The Adobe Flash Player is required to view this multimedia interactive. Get it here.

Wright-Patterson project contract challenge dismissed

Supporters trying to keep aviation film festival on this year
11:46 a.m.
Local pharmacist joins online cardiac venture
11:07 a.m.
Over 300 jobs expected from grants to Dayton, Springfield companies
11:47 a.m.
Company trains new workers to prepare for possible $4M contract
2/8/10
New stores coming to Monroe outlet mall
2/8/10
> More headlines

By John Nolan, Staff Writer Updated 7:13 PM Friday, November 20, 2009

WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE — Congressional investigators in Washington have dismissed a company’s protest of a contract award, which might otherwise have affected progress of constructing the Human Performance Wing, the centerpiece of new construction on the base.

IMPEX Inc., of Tulsa, Okla., filed a protest with the U.S. Government Accountability Office to challenge the September award of a $34.4 million contract to Environmental Tectonics Corp., of Southampton, Pa., to supply a centrifuge and related services to the Air Force. The GAO, investigative arm of Congress, said it dismissed the challenge on Wednesday, Nov. 18, because IMPEX failed to respond to the GAO’s report addressing the company’s allegations.

“We understand the GAO ruling and we accept it,” Prab Prabhu, president of IMPEX, said in a call to the company’s offices Friday, Nov. 20.

The centrifuge is to be housed in a 3-story-high building at the 711th Human Performance Wing complex, which will house the wing, the Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine and other operations. The complex is the biggest part of the government’s $332 million program to build facilities for various military programs being relocated to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base by September 2011, under the nation’s 2005 base realignment and closure decisions.

The complex is more than 60 percent complete and is ahead of schedule, said Lou Zavakos of the base’s civil engineering office. Its construction is to be finished in February 2011, with occupancy to begin in May 2011.

The centrifuge will be used for flight simulation training, to expose people to simulated gravity pressures of up to 10 times the force of gravity and test equipment at up to 20 times the gravitational force.

Air Force officials said they have been coordinating with the Army Corps of Engineers, which is supervising the construction, and the contractor building the Human Performance Wing complex to reduce any potential delay which may have resulted from the protest. The building was designed so that it could be completed and still accommodate installation of the centrifuge, the Air Force said.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2242 or jnolan@DaytonDailyNews.com.

Share this article