA cited the risk of a ten-month schedule slip and a $100 million cost overrun. Awarding the contract to Hughes, the FAA said that it "-provides an eight-month cost, schedule and technical advantage" (Flight International, 8-14 May, P9).
Marberg says that Wilcox was committed to the original WAAS schedule, which called for initial availability in January 1998, and notes that the Hughes system will not be operational until November 1998 - a ten-month slip - and that it "...will do less than the Wilcox system".
He says that Hughes will not be required to build a functional verification system for certification testing of the software; will be allowed to use two geostationary communications satellites, instead of three, reducing launch risks; and will be allowed to defer Cat I capability. These were essentially the items which made the original schedule difficult to meet, says Marberg.
Wilcox believes that the FAA wants to abandon the original cost-plus contract. Hughes has been awarded a fixed-price contract under new acquisition rules which allow the FAA to terminate the programme if it should run 10% over schedule.
Marberg says that a Wilcox offer to restructure its contract under the new rules was turned down by the FAA.
Source: Flight International
