SOCOM’s TACLAN IT Contracts

Latest updates[?]: Contract challenge is resolved. And the winner is...

Special forces are even more reliant on excellent communications infrastructure, and on help desk support that can go the extra miles with them. On October 2005, IT consulting firm iGov Technologies, Inc. in McLean, VA received an indefinite delivery/ indefinite quantity contract to design, install, and support US SOCOM’s Tactical Local Area Network (TACLAN) related equipment, as part of the Special Operations Forces Digital Environment (PM-SDE) program. TACLAN provides everything from help desk support, to management and evolution of hardware configurations, to the creation of new software that offers flexible interfaces to communications, databases, and mission applications.

iGovTech created Team TACLAN, based in Tampa, FL, to execute the contract, which included additional industry and academic partners. Until a 2012 award appeared to have placed TACLAN’s near-term future in other hands…

India Refurbishing its AN-32 Transport Fleet

AN-32 over Taj Mahal

The Antonov AN-32 “Cline” builds on the general design of the widely-used AN-26 light transport plane, but high placement of the engine nacelles above the wing allow bigger propellers, driven by 5,100 hp AI-20 turboprops that almost double the output of the AN-26′s engines. As a result, the AN-32′s 14,750 pound/ 6900 kg load capacity is almost 50% better than its AN-26 cousin’s, and it can take off with much better load fractions in hot and/or high-altitude conditions, whose thin air could be a problem for other aircraft. AN-32s serve with a number of countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America, and the type was purchased in 2008 by Afghanistan.

India was the plane’s launch customer in the 1980s, and its fleet of up to 105 aircraft are used by the IAF’s Parachute Training School, by its military and humanitarian personnel and supply airdrops, and as an important link in the transport chain to the disputed Siachen glacier area in northern Jammu and Kashmir. That length of service has taken a toll, hence India’s decision to modernize over 100 planes.

Rapid Fire, Feb. 11, 2013: Contracting Consolidation Options

• The US GAO found that a new requirement to justify $20M+ sole-source contracts awarded under the 8(a) small business program had been poorly implemented by the services during FY2012. In any case the number and value of such contracts dramatically fell since about the time that requirement was added to federal acquisition regulation. A case of correlation meaning causation?

• Daniel Goure at the Lexington Institute thinks [PDF] the Pentagon should consolidate its contracting following examples set by the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) with Tailored Logistics Support Program or Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) with SeaPort-Enhanced.

• DARPA will host a Proposer’s Day for the Shared Spectrum Access for Radar and Communications (SSPARC) program on February 26 in Arlington, VA. Their goal is to improve performance when spectrum is shared between military radars and civilian or military communications systems. Feb. 21 update: presolicitation.