Welcome to HarpGamer, HeyJoe, and great to hear from you on this topic. Some valid points there, for sure.

My only information on the specific topic is this thread here, but I would like to point out a couple of things.

 

First about the cost. It is quite possible that the Boeing offering beats the EADS one on a plane to plane life cycle cost comparison. But that does not mean it beats it in on a fleet level comparison. It is possible that due to the EADS plane being larger and having longer range that less planes are required to fulfill the same role.

 

The extended range is also a mitigating factor as far as the smaller selection of airfields goes. In the current global environment that the new tanker will be operating, the possibility that its home base will be threatened by enemy action is almost negligible, therefore the ability to use smaller airfields is no longer relevant to survivability but only in its ability to be at the needed space in the needed time, something that can be achieved from fewer airfields if one has longer operational range.

From Defense Aerospace

 

Chorus of Protests Greet Pentagon's Airbus Decision

(Source: Deutsche Welle German radio; issued March 6, 2008)

 

The Pentagon’s surprise decision to buy refuelling tankers for the US Air Force from European defense contractor EADS instead of the heavily-favored Boeing has set off a storm of protest in the US.

 

The Air Force decision to award an Airbus/Northrup Grumman team a $35 billion (23 billion euro) contract over US rival Boeing is still sending off ripples in the US political establishment.

 

The decision on Friday, Feb. 29, to give the contract for refuelling tankers to Airbus, a subsidiary of the European Aeronautic Defense and Space company (EADS) came as a complete surprise to both US defense contractor Boeing -- which was heavily favored to get the contract -- and US lawmakers alike.

 

With follow-up contracts, the deal could eventually be worth $100 billion.

 

Concern for US jobs

 

But while European political and industry leaders are celebrating the decision, US lawmakers have expressed outrage -- particularly senators from the states of Washington and Kansas. Those are the home states of Boeing plants, and they stand to take the hardest economic hit from the lost deal.

 

Lawmakers from those states wrote to Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Monday demanding an explanation.

 

"The Airbus contract is a European Stimulus Plan subsidized by the American taxpayer," wrote Senator Patty Murray of Washington. "We need to be investing in the American aerospace industry and the high-wage, high-skill jobs it supports."

 

Now, the US Congress has said it would examine the military's decision on the contract, lawmakers said. "The Air Force's decision to award the contract for a much-needed modernization of the nation's aerial tanker fleet to Northrop Grumman and Airbus raises serious questions that Congress must examine thoroughly," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Tuesday, March 4.

 

'Subsidy for the French government'

 

"Given the ramifications of this decision for the United States, the Air Force must explain to Congress how it meets the long-term needs of our military and the American people," she said.

 

Pelosi, who leads the Democratic Party majority in the House of Representatives, said among the questions lawmakers should examine are the implications for US national security of choosing "an aircraft supplied by a foreign firm" and the effect on the country's employment and "technological base."

 

It is unimaginable that an enormous deal like that would go to a foreign concern, concurred Paul Shearon of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers. "We are talking about well-paid, highly valued American jobs. In this case we are using our tax dollars to buy subsidized products. It is a subsidy for the French government,” he said.

 

Boeing seeks clarification

 

Shearon quantified the number of US jobs endangered by the deal at 40,000.

 

Meanwhile, Boeing on Tuesday said it had asked the Air Force for an "immediate" explanation for its decision to reject Boeing's bid. As of Tuesday, Boeing said it had not yet received a briefing on the decision, and pointed out that the Air Force had said a briefing would occur on or after March 12.

 

It called the delay "inconsistent with well-established procurement practices."

 

"A delay of this length in the formal debriefing is unusual," Mark McGraw, Boeing vice president of the 767 tanker programs, told AFP news service.

 

In addition, the candidates in the ongoing presidential primaries have jumped on the issue.

 

Boeing history may have played role

 

Presidential candidate Barack Obama expressed shock at the deal. Hillary Clinton said she found it incomprehensible that Airbus – a company charged before the World Trade Organization with receiving illegal subsidies – would win the contract.

 

However, some observers say Boeing itself is partly to blame for the loss. In 2003, the company received a leasing contract for refuelling tankers, but it was revealed that the head of Pentagon purchasing at the time had been offered a lucrative job at Boeing. The affair cost then-Boeing CEO Phil Condit his job.

