CSAR-X Program Facing More Delays

[unhappycamper]

CSAR-X Program Facing More Delays
Aviation Week's DTI | Michael Fabey | March 26, 2008

Under a Defense Department Inspector General (IG) investigation and more intense source selection scrutiny, the Air Force's $15 billion combat, search and rescue replacement helicopter (CSAR-X) program is further delaying its planned contract award.

The IG announced its investigation about a month ago into the way the Air Force changed a key performance parameter (KPP) change for deployability (Aerospace DAILY, Feb. 25).

Late last month the Air Force notified bidders Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Sikorsky that the sixth amendment to the request for proposals (RFP) -- in essence, a new RFP -- will be released some time in the spring, with an award to follow in October. The service explained the delay by saying it needed more time to evaluate the very detailed proposals. A Defense Acquisition Board (DAB) meeting on the program is likely to take place a month or so before the downselect.

Last fall Air Force officials expressed the hope that the award would be made by the summer. The CSAR-X work already has been delayed more than a year -- and it has been on the Air Force drawing board since the previous decade.

Initially, Boeing won the contract with its HH-47 Chinook variant. But Lockheed Martin and Sikorsky protested the award twice, with the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) sustaining both on the basis of how the Air Force calculated certain lifecycle costs for the proposed aircraft.


Rest of article at: http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,164722,00.html