{"id":59077,"date":"2015-12-16T22:15:47","date_gmt":"2015-12-16T22:15:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2015\/12\/16\/analyst-air-force-correct-on-bomber-cost-point\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T00:28:34","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T00:28:34","slug":"analyst-air-force-correct-on-bomber-cost-point","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/air\/2015\/12\/16\/analyst-air-force-correct-on-bomber-cost-point\/","title":{"rendered":"Analyst: Air Force \u2018Correct\u2019 on Bomber Cost Point"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em><strong>Clarification:<\/strong> This article has been updated to further clarify Thompson&#8217;s remarks.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">WASHINGTON \u2013 The prominent Washington defense analyst\u00a0who accused the US\u00a0Air Force of fouling up its cost estimates in picking Northrop Grumman\u00a0to build its new\u00a0multibillion-dollar bomber concedes\u00a0the service was right on\u00a0at least one point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute think tank\u00a0acknowledged in a Dec. 11 email to Defense News that the Air Force is &#8220;correct&#8221; that there is a better way to assess the proposals of the teams competing for the Long Range Strike Bomber contract than the approach he laid out in a\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/lorenthompson\/2015\/11\/06\/boeing-protests-bomber-award-finds-process-fundamentally-flawed\/\" target=\"_blank\">Nov. 6 Forbes commentary<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">However, since the service hasn&#8217;t\u00a0released the value of the bids or the government&#8217;s cost estimate to build the bomber,\u00a0&#8220;it is a meaningless point to anybody trying to understand the selection process,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;I am confident that when the facts eventually become known to Congress, it will be apparent that the winning team bid an unrealistic price at a negative rate of return, setting the bomber program up for failure,&#8221; added Thompson, a Lockheed consultant whose think tank is funded by Lockheed and Boeing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In his commentary, Thompson\u00a0laid out Boeing&#8217;s argument\u00a0that the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/story\/defense\/2015\/10\/27\/northrop-grumman-wins-usaf-bomber-contract\/74661394\/\" target=\"_blank\">Defense Department&#8217;s October decision<\/a>\u00a0to award the LRS-B\u00a0contract to Northrop Grumman over a team composed of Boeing and Lockheed was &#8220;fundamentally flawed&#8221; for using unreliable\u00a0historical data in picking the winner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;Boeing team-mate Lockheed Martin has delivered each successive lot of F-35 fighters for less than historical data would have predicted,&#8221; he wrote, &#8220;and relying on dated cost data effectively excludes from the calculus numerous advances in aircraft development and production technology that have been made during intervening years.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Thompson&#8217;s article appeared the same day the losing team formally announced its\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/story\/defense\/2015\/11\/08\/boeing-protests-northrops-long-range-strike-bomber-contract\/75225206\/\" target=\"_blank\">protest of the decision<\/a>, which triggered a\u00a0review by the Government Accountability Office. The GAO is expected to issue a ruling in February. Meanwhile, some work on the project has been halted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The stakes couldn&#8217;t be higher for the three defense giants. LRS-B is the largest military aircraft program since Lockheed won the F-35 joint strike fighter more than a decade ago. But despite the program&#8217;s massive\u00a0scope, DoD has guarded details about the classified program so closely\u00a0that we still don&#8217;t even know if the stealthy new plane will be designated the B-3, or something else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The last time Boeing protested a Pentagon\u00a0contract, the award of the KC-X tanker to Northrop, the company\u00a0pulled out all the stops, sparking a heated and politicized debate in Washington that eventually forced the Air Force\u00a0to re-bid the program. Boeing ultimately won that\u00a0second round, and its KC-46 recently completed its\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/story\/defense-news\/2015\/09\/25\/boeings-kc-46-completes-first-flight\/72846164\/\" target=\"_blank\">first flight<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But in the case of LRS-B. the Air Force claimed Thompson\u00a0mixed up his numbers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;The service stated in its October 27 press conference unveiling the award that it will cost $21.4 billion to develop the bomber, but that figure is roughly twice the amount that the competing industry teams bid,&#8221; Thompson wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Air Force is\u00a0looking into how Thompson gained access to those figures,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/usa-airforce-bomber-idUSL1N13Q2U920151201\" target=\"_blank\">Reuters reported<\/a>\u00a0recently.\u00a0Although top officials would not confirm a formal investigation, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh earlier this month\u00a0acknowledged the service&#8217;s &#8220;concern&#8221; that the pricing data should not have been released.