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Have you heard of a "design-build-finance-operate-maintain (DBFOM) contracts?" If so, what is your opinion.

Thank you for your observations.

Many years ago, as a teen, I noticed a magazine on a barbershop table with an incredible black airplane on the cover. Huge engines on each side of a delta wing and a long thin fuselage with a cockpit near the front. I never forgot that airplane, it was an SR-71 Blackbird. Fifty-five years later, I wrote a brief article about the first Blackbird -- the A-12. It's the fastest and highest flying jet airplane that was ever built. Everything about the A-12 was incredible. A requirement was developed to: make an airplane so fast that nothing could catch it, make it fly so high that nothing could reach it, and make it nearly invisible. Add to that the fact that no one knew how to do it, the materials didn't exist and it had to be done quickly. Groom Lake and Area 51 were built for the U-2 and then used for the A-12, Clarence "Kelly" Johnson and his Skunk Works built the U-2 and then built the A-12. The A-12 was a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) spy plane just as the U-2 was originally. ---------------------------------------------------- In September 2020, I finished this 20 page article on the A-12 and placed it on the Analysis Page. I never thought to post it to the Wifcon Blog. I'm doing that now. The article took a long time to write because the building of the A-12 was incredible. Much of the material used to write this article was from 60 years ago and many potential sources confused the SR-71 story with that of the A-12 story. Others were flat out wrong. I used sources from people who worked on or flew the A-12. Fortunately, the CIA finally declassified some documents on the A-12 sometime after 2000--maybe 2007 or 2013--and made it available to the public. There wasn't much of it but it filled in some of the missing pieces. There are many facts and stories about the A-12 that are of interest. One is that, in the A-12, the engines produced only about 20 percent of the power at crusing speeds. Most of the power came from from the pointed cones sticking out of the nacelles. Also, the A-12 ran its afterburners continuously. Then there were the 2 Buick "nailhead" V-8s that were conected to each other to "spool-up" and start each A-12 engine. At the end of the article, I list the places you can still see an A-12 and added links to Google Maps. If you look closely at the maps, you will find an image of an A-12. I also list where the only YF-12A, a derivative of the A-12, is at. Now, the YF-12A is another story. Please read: Faster Than A Speeding Bullet, Three Times Higher Than The Tallest Mountain.

rios0311: Thank you. That is exactly the intent of this forum: What Happened?

Things are moving so quickly that the White House information has been out of date. I knew this happened but it wasn't posted.

What does the award fee plan look like? What are the factors for earning the award?

Thanks. I agree.

Anyone?

I have posted the 20th annual analysis of the National Defense Authorization Act. This one is the William M. (Mac) Thornberry National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021. I've been doing this for 20 years. I'm going to proof it over the next day or two.

It's now law. I'll have it online before Monday.

At this point I have no plans for an app. There are two immediate things on the agenda: The 2021 NDAA analysis which takes several weeks. That wil be done within the week. I also want to post a blog entry on an unrelated issue. A redesign and streamline of the non-discussion board part of the site. I expect that to take some months because there are about 500 to 1,000 pages to that part of the site.

Wifcon Community: Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and a belated Happy Hanukkah. (I've been late or behind all year.) Thank you for participating in Wifcon.com's discussion forum during 2020. You, the participants, make it work and I am grateful for your participation. I have a long list of things to do to improve the overall site during 2021. But first, I'm baking raisin-walnut cookies tonight. Your host, Bob

The William M. (Mac) Thornberry National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021 was vetoed today. Congress will return next week to deal with the bill.

Yes, possible veto and then override. It won't affect any new Congressional perfections to contracting law. Then a few days to get the Public Law number.

I plan on doing it again by the end of December 2020.

That's fine.

I didn't notice that this question was asked twice. I cannot change it now or several useful posts would be deleted. Posting the same message more than once is referred to as spamming.

Joel: Time will tell.

From trying to remember over a decade or so, the Councils like to group final and interim rules in a FAC. I do list proposed rules in the bottom right column and add the final rules to the issued FACs as they are included in FACs. If any are made final and not included in FACs, I shift the Final rule to the left hand column. The simple answer is that making a rule final without a FAC is done much less often. It is my belief that fewer FACs have been issued over the past several years. If there are no FACs to tie a final rule to as in 2018-005, they just make it final without one. In this case the rule was nearing 3 years old. By the way, there are some items that I am not updating at this time. (I'm saving the information.) The reason is that I have a new souped-up computer with web-site software and I am planning to design and update the non-discussion forum part of the site. I think there are about 500 to 1,000 pages to that part of the site and the update will eliminate some of the rarely used pages. Other pages will look more better. With that much content, it is like turning the Titanic.

It is in FAR Case 2018-005. This is the proposed version. The Final version was dated 7/2/2020. The DoD Deviation was 2018-00012. The NDAA became law in December 2017.

Joel: There are nearly 500 footnotes too. Maybe Briefing Papers should rename it to Detailed Tome.

Joel: Let's stretch this out further and add something more to the Briefing Papers which explains the process. On it's p. 3, the Paper mention's there are 3 BCAs. I know of a 4th - GAO's Contract Appeals Board.

See the CBCA dispute: JAF Supply, Inc., CBCA 6934, November 16, 2020.

What would not be included in the proposed "economic price adjustment."

Some news that I posted to the Home Page tonight. Fiscal Year 2020 Reporting Period Extended for Contractor Service Contract Reporting in the System for Award Management.