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Aviation History
1995
1995 - 0056.PDF
HEADLINES Seaspray sparks Australian row PAUL PHELAN/CAIRNS THE PERFORMANCE of the GEC-Marconi Avionics .easpray radar is at the centre of a growing dispute between the Australian Government and the four losing bidders for its AS270 million ($210 million) nine-year coastal surveillance contract. The work was awarded to National Jet Systems (NJS) of Adelaide (Flight International, 21- 27 September, 1994). The four operators — Skywest Aviation, Cobham Aviation (a teaming of Flight Refuelling in the UK and Australian Jet Charter), die Chopperline and the Direct Flight consortium (involv ing a UK company of the same name and Jetcraft) have formed a joint committee to challenge the decision, and customs minister Chris Schacht has been given a catalogue of serious alleged irreg ularities in the tender-evaluation process. These allege that: • published tender-evaluation procedures were not complied with; • some bidders were excluded on the basis of public-service evalua tion of management background; I critical decisions were withheld selectively from tenderers during the process; I government representatives responsible for process audit served on the tender-evaluation committee; • an extra aircraft was added by the successful tenderer and there was a late substitution of radar. Schacht has replied to the oper ators, saying that government- procurement specialists are satisfied with the process which led to the letting of the contract. Three operators, including NJS, proposed the Seaspray 2000 radar for the electronic-surveil lance component of the contract. The group alleges that, during the evaluation process (when two other tenderers which proposed Telephonies radars queried GEC- Marconi performance claims), the Defence Science & Technology Organisation (DSTO) evaluated Seaspray independently; and that its claimed target-acquisition range-performance was down graded from 70km (38nm) to 45km without all tenderers being advised, although the DSTO is believed to have used more exten sive performance criteria than required by the proposal docu ments in its study. Bidders say that GEC-Marconi subsequently told them that the radar could achieve the quoted detection ranges with minor mod ifications, and that although they were subsequently given to believe that the radar problem was resolved, NJS substituted the Texas Instruments APS 134 radar after best and final offers had closed, and before the award determination. GEC-Marconi says: "We are disappointed that NJS are fitting a system other than the Seaspray, especially as we believe they were selected on the basis of our radar." "This is not just a case of disap pointed losers contesting a deci sion," says Cobham Aviation. "As a group we've put everything on the table and we're not using all our ammunition yet, but we're keeping the minister responsible informed, because if the audit process that should have been fol lowed by his officers is shown to be faulty, he's going to cop the backlash as well." At least one Australian Customs officer directly involved in the assessment was at the centre of a dispute five years ago, when an earlier contract was awarded to a small Darwin company. That company had no aircraft or infrastructure, failed to meet deadlines, and was eventually excluded. National Jet Systems is provid ing tJiree new de Havilland Canada Dash 8-200s and three Reims F406s (Caravan II) equipped with the APS 134 radar, plus six Pilatus Britten-Norman BN2B-20s for visual surveillance. • BD-10 test flight was fatal for Michael Van Wagenem Peregrine founder killed in BD-10 private jet accident ABEDE JET BD-10 turbojet-powered private jet crashed on 30 December, 1994, killing the pilot, Michael Van Wagenen — president and founder of Per egrine Flight International, the company which recently acquired the rights to certificate and manu facture the BD-10 for the general- aviation market (Flight Inter national, 4-10 January). The company refuses to com ment on reports that the aircraft broke up during a high-speed run. Described as a "production proto type", the BD-10 had been com pleted by Peregrine subsidiary Fox Aircraft, formed to help buy ers build the aircraft from kits, and was being used to test the pressurisation system and to expand the flutter envelope from 280kt (520km/h) to 410kt, to clear the aircraft for its planned maxi mum Mach number of 0.94. The aircraft crashed during the third test flight of the day, but the company declines to comment on what task the pilot was undertak ing at the time of the accident. The BD-10 had been flown 24 times since its first flight on 11 November, 1994. A report on the accident is expected to be completed by Peregrine and a team of profes sional accident-investigators within two weeks. The Nevada- based company says that a deci sion on whether to proceed with completion of the ten BD-lOs now under assembly, and with certification and production of the aircraft as the PJ-1, will depend on investigation's outcome. Peregrine had decided to stop offering die aircraft as a kit because of "the sophistication of the design and complexity of assembly". J NEWS IN BRIEF • LUCAS SETTLEMENT Lucas has reached an out-of- court settlement with the US Government, admitting that its subsidiary Lucas Western falsified inspection records for airframe-mount- ed accessory-drive gearbox es for the McDonnell Douglas F-18. Pending approval by the Federal Court in Los Angeles, Lucas will pay a fine and costs amounting to $18.5 million. 6 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 11 - 17 January 1995
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