Everyone's a procurement expert...

...or at least everyone who's ever bought a pack of gum at the corner store thinks they are, it seems. Just look at today's editorial in the G&M:

...According to documents obtained by The Globe and Mail, the department considers the maker of the Italian-built Spartan C27J fixed-wing plane the only "viable bidder" to replace its Buffalo and Hercules aircraft, despite at least one alternative.

This is not the way to proceed with a project worth $3-billion, including the maintenance of the aircraft over 20 years...

I happen to agree with this, the main thrust of the editorial, but reading the entire piece, it's almost like they've stumbled upon the right answer by accident: a stopped clock, twice a day, and all that.

First of all, their knowledge of the both the aircraft they discuss and the status of said aircraft's planned purchase is embarrassingly thin:

Last year, Ottawa bought 16 Chinook helicopters, four C-17 cargo airplanes and 17 C-130J Hercules transport planes. In all three cases, the winning bidders for those multi-billion-dollar contracts were the only ones who were seriously considered. True, especially with the C-17, Defence could argue that it needed equipment with a proven record. And it needed that equipment relatively soon to replace aging aircraft or to upgrade capabilities.

Well, no. On a couple of different levels, no.

While DND has announced they plan to purchase those aircraft in those numbers, the contracts have not been signed. To anyone outside the severely over-spun world of politics, that doesn't constitute "bought." The government is in negotiations with Boeing on the Globemasters and Chinooks, and the Jercules purchase is even less developed than that.

In fact, there's apparently serious doubt from at least one person within the project whether one of the supposed purchases will ever make it to the tarmac (the whole thread is worth reading, incidentally):

From McCallum through to Graham .... none of them and no Liberal wanted the C-17. This project has been a real shock to one and all ..... A spring election will put this project on very thin ice.

As far as the arguments for buying the various aircraft are concerned, the Globe editorial writer is out to lunch. Nobody who has any familiarity with the strat-lift problem pretended the C-17 was the only option. We had been over-tasking our C-130's, renting Antonovs, and bumming rides from allies for years, and conceivably could have continued with that McGyver-esque patchwork half-solution for years to come, although it wouldn't have been pretty. While the C-17 is in my opinion the best solution to our strat-lift needs, we could have bought other aircraft.

Incredibly, it looks to me like the folks at the G&M confused the C-17 and C-130J in that section, since the key argument for the Jercules purchase is that the one rival to Lockheed Martin's plane is the Airbus A400M, which exists only on paper at this point. The Herc replacement is the one that urgently needs an off-the-shelf solution with a proven track-record, not a new strat-lift capability.

How can the Globe credibly assess these planned purchases if they understand neither the aircraft nor the procurement process?

Beyond that, looking at a single procurement in isolation is counterproductive: capital acquisition doesn't happen in a vacuum. For example, if you could get a fixed-wing search and rescue (FWSAR) aircraft off the shelf and on to the line right away, and if you could also get a strategic-lift aircraft off the shelf and on to the line right away, and if you could get current tails through something like the Spar 2020 program as quickly as they're tiring out, you might be able to postpone the tactical-lift replacement project long enough to allow EADS to field a working competitor to the -130J. But barring all those factors falling neatly into place - and it should be clear that I'm oversimplifying out of necessity here - the current process is the best we can hope for. Not a perfect solution, mind you, but the best of the imperfect options available to us.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again as often as necessary: adults understand that sometimes the choices we face aren't between good and bad, but between bad and worse. You make the best decision you can with the information available to you at the time, and live with the consequences. Only children and fools think you can do otherwise.

All of DND's procurement and maintenance decisions are made in an environment where conflicting interests pull in different directions, and where the removal or replacement of one piece of a terribly complicated interlocking puzzle can radically affect any number of other decisions.

With that in mind, I favour a more competitive process for the FWSAR replacement. The other aircraft that should be coming into service prior to a FWSAR frame (specifically, the -130J's and the -17's) will hopefully take some pressure off the SAR fleet - remember, it's not just Buffalo's flying SAR, it's Herc's too. But I also want to see some competition on this file because the government has already played its "we have to buy NOW" card three times already - with the heavy-helicopters, the strat-lift, and the tac-lift projects. To do it again when it's not strictly necessary is to invite the questioning of the whole bundle, not just the FWSAR plan.

Of course, that's likely EADS's fervent wish here: complain hard enough in the one area where they have the best case to present (FWSAR), and hopefully they can call into question the rest of the contracts they didn't get a good nibble at (they seem to think the A400M will be able to handle both the CF's tac-lift and most of its strat-lift needs). Chip away at the legitimacy of the current plans one by one, and pray for an election. It's a long shot, but it's the only shot I can see that they have left - other than court challenges, of course.

I wonder if the Globe editorial board considered the fact that EADS thinks strategically (or if they even know that EADS has a couple of different aircraft they want to sell to the CF, and so has a vested interest in calling this government's entire plan into question), and that the C-295 could be seen as the thin edge of a very big wedge into DND's plans. Given their tenuous grasp on the rest of the subject of their editorial, I sincerely doubt it.

(By the way, I was as worried as anyone else about O'Connor's work as a lobbyist for Airbus prior to his entry into politics. But this complete shutout of Airbus from the biggest aircraft purchases for the CF in decades should put that criticism completely and finally to rest.)

Update: Mark pointed to it in an earlier post, but you really should read the thread at Army.ca on this topic. Especially the section yesterday between Rescue Randy and Zoomie where they debate the relative merits of both the C-295 and the C-27J in a SAR role. I'll let Rescue Randy have the last word on this:

The problem is that there are so many people pushing misinformation that the only way to cut through the BS is to have a full, transparent competition and then make an informed decision, not one that is based on competitor claims. I would like to see a winter trial in Prince George for about a week in January, followed in July by a week long summer trial in Golden BC. At that end of that time, you will know what aircraft handling is like in turbulence, and how it stands up when cold soaked. The SAR techs would have their opportunity to turn theory into reality as far as how much space they needed where, and what vis was needed. You also would need a week - any time of year - in the marine environment to see how the integrated search systems worked.

Hear, hear. When the crews tell you there are legitimate arguments for both aircraft, it's time to have a competition, folks.

Throwing-my-hands-up-date: Turns out Rescue Randy is a private contractor with ties to EADS. Like I said in another post, this is going to be a knife-fight by each of the companies involved. The entire Army.ca thread, including comments by Requirements Guy, who says he's Deputy Project Director on the FWSAR team, is worth reading.

I also recognized Rescue Randy's other handle ("RLP") from a comment thread here at The Torch. Well, at least he's consistent in his opposition to the C-27J.