Originally Posted by
LowObservable
Ken - Your guys won. And you can say what you want about the various capabilities of the KC-46, but presumably both NG-EADS and EADS offered a compliant solution (with or without an upper deck cargo floor - as far as I can tell, the A330 as offered had a cargo door for casevac, but met the pallet requirement in the underfloor) including provision for the cloaking device, defensive laser, atomic trebuchet or whatevs.
Ummmm, no. There was a vast difference in the first RFP and the final RFP. The first RFP was effectively an outgrowth of the tanker lease idea and consequently solicited nearly off-the-shelf tankers. NG-EADS offered a significantly larger tanker, basically a two-engine KC-10, and won. Sadly USAF had not shaken off all their procurement hanky panky that had marred previous procurements. (for example, among other things, the solicitation clearly stated that "no consideration will be provided for exceeding key performance parameter objectives." So by the established rules, offering a tanker larger than the requirements (a form of gold plating) may not influence the procurement decision.) This, among other things, resulted in Boeing challenging the decision and the government regulators (not politicians and not USAF personnel) overturned the decision and required a do over. Note that they did not decide that Boeing had won. The regulators only adjudicated that the procurement process had been violated and required a do over. There were then some false starts and other anomalies, but in the final RFP the tanking requirements stayed essentially the same (there were 372 specific tanking performance requirements in the first RFP and 379 in the final RFP. Those additional requirements all related to boom envelope, which is why Boeing switched from the KC-135 boom to the KC-10 boom.) But USAF added many new non-tanking related requirements, among them medical evacuation requirements, outsize cargo requirements, aggressive survivability enhancements and many connectivity/electronic support requirements, many classified. It was during the process of USAF adding requirements that NG pulled out. And despite all these additional requirements the delivery schedule remained very aggressive, similar to an off the shelf procurement rather than a developmental procurement. And as in the first RFP, the evaluation criteria for the final RFP could give no consideration for exceeding any requirements. Both offerings were technically acceptable in that they met all key performance parameters, but Boeing's was cheaper. Airbus's superior performance did not count and Boeing won on price.