Protest of Air Force tanker contract award to Northrop upheld
By Peter Pae and Aamer Madhani
Special to The Times
June 19, 2008
Aerospace giant Northrop Grumman Corp. said Wednesday that it was suspending the hiring of thousands of engineers in Southern California after a ruling by a federal auditing agency left its $35-billion Air Force contract to build aerial refueling tankers in limbo.
The Government Accountability Office ruled that the contract awarded to Century City-based Northrop was flawed and recommended that the Pentagon hold another competition for what is expected to be the biggest military purchase for at least a decade.
The ruling was a major victory for rival Boeing Co., which had challenged the contract award, arguing that the Air Force had unfairly favored Northrop’s bid to build 179 tankers.
For the entire article go to LA Times.
I have been following this story with great interest. For one thing there is an issue about the efficiency of the Air Force, what with their former head getting fired. Apparently, under his watch, the Air Force misplaced a bunch of nukes and sent them on the wrong plane to the wrong destination. Then there is the controversy about the more conventional fighter planes versus the new UAV’s, or the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. The thought is that they are more necessary to fight future wars than adding too many fighters.
Not that all this means very much with respect to this new controversy and accommodating rivalry between Northrup and Boeing. Except there is reasonable believe that the Air Force study was flawed in its means of appraising the quality measures of the two competing Air Force refueling tankers that are designed to carry this country into somewhere near the middle of the century.
So what does this mean? It means jobs. Since we in California were the capital for aerospace and defense related industries, a decision to reward Boeing with the contract instead of Northrup can make a significant difference in employment around here.
As a background checking company, Corra services the entire nation and part of the world, so on that grounds whomever wins the contract is of little significance to us. But we are headquartered in Los Angeles and we are the homeboys, so any contracts that favor Southern California will always have our favorable view.
Of course there is the possibility that if the contract is awarded to a local company, there are sub-contractors we know who may well bring us their revitalized preemployment screening and background checks. That can never hurt.
Meanwhile, we can use a new refueling tanker. We can use one that isn’t flawed or doesn’t experienced serious cost overruns. We can use one that actually meets its design specs, one that actually works well. Our nation depends on this. So whichever company gets picked, make us all proud with a state of the art refueling tanker. Not just your workers, but the nation is counting on you.
Check them out before you hire.
