CL327 Contract Case Study

Canadair had Alaska Senator Ted Stevens add $15M for their CL327. Since I was now watching the budget, I caught it and went to General Israel, newly appointed Commander of the DOD UAV directorate. I briefed him on our Eagle Eye and told him we would like to see a demonstration program funded. He agreed, but told us he had no money. We showed him the $15M appropriated for the CL327 was illegal because violated the Competition in Contracting Act. He agreed and revised it in favor of a competitive program. Senator Stevens wrote General Israel complaining, but the return letter described the law requiring competition. Senator Stevens’ reply: “We write the laws, and we are telling you to give it to Canadair.” General Israel wrote back telling Stevens we follow the law and the Competition in Contracting Act says it must be a competitive program but Canadair would be free to complete. I hadn’t been this tickled since the time we took Boeing’s money! The UAV Directorate put out an RFP for a VTOL Maturity demonstration.

This time we had made our ground station using IR&D and took our remaining demonstrator aircraft to Yuma Proving Grounds where we were to demonstrate 50 hours of flight in 60 days (flying every other day because of range sharing). The Bell Eagle Eye’s 7/8th-Scale prototype exceeded all required flight parameters and demonstrated: • 60 hours of flight • Routine VTOL take-off and landings to a 24-foot helicopter landing area • A launch-and-recovery accuracy better than the required 9.8ft • Automated hover and landing in winds gusting to 32 knots • Stable hover out of ground effect at 1,100 feet MSL in 95’ temperatures with 210 pounds of payload and 350 pounds of