 

What's more, the Airbus refuelling tanker is said to be superior to that of Boeing.

 

Still, no one expected Airbus to get the contract, acknowledged Owen Cote, an international security expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

 

"It was a shock that Airbus got the deal; especially for the politicians, for congressmen and -women in Washington.”

 

Unlikely deal will be reversed

 

He believes it is possible – but not likely -- that the deal could be overturned with enough political pressure.

 

"It is possible that with political pressure, the decision could be reverseed,“ he said. If the Democrats win the presidential election, that scenario would be even more likely, Cote said.

 

"But I think the worst-case scenario for Airbus is that the decision will be put off, maybe by a year. But it probably won't be overturned.”

From Aviation Week

 

Boeing Protest Halts USAF Tanker Work

Mar 12, 2008

By Amy Butler

 

Boeing's protest of the U.S. Air Force's selection of a Northrop Grumman/EADS North America design for its $35 billion KC-135 replacement was filed March 11 with congressional referees at the Government Accountability Office.

 

The protest procedure requires the Air Force to issue an immediate stop-work order and discontinue communications with the Northrop/EADS team pending either the issuance of an Air Force waiver deeming the work essential to national security or a ruling from the GAO.

 

The GAO has 100 days to decide whether the Air Force followed proper procurement processes leading to its selection of an Airbus A330 design for its future aerial refueling tanker.

 

Boeing officials say they've not requested a specific remedy in their protest. The company's options depend on whether GAO finds procedural problems in the source selection. But two Boeing vice presidents say they simply want to compete with a better upfront understanding of the Air Force's requirements.

 

AF defends choice

 

The selection of an A330 design surprised Boeing, which felt the aircraft was too big. The Air Force, however, defends it choice, saying the competition was transparent and that the excess cargo and passenger carriage options of the A330 design provided more value.

 

The Air Force unfairly altered its assessment of how the Boeing's 767-based model and the Northrop/EADS aircraft would operate in "real world" scenarios, said Mark McGraw, vice president of Boeing's tanker programs. The company's ratings on this evaluation criteria factor, the so-called "Factor 5," were switched multiple times leading up to the final selection of the Northrop design, he told reporters during a March 11 teleconference.

 

In one instance, the Air Force actually amended its computer model for this factor to "accommodate" the larger aircraft. For example, the Air Force allowed the larger A330s to be parked closer together than originally planned, inflated the thickness of runways in the computer model (though not actually doing so in the field), and added some ramp and hangar space (in computer models, not in the field) to allow for the larger footprint of the Northrop/EADS offer.

 

The Air Force "disconnected the whole assessment from the real-world studies" the service had previously created leading up to the KC-X competition. Furthermore, the service didn't take into account the cost of adding the ramp space and beefing up the runways to accommodate the A330 during its evaluation, McGraw says.

 

Factor 5

 

This Factor 5, which proved integral to the final selection of the A330-based design, was actually added to the request for proposals late in 2006 after the Northrop-led team threatened not to compete for the work unless the Air Force devised metrics to take into account the value of a larger aircraft. In the wake of the defunct and scandalized tanker lease attempt crafted in 2002 with Boeing, a sole-source to the company was deemed politically unpalatable, pushing the Air Force to accommodate Northrop's concerns.

 

The smaller 767 would be more agile, gaining access to more airfields and require fewer modifications to existing runways and hangars already used by the KC-135 fleet, Boeing executives said. And McGraw said the Air Force "promised" to take these issues into consideration during the selection process, but he saw no evidence that that took place. Those factors, he says, were downplayed, "twisting" the original intent of the fleet assessment comparison.

 

'Misled'

 

Leading up to the announcement of Northrop Grumman's win Feb. 29, Boeing had "no reason to believe that this aircraft was in any way undersized," said Beverly Wyse, 767 vice president. Boeing backers on Capitol Hill also gave ears-full of criticism to Defense Department and Air Force leaders, alleging that they and Boeing were "misled" while calling for a recompetition (see related article).

 

Wyse said that the Air Force did not properly account for commercial practices added into the manufacturing plan for its offer.

 

The team has been criticized for offering too complex an aircraft, with the 767-200 airframe; over-wing exits from the -300; floors, doors and structurally enhanced wings from the -300F; a cockpit, tail section and flaps from the -400ER. However, the Boeing executives said their model of building in as many of these features as possible, limiting the military modification work, was less risky than the Air Force rated.

