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Beechcraft Protests Light Air Support Award; Kansas Lawmakers On Warpath

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WASHINGTON: Wichita Congressman Mike Pompeo and Kansas senators Pat Roberts and Jerry Moran have written the Pentagon to protest Wichita-based Beechcraft’s loss of the bitterly contested Light Air Support contract, Rep. Pompeo told Breaking Defense this afternoon. Beechcraft, which had offered its AT-6 Texan II aircraft, announced plans earlier today to file a formal protest against the award to Sierra Nevada Corp., which offered the Brazilian-designed Embraer Super Tucano. Depending on how you count, this marks the second or third time the military has tried to buy Super Tucanos only to run afoul of Beechcraft and its backers.

“Had Beechcraft not been best value, I don’t think you would hear a peep from anyone in the Kansas delegation,” Pompeo said, minutes before the letter went out to newly-installed Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. “[But] they chose the less qualified, more expensive aircraft,” he said — and, the Kansan claimed, the Air Force’s own assessment backs him up. Keep reading →

Published March 8, 2013 at 6:20 PM

Beechcraft Exits Bankruptcy On Eve Of Air Force’s Light Air Support Pick

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[Updated 1:15 pm, Feb. 20] Wichita-based Beechcraft — formerly Hawker Beechcraft — has officially emerged from bankruptcy with a new name, 2,000 fewer employees, $2 billion less debt, and one last shot at a bitterly contested Air Force contract to provide ground attack planes to Afghanistan. The Air Force’s decision on the Light Air Support program may come as early as this week.

Today’s announcement puts a nail in the coffin of Sinophobic speculation that Beechcraft would sell out to Beijing. The Kansas-based aircraft manufacturer did accept a $50 million “non-refundable deposit” from a Chinese firm, Superior Aviation Beijing, that was interested in acquiring it. But concerns overSuperior’s business bona fides and the security of Beechcraft’s defense programsultimately scotched the deal. Keep reading →

Published February 19, 2013 at 7:00 AM

Tucano Debuts At Airshow Amidst Lawsuit, Chinese Takeover Talk

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[UPDATED with comment from outgoing Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz] Sierra Nevada Corp. unveiled its Super Tucano to the American public even as its lawsuit proceeds against the American government.

The Air Force initially decided to buy 20 of the light attack planes for Afghanistan, then unexpectedly cancelled the Light Air Support contract two months later in February — a decision Sierra Nevada is suing to reverse. Meanwhile, competitor Hawker Beechcraft, which had been pushing its AT-6 Texan II as the all-American alternative to the Brazilian-designed Super Tucano, is in the somewhat awkward position of potentially being bought by the Chinese. Keep reading →

Published July 24, 2012 at 1:35 PM

Hawker Beechcraft Delivers 8,000 LAS Proposal For AT-6 – By Hand

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Hawker Beechcraft delivers LAS proposal to USAF – all 8,800 pages of it – by hand to avoid more bureaucratic FUBAR. See http://aol.it/M7IJfr SydneyFreedberg

Published June 18, 2012 at 4:50 PM

SNC Files Suit Over Super Tucano Cancellation, Decries ‘Broken’ Acquisition System

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“The acquisitions system is so fundamentally broken,” Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) executive Taco Gibert told Breaking Defense this morning. “Everybody loses.” Keep reading →

Published June 13, 2012 at 11:15 AM

Super Tucano Supporters In Shock: AF To Pick Tucano Or AT-6 Without Flying Either

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The Air Force will choose a winner in its troubled Light Air Support competition without actually flying the two contending planes, the Embraer Super Tucano and the Hawker-Beechcraft AT-6, and it will even disregard what it has data from the limited “flight demonstration” it conducted last year.

That’s a disturbing departure from best practice in a program that has already been an agony for the Air Force, with the delivery of ground-attack planes to the fledgling Afghan air force now delayed by 15 months, enough to miss not one but two “fighting seasons” in Afghanistan. A chagrined Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz has publicly pledged “we’ll work our asses off” to get it right. But according to Breaking Defense interviews with both corporate camps, the revised Request For Proposal released at 5:16 on Friday — the traditional time to bury awkward news — skips the important step of having the Air Force actually see how both planes fly before it makes its decision, tentatively due in January. Keep reading →

Published May 7, 2012 at 1:45 PM

Hawker Beechcraft AT-6 Back In Running Vs. Super Tucano: New LAS RFP Inbound

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WASHINGTON [updated Friday 3:30 pm to add details from the Air Force statement and comment from Hawker Beechcraft CEO]: The Texan II is back in the saddle again. Next week, on Tuesday the 17th, the US Air Force will meet with both Hawker Beechcraft, which makes the AT-6 Texan II attack plane, and rival Sierra Nevada Corporation, which is offering the Embraer Super Tucano, to review a draft of a new Request For Proposal on the troubled Light Air Support program. If all goes well — which it certainly hasn’t so far — the Air Force expects to make its decision in early 2013 and deliver the first aircraft to Afghanistan in the third quarter of 2014, what its official statement released Friday afternoon admits is “a delay of about 15 months.” Keep reading →

Published April 12, 2012 at 5:25 PM

Hawker Beechcraft’s AT-6 Guns For Embraer’s Super Tucano: Rival Planes Compared

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It’s Texan versus Tucano, take two, and the embarrassed Air Force has got to get it right this time.

With all the claims, counter-claims, and rumors swirling about the controversial contract to buy the Embraer Super Tucano, which the Air Force cancelled unexpectedly on Tuesday and will likely re-compete, Breaking Defense went both to the rival companies and independent sources to distill this definitive guide to the competition, from the two planes’ performance to the manufacturers’ twenty-year history of feuding. Keep reading →

Published March 1, 2012 at 5:00 PM

‘We’ll Work Our Asses Off,’ Air Force Chief Pledges In Wake of Super Tucano Fiasco

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WASHINGTON: The Air Force leadership is hurting in the wake of another botched acquisition and the continuing Dover Air Force Base burial scandal, and you could see it in the face of Gen. Norton Schwartz this morning.

The latest cock-up forced the Air Force to set aside, effective March 2, the $355 million contract for 20 Super Tucano small planes, with options for 15 more. The contract was awarded to privately held Sierra Nevada Corp, the prime contractor for the Embraer plane. This leaves the Afghan Air Force without an aircraft considered important to their ability to contain the Taliban and other assorted nasties. It also means that the Air Force will lose that money unless it moves quickly to hold a new competition that is not challenged by the loser. Keep reading →

Published February 29, 2012 at 12:00 PM

Air Force to Axe Super Tucano, Investigate Choice Of Brazilian Plane For Afghanistan

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BREAKING [updated 4:15 pm with new contractor responses]: The Air Force will terminate its contract to buy a new Light Air Support plane for the fledgling Afghan air force, and it will launch an investigation into the original decision to select the Brazilian-designed Super Tucano aircraft being provided by Sierra Nevada Corporation. Rival contractor Hawker Beechcraft filed suit in January after the Air Force excluded its AT-6 aircraft from the competition, getting a stop-work order imposed on the program. Since then, the two companies have been involved in a bitter press and lobbying battle, complete with bizarre rumors involving George Soros, over the merits of their aircraft and the number of jobs each would create in the U.S. But the termination announcement is an ominous new development in the troubled program and a new setback for an Air Force procurement system that has repeatedly run aground on contract disputes in recent years. Keep reading →

Published February 28, 2012 at 11:40 AM
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