Print edition: 
After excluding Hawker Beechcraft from a Light Air Support contract, the Air Force said it plans to award the contract this month.
Hawker Beechcraft had been in competition with Brazil-based Embraer to supply 20 aircraft to two air bases in Afghanistan and another 15 for “building partner capacity,” the Air Force has said.
That number could grow to 55 and be worth up to $950 million. Deliveries were to begin in 2013.
Late last month, Hawker Beechcraft was notified it had been excluded from the competition in what is called a “pre-award exclusion.” The company is still trying to learn the reason for the action.
“We do not know why we were excluded,” said Bill Boisture, Hawker Beechcraft’s CEO.
The company filed an inquiry with the Government Accountability Office for a review of the exclusion. A request with the Air Force for a debriefing was dismissed. On Monday, the company filed a rebuttal with the Air Force about the dismissal, Boisture said.
The Air Force isn’t commenting on the status of any of the proposals in the competition because of the ongoing source selection, said Air Force spokesman Daryl Mayer.
“We anticipate awarding the contract in December,” Mayer said. “More information will be available following contract award.”
Hawker Beechcraft offered the Air Force its AT-6, based on the company’s T-6 trainer. It was up against Embraer’s Super Tucano military aircraft. The AT-6 turboprop is designed for counterinsurgency, close air support, armed overwatch, and homeland defense and security.
Hawker Beechcraft has said that winning the contract – which originally was to have been awarded at the end of October – would keep its T-6 production line operating beyond 2015. About 1,400 employees in 20 states, including 800 in Wichita, work on the AT-6 and T-6 programs. The number includes those working on the programs at Hawker Beechcraft and its U.S. suppliers and partners.
“We continue to believe that we offered the most capable, affordable and sustainable light attack aircraft as measured against the Air Force’s Request for Proposal,” the company said in a statement last month. “HBC’s exclusion from competing for this important contract appears at this point to have been made without basis in process or fact.”
