The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed

Re:The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter... by bumby on Wednesday February 24, 2021 @07:06PM (#26258005)

“Best value” can be very hard to get approved when lower bids exist. Circling back to the incentive theme, I have a feeling contracting officers are graded, in part, by how much they “save”. (In quotes because you can often pay much more in the long run by selecting the lowest bidder).

I’ve found people are very risk adverse in this regard and would prefer to select the lowest bid instead of potentially defending their decision during a protest.

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Re:The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter... by zie on Sunday February 28, 2021 @09:46PM (#26299201)

I think it all depends on your local purchasing department(every govt agency/department gets their own, pretty much). Our department's attitude can be summed up(by me) as:

select the best solution to meet your needs, mostly irregardless of cost, but be sure you can articulate why you are buying from A.

I.e. You can pick whatever vendor you want, provided you are happy to stand up, under oath, in court and talk about WHY you selected vendor A over vendors B, C and D.

So far so I have no experience in court defending our choices.

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