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… Keep reading →

[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… Keep reading →

[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… Keep reading →

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

“The acquisitions system is so fundamentally broken,” Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) executive Taco Gibert told Breaking Defense this morning. “Everybody loses.” Yesterday, SNC filed suit in federal court, seeking to undo the Air Force’s cancellation of the Light Air Support contract, originally awarded to SNC’s A-29 Super Tucano. That’s just the latest descent into dysfunction… Keep reading →

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… Keep reading →

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… Keep reading →

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… Keep reading →

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… Keep reading →

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… Keep reading →