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Acquisition Update
Acquisition Update: The Air Force expects to be able to make a decision on the winning CSAR-X helicopter “by the spring timeframe,” according to Maj. Gen. Randy Fullhart, director of global reach programs in the Air Force Secretariat. Appearing Feb. 1 on This Week in Defense News, a CBS TV news show, Fullhart also said the Air Force hopes to get out a new request for proposal for the KC-X tanker sometime this year. The Air Force, he said, is “still going to press forward with the idea of one aircraft” being chosen via a winner-take-all competition between Boeing and Northrop Grumman and is against a split-buy strategy (i.e., buying both Boeing and Northrop tankers) because, as Defense Secretary Robert Gates has stated, a split buy “doubles the cost up front” of the acquisition. The Air Force is also planning to issue a new request for information to industry this month on fee-for-service aerial refueling services, said Fullhart. This could potentially lead to a request for proposal later this year. As for the future of the C-17 production line, Fullhart said service officials “see the end in sight” and have no intention of continuing production beyond the current 205-aircraft program of record.
2/4/2009
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Verbatim
No Dog, Just Concern
"You know it concerns me that we keep hearing, 'Well this is something that the military doesn't want. They didn't ask for,' and all that. Then I go over there [Southwest Asia theater], and that's not their attitude at all. They have needs over there. Our lift capacity is in dire straights. … Now on the F-22—just yesterday we read about the T-50 … a fifth generation [fighter] that the Russians have. … I'm concerned about this. And I guess, you know, if we're down to 187 F-22s, and I think out of that only—what 120 are actually combat ready and used for combat. … I look at our committee—the Senate Armed Services Committee—and on these two vehicles I mentioned—the F-22 and the C-17—in Oklahoma. I don't have a dog in that fight. We don't have any parochial interest there. But it's the capability that we're going to need."
—Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), speaking during the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the Fiscal 2011 defense budget, Feb. 2, 2010. |
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Verbatim
Taming Expectations
"Every QDR disappoints those who look for radical reallocation of resources. The current fiscal environment is compounding that trend."
—Jim Thomas, vice president for studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, briefing reporters in Washington, D.C., Jan. 26, 2010. |
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