MOD | A | The purpose of this Amendment to BAA W911W6-11-R-0005 is to publish all clarifications and questions and responses received and provided during the Pre-Proposal Conference held on February 14, 2011.

FBO DAILY ISSUE OF APRIL 01, 2011 FBO #3415
MODIFICATION

A -- The purpose of this Amendment to BAA W911W6-11-R-0005 is to publish all clarifications and questions and responses received and provided during the Pre-Proposal Conference held on February 14, 2011.

Notice Date: 3/30/2011
Notice Type: Modification/Amendment
NAICS: 541712 — Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences (except Biotechnology)
Contracting Office: Aviation Applied Technology Directorate (AMCOM-CC), ATTN: AMSRD-AMR-AA-C, Building 401