 

By contrast, they note that with the Northrop development program, including four aircraft, each of those aircraft are being built at different facilities. The company's strategy is to start the work in Europe, moving as much of it stateside as possible through the development and early production program.

 

The Northrop/EADS contract for the KC-45 is worth $1.5 billion for those test aircraft. Options worth $10.6 billion include the buy of 64 aircraft.

Too funny not to share

 

From Aviation Week's ARES Blog

 

Politics Enters Tanker Contest, Observers Shocked

Posted by Bill Sweetman at 3/12/2008 11:41 AM

 

The Democratic National Committee has now weighed in on the tanker debate. So whereas I was wrong about the outcome of the competition, I was right about the political fallout.

 

The question is to what extent the DNC can make the tanker charge stick against McCain. On purely factual grounds, they don't have much. Some McCain campaign figures have lobbied for EADS - but if I was the DNC I wouldn't start making too much of an issue about who was or is in which company's pockets.

 

Even in DC, it's not hard to guess who would have won the competition if it had been decided according to how many Guccis-on-the-ground the contenders had on Capitol Hill.

 

The DNC goes after the Simpsons vote with fulminations about a "French-based corporation" (not EADS, by the way, which is domiciled in the Netherlands).

 

Ironically, though, the Northrop Grumman/EADS arrangement will make the KC-45A less French than any other Airbus-based product.

 

That's because when Airbus was formed, back in the late 1960s, France insisted that final assembly should happen in Toulouse. To balance the workshare, Airbus adopted a then-unique system in which the major airframe pieces were both built and fitted out by the partner companies. So a big part of workshare in France has always been final assembly-related, and that's what will be in Mobile.

 

Meanwhile, the USAF has issued a terse response to Boeing's protest of the tanker decision. However, Ares has obtained a copy of the first draft of the USAF release, which reads in part:

 

... and the horse you rode in on, Jimbo. We don't appreciate being publicly portrayed as (at best) incompetents who can't write a clear requirement and (at worst) saboteurs trying to get even for the damage that the Druyun/Sears scandal did for our reputation.

 

Neither do we relish having our ankles gnawed by your buddies on the Hill, who knew (as you did) that "number of US jobs created" was nowhere in the selection criteria and are now acting shocked about the outcome.

 

So push this further and watch what happens to your next five or six program bids, including Next Generation Bomber.

 

If nothing else, Boeing has bet very heavily on a change of Air Force leadership before some future projects come up for competition. It's a bet that the company may come to regret, and they'd better be praying for an Obama or Clinton victory in November.

Too funny not to share

 

Meanwhile, the USAF has issued a terse response to Boeing's protest of the tanker decision. However, Ares has obtained a copy of the first draft of the USAF release, which reads in part:

 

... and the horse you rode in on, Jimbo. We don't appreciate being publicly portrayed as (at best) incompetents who can't write a clear requirement and (at worst) saboteurs trying to get even for the damage that the Druyun/Sears scandal did for our reputation.

 

Neither do we relish having our ankles gnawed by your buddies on the Hill, who knew (as you did) that "number of US jobs created" was nowhere in the selection criteria and are now acting shocked about the outcome.

 

So push this further and watch what happens to your next five or six program bids, including Next Generation Bomber.

 

If nothing else, Boeing has bet very heavily on a change of Air Force leadership before some future projects come up for competition. It's a bet that the company may come to regret, and they'd better be praying for an Obama or Clinton victory in November.

 

, funny indeed! I still must say it will be nice to see whatever kind of 'score' sheet the Air Force produces for the GAO detailing the weighting of the individual points on the requirements list. I don't think Boeing is all that wrong to question the outcome based on the requirements, but is perhaps outside the best interests of the country to push this in a self-serving general appeal. That didn't come out very clearly... From what little I know on the topic, Boeing met the criteria of the Air Force tanker request better and more fully than EADS but in the end the EADS solution is better, despite not meeting the criteria as well.

From Aviation Week

 

Northrop Grumman Defends Its KC-45 Turf

Mar 19, 2008

Amy Butler/Aerospace Daily & Defense Report

 

Citing a proliferation of “confusing and misleading statements” about its $35 billion win of a competition to build refueling tankers for the U.S. Air Force, Northrop Grumman officials say the contested decision was fairly conducted.

 

Boeing argues in a March 11 protest of the award that the Air Force changed elements of the evaluation criteria, unfairly steering the competition in the favor of a Northrop Grumman/EADS North America team pitching a European design for the program. The win unseated Boeing, with its 767-based proposal, as the sole-provider of widebodies to the Pentagon.

 

The Air Force issued a stop-work order March 14, in accordance with protest rules. Paul Meyer, vice president of air mobility systems for Northrop Grumman says the company halted its parts supplies. The probability of overturning the decision with a protest is “low,” Meyer says.

 

He acknowledged on a teleconference March 18 with reporters that on the surface the competition did seem to be “close,” but that the winner clearly dominated in four out of five factors of the Air Force’s evaluation. Boeing argues that the two companies were neck-in-neck, and that criteria were not clearly established to determine how to score capabilities of the aircraft that went beyond the threshold requirements.

 

The one factor in which Northrop Grumman/EADS’s bid didn’t outstrip, but rather tied with Boeing’s, was cost. Both were in the $108 billion range for most probable life cycle cost.

 

Meyer also calls a foul with Boeing’s complaints, which came after the company’s stunning loss. Once the request for proposals was final, “We had equal opportunities to formally [propose] changes or demand changes, and neither of us did,” he says. Northrop Grumman actually demanded changes to the draft request for proposals in late 2006, only formally deciding to compete in early February 2007.

 

Boeing lodged complaints about changes to an assessment of refueling capabilities in various classified operational scenarios in two letters to the U.S. Air Force – one dated Feb. 21, 2007, and another March 7, 2007. Boeing says that the Air Force didn’t adequately address the concerns in those letters. The Government Accountability Office has 100 days to review the protest.

From Aviation Week

 

USAF On The KC-X Defensive A Year Ago

Mar 19, 2008

Amy Butler/Aerospace Daily & Defense Report

 

Fire-walling procedures to fence off data in a modeling tool used in selecting a Northrop Grumman/EADS refueling tanker design for the U.S. Air Force prevented any unfair advantage for the winner, even though the tool used to assess the bidders was designed by eventual winner Northrop Grumman, according to the Air Force.

 

Boeing raised concerns about this and other issues, including changes to the assumptions for operational scenarios used in the modeling tool, in a March 7, 2007, letter to Sandra Palmatier, a contracting officer for the KC-X program office at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio. These factors gave an advantage to Northrop Grumman/EADS’s A330-based tanker, which is larger than the 767-based Boeing design, officials on the losing team contend.

 

The Government Accountability Office is reviewing a March 11 protest of the Air Force’s Feb. 29 decision to award the $35 billion contract to Northrop Grumman/EADS.

 

Aviation Week & Space Technology obtained a copy of the March 7 letter and the U.S. Air Force’s March 29 response. This correspondence was taking place privately between Boeing and the Air Force. Although both competitors said publicly that the competition was expected to be fair, the letters show that concern over how the competition was proceeding began setting in far earlier at Boeing, once thought to be the shoo-in, than its executives had let on publicly.

 

The correspondence also shines light on the internal workings of a process that forced the Air Force to walk a fine line. The service was trying to craft a competition between two dissimilar commercially derived products, and establishing requirements for the duel proved to be a complex balancing act between the opposing contractors -- both of which considered dropping out.

 

The Combined Mating and Ranging Planning System (Cmarps) was designed for the Strategic Air Command in the 1980s and is now used by planners in Air Mobility Command. It helps operators assess how many tankers are required for a variety of missions, where they can be based and how many receivers -- fighters and intelligence aircraft, for example -- can be serviced by the available refuelers. It is one of various modeling systems used by the Air Force.

 

Boeing points out in its March 7, 2007, letter that Cmarps was designed by, and has been used by, Northrop Grumman, giving its competitor an advantage due to its experience using the system. Boeing complained of “problems we have experienced in Cmarps, including difficulties operating the model, the need for manuals and the need for training on the Cmarps tool.” One industry official not affiliated with either Boeing or Northrop Grumman says that Cmarps is known to be manpower-intensive and demands a learning curve before operating successfully.

 

The Air Force tried to assuage Boeing’s concerns. Dedicated computers were purchased to “ensure no inadvertent electronic transfers occur” between analysts at the system program office evaluating the proposals and Northrop Grumman, says a March 29, 2007, letter from Joseph Leising, another contracting officer in Ohio, to Boeing.

 

During the early part of 2007, USAF also made changes to some of the operational assumptions used to gauge the performance of the offerings from Northrop Grumman/EADS. These changes form a large part of the basis for Boeing’s protest of the decision.

 

Two “major combat operations” scenarios were tweaked to add additional ramp space in the Cmarps model that doesn’t actually exist. This allowed for the KC-30 to gain enough access at a “priority base,” according to Boeing officials, that it otherwise would have been too large to achieve. Limited ramp space can make operations with larger aircraft more difficult, because of tight parking and ground maneuver space. Though company and Air Force officials didn’t identify that location -- the operational scenarios are actually classified -- it could be Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar. According to an earlier Air Force analysis of various tanker models, only four A330-based tankers can operate from that base assuming 30 ft. of space between rows of parked aircraft and interior taxi ways as well as a standard 50 ft. wingtip-to-wingtip distance between for aircraft parking.

 

Space between parked aircraft, however, was another change made by the Air Force during the competition, Boeing says. The service cut the space between parked tankers in half, to 25 ft., according to Boeing. The company says this change doesn’t accurately reflect operations in the field as articulated in the Mobility Capability Study 2005, a classified assessment of mobility needs by the Pentagon. The Air Force countered in its March 29 letter, saying that the shift to 25 ft. separation between parked aircraft “accurately reflects contingency operations at constrained employment bases.”

 

Another Air Force shift in evaluating the criteria was the use of a “standard planning ground time,” which reflects the time needed to service a refueler on the ground, load it up with more gas and send it out for another mission. Boeing says that in November 2006, the Air Force asked the competitors to calculate ground turnaround time based on a fixed number (capturing the time to switch out crews and check the aircraft for problems) plus the amount of time to fill the tanker on the ground with more gas.

 

Boeing naturally saw this as a strength for its proposal, since a smaller tanker would take less time to refuel on the ground. The Air Force, however, switched that metric, implementing a standard turnaround time of 4 hrs. and 15 mins. for both proposals, Boeing officials say.

 

In its March 29, 2007, letter to Boeing, USAF defended the switch. The original factor for ground turnaround time depended on time for fuel upload, the service says. “Upon review of current operations, the Air Force determined that there are many factors that impact turn time and overshadow differences in ground fuel servicing times, including, for example, combat tasking ground crew and spare parts availability [and] local constraints,” the service says. “As these examples indicate, these factors have little or no relationship to the aircraft characteristics. Because of these variables, the Air Force must use a standard planning ground time for its tanker fleet.”

 

These changes were made during a time when Northrop Grumman/EADS threatened not to propose a design, which would have left the Air Force with only one option. This was not palatable, as Congress was pushing for a competition after the 2002 tanker lease with Boeing imploded under scandal.

 

Senior Air Force officials have told Congress they stand by their decision to choose the Northrop Grumman/EADS design, adding that it is more capable for a variety of missions.

You can find the text of Boeing's GAO protest here (in PDF format).

From Air Force Times

 

Boeing: Tanker costs miscalculated

The Associated Press

Posted : Friday Jun 13, 2008 16:02:56 EDT

 

The Air Force has conceded it chose the more expensive option in awarding a $35 billion contract for refueling tankers to a team led by Northrop Grumman Corp. instead of Boeing Co., the companies said Thursday.

 

Northrop acknowledged Boeing’s assertions that its proposal included cheaper life cycle costs for the tankers. The Air Force said it cannot legally comment on the tanker proposals, the evaluation process or its selection decision. In a statement, however, the Air Force said it “stands by its process and its decision.”

 

Boeing’s action is the Chicago-based company’s latest attempt to show that the Air Force’s award to European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. — parent company of its rival Airbus — and Northrop was unfair. The disclosure comes days before the Government Accountability Office is set to rule on Boeing’s protest of the deal.

 

Although the Air Force is not bound by the GAO decision, any finding of error with the competition is certain to give ammunition to Boeing’s supporters in Congress as they seek to block or overturn it.

 

“We have been saying for months now that errors had to be present in this contract award,” said Rep. Todd Tiahrt, a Kansas Republican who represents a district where Boeing would do much of its tanker work. “This is strong evidence that the tanker contract should be re-competed.”

