GAO denies Beechcraft protest over Afghan aircraft contract

Beechcraft filed
a protest soon after, arguing that its AT-6 aircraft had received a higher
rating and was a cheaper bid.

{mosads}But GAO said that the Air Force followed its contract
process fairly.

“GAO denied Beechcraft’s protest after finding that the Air
Force reasonably concluded that Beechcraft’s proposed approach presented a high
risk that its aircraft would not achieve a requirement of the solicitation
within the requisite time period,” the GAO said.

Beechcraft said that the requirements of the contract were
written to favor the Embraer aircraft.

“During this protest, we learned that the GAO’s review looks
only at whether the Air Force followed its process, but not whether the process
itself was actually correct or appropriate,” the company said in a statement. “It is now time for Congress to step in and put an end to
this flawed acquisition process and limit the purchase of the Brazilian
aircraft to only that of the Afghanistan requirement covered by the first
delivery order of the LAS contract.”

The dispute over the light air support contract has sparked
a regional
competition in Congress, with Kansas lawmakers supporting the Kansas-based
Beechcraft and Florida lawmakers backing Embraer, as the planes would be made
at a Florida plant.

The GAO protest was the second time that Beechcraft had
objected to the Air Force contract award.

The Air Force re-bid the contract in 2012 after the first
protest from Beechcraft, then named Hawker Beechcraft, and it scrapped an
initial award to Embraer and Sierra Nevada.

But the second competition yielded the same result, and the
Air Force again said it would purchase the Super Tucano planes.