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Thompson&#8217;s commentary accused the government of using bad historical data during the source-selection process, artificially inflating LRS-B&#8217;s development cost\u00a0and\u00a0effectively eliminating the winner&#8217;s risk in developing the plane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To make his point, Thompson wrote that each competing proposal\u00a0to develop the new bomber was roughly\u00a0$10 billion, information the Pentagon has neither confirmed nor released publicly, but was known to the competitors. He compared this figure to the Air Force&#8217;s legally mandated Independent Cost Estimate (ICE) \u2013 required of all acquisition programs since 2009 \u2013 which projected that development costs would be more than twice what the companies bid \u2013 $21.4 billion in 2010 dollars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The\u00a0discrepancy between the contractors&#8217; bids and the government&#8217;s cost estimate indicates the historical data used to evaluate the proposals is unreliable, Thompson claimed. That cushion, he argued, means the winner has no incentive to keep costs down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;By dictating such a high\u00a0cost to industry, the Air Force\u00a0eliminated any financial risk to industry in developing the bomber,&#8221; Thompson wrote. &#8220;This is the precise opposite of the way acquisition reform is supposed to operate.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But Air Force officials \u2013 who are often reluctant to comment on classified programs\u00a0\u2013 went as far as saying that Thompson&#8217;s claim about historical data was misleading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Outgoing Air Force acquisition chief William LaPlante stressed recently that the $21.4 billion figure released during the contract announcement was not part of the source-selection process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A\u00a0better figure to compare to the contractors&#8217; proposals is the Most Probable Cost (MPC), a separate estimate developed by the source-selection team, Air Force spokesman Maj. Rob Leese\u00a0told Defense News last\u00a0week. In an effort to control costs, the government is required by the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) to develop an MPC\u00a0on cost-reimbursable contracts\u00a0\u2013\u00a0like LRS-B \u2013 where\u00a0the government covers cost overruns incurred by the contractor, LaPlante said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One source with knowledge of the program said the Air Force&#8217;s MPC for LRS-B was very close to the pricing proposed by the contractors (roughly\u00a0$10 billion)\u00a0\u2013 and much lower than the ICE of $21.4 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;The FAR and the [Defense] FAR require for good reason that a Most Probable Cost Estimate is done . . . That is totally different than since 2009 it has been law that an Independent Cost Estimate has to be done,&#8221; LaPlante said during a Nov. 24 media roundtable at the Pentagon. &#8220;Guess what? Acquisition 101 \u2013\u00a0those independent cost estimates were not part of the source selection.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Northrop and Boeing\u00a0declined to comment for this article.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;The Air Force is correct that the government evaluated Most Probable Cost is a better basis for assessing the bids of the bomber teams than the Independent Cost Estimate,&#8221; Thompson told Defense News Dec. 11.\u00a0&#8220;However, since\u00a0the Air Force\u00a0hasn&#8217;t disclosed either what the bids were or what the most probable cost was, it is a meaningless point to anybody trying to understand the selection process.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Air Force officials have expressed confidence the LRS-B contract award can survive the protest.\u00a0The service used two independent agencies to come up with the ICE, officials stressed: the Air Force Cost Analysis Agency and the Pentagon&#8217;s Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The high margin does give\u00a0the Pentagon and industry a lot of wiggle room in terms of budgeting. But\u00a0one analyst\u00a0sees the gap between the reported proposals and the ICE as a sign the Air Force is making progress on cost control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;So what if the proposals were less? The Air Force is ready to pony up to this point \u2013 that&#8217;s fantastic. I think that&#8217;s progress from some programs in the past,&#8221; Mark Gunzinger, a\u00a0senior fellow with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, told Defense News.\u00a0&#8220;Is it conservative? Oh yeah, it&#8217;s pretty darn conservative. So you have this tension: To what level do you fund?&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Email:\u00a0<a href=\"mailto:lseligman@defensenews.com\">lseligman@defensenews.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Twitter: <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/laraseligman\" target=\"_blank\">@laraseligman<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The prominent Washington defense analyst who accused the US Air Force of fouling up its cost estimates in picking Northrop Grumman to build its new multibillion-dollar bomber concedes the service was right on at least one point.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":28726,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[7,33],"tags":[],"coauthors":[1820],"class_list":["post-59077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-air","category-home"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"PTN422H3KNBLJISM5BPHX2NT3Q","arc_canonical_url":"\/2015\/12\/16\/analyst-air-force-correct-on-bomber-cost-point\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is 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