 

The new information appears to undermine the Air Force’s original assertion that the Northrop/EADS plane offers cost advantages, according to Boeing.

 

When announcing the award in February, the Air Force said the larger size of the Northrop/EADS plane helped tip the balance in its favor since that tanker would be able to haul more fuel, cargo and troops.

 

Boeing contends the larger tanker will cost the Air Force more to operate since it will be less fuel efficient, and will require the military to strengthen runways and expand hangars.

 

According to both Boeing and Northrop, the Air Force initially put the cost to operate the tanker over its lifespan at $108.01 billion for the Northrop plane, compared with over $108.04 billion for the Boeing tanker. Boeing now claims the Air Force miscalculated those costs, although it would not release revised numbers.

 

In a statement, Northrop said minor errors resulted in a “slight adjustment” in the operating costs of the two planes, but maintained that it’s the tanker still provides “the most capability at the best overall value.”

 

In its statement, the Air Force said, “any single document, or set of documents, viewed by itself, without the broader context, could easily be misinterpreted.”

 

The tanker contract is the first of three Air Force deals worth as much as $100 billion to replace its entire fleet of nearly 600 aerial refueling tankers over the next 30 years.

 

Shares of Chicago-based Boeing rose 81 cents to $74.12 Thursday. Shares of Los Angeles-based Northrop Grumman rose 7 cents to $71.53.

From Defense Aerospace

 

Setting The Record Straight On Northrop Grumman's Tanker

(Source: Northrop Grumman; issued June 13, 2008)

 

Boeing's backers are trying to make a big deal about adjustments to the Air Force's cost estimates for America's next generation of aerial refueling tankers, but Reuters and others, including the Air Force itself, are saying that these slight changes don't alter the fact that Northrop Grumman beat Boeing on 4 out of 5 (tying the fifth) major selection criteria, and also that program cost was not a major factor. Furthermore, the changes don't suggest that there were any problems with the Air Force's overall evaluation of bids between the two companies.

 

Reuters, working off redacted versions of protest documents filed with the Government Accountability Office by Boeing and Northrop Grumman, notes that the Air Force discovered five errors in the overall program cost of the aircraft "which caused a slight adjustment in the operating costs of the aircraft," and points out that Northrop Grumman notes that even after the cost adjustments are made, the costs between the two "remained essentially the same."

 

What's more, the Air Force also makes clear that the slight cost adjustments should not be blown out of proportion.

 

"This was a very thorough best value, capabilities-based source selection," the Air Force says in a press release. "It involved thousands of pages of documentation, months of unprecedented interaction between the Air Force and the offerors and independent reviews by the Department of Defense Inspector General, Government Accountability Office and the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Any single document or set of documents viewed by itself, without the broader context, could easily be misinterpreted. The Air Force stands by its process and its decision."

 

The slight adjustment does not affect the outcome because System Design and Development cost/risk was the critical element in the cost evaluation.

 

As the Air Force stated, "Because of their lower risk in SDD, Northrop Grumman's proposal was more advantageous to the Government." Boeing has never built, flown or tested its aircraft, which obviously means Boeing's proposal carries higher risk. More risk means more potential for schedule delays, which would quickly increase cost. The Japanese and Italian governments are suffering from this, in that Boeing is years behind schedule in its tanker commitments to them.

 

In its filing with the GAO, Northrop Grumman also puts into context efforts by Boeing's backers to make an issue of the cost adjustment. "The total (aircraft life cycle cost) was not a discriminator in the source selection, and it does not provide a discriminator after the handful of math errors pointed out by Boeing in this Protest," Northrop Grumman's filing states. "The final adjusted (cost estimate) tally remains a dead heat."

 

Of the overall campaign by Boeing's backers to overturn the contract, Northrop Grumman writes: "From the outset Boeing has chosen to make myriad claims about defects in every aspect of the Air Force's extensive evaluation process. But as the protest process has progressed, it has become increasingly clear that neither the skill of Boeing's legal team nor the slickness of the Boeing presentation can hide the fact that Boeing's protest grounds are are supported by nothing more than a combination of Boeing's attempt to substitute it's judgment for the Air Force's and the unsubstantiated claims of Boeing's lawyers."

 

[CV32: Those meddlesome lawyers! ]