Halfway through the comment period for a draft request for proposals (RFP) for the U.S. Air Force’s KC-X aerial refueling tanker competition, the top civilian overseeing the armed service says it is open to making changes where needed.

The draft RFP, released Sept. 24, puts heavy emphasis on cost and includes 373 pass/fail threshold requirements for participants. It further marks a shift from previous attempts to procure the 179 tankers needed to begin replacing Eisenhower-era KC-135s, as the Pentagon is pursuing a fixed-price development contract and production profile.

More than 200 questions for the government have been submitted by both contractors as they comb through the document.

Air Force Secretary Michael Donley says the service is open to amending the RFP. “I would imagine that we are going to consider some change to the RFP,” he told Aviation Week during an Oct. 28 interview. “We think it is a strong RFP and we think the main outlines of it are very well [put] together. But, we continue to get questions.”

On the heels of an Oct. 28 press conference held by Northrop Grumman/EADS to publicly lay out the team’s complaints about the draft RFP, Donley says he does not want emotion to dominate this competition. “We’ve been criticized by both sides, as expected,” he says. “It is up to the contractors to decide how vocal they want to be in this debate. I think that some of the recent announcements suggest we will not avoid the controversies that we experienced last time around. The level of debate and the heat that contractors and their supporters want to put around these issues could repeat themselves.”

Just more than a year ago, Defense Secretary Robert Gates halted an attempt to recompete the KC-X contract, calling for a “cooling off” period. Since the draft RFP came out, Northrop has vocalized its concerns and lawmakers supporting both teams also have raised questions about the path ahead.

“We really don’t need the emotional [element] and this is a tough project in and of itself,” Donley says. “We don’t need all of the difficult and complicating elements that are added to that when people try to develop campaigns in favor of their program.”

One of Northrop’s chief complaints was a disclosure of the company’s proposed price in the last competition to Boeing that was “not in accordance” with regulations, according to Randy Belote, the company’s Washington-based communications vice president. He says the company hopes to iron this out directly with the Air Force, but he says options, including legal action, are on the table for Northrop (Aerospace DAILY, Oct. 29).

Furthermore, Northrop is complaining that the fixed-price development and procurement structure expose the companies to too much risk, because the new RFP calls for some developmental items. And the company bemoans the source selection methodology, which equally weighs all 373 requirements, whether it be for sink and toilet flow rates or fuel off-load from the boom.

Photo: Northrop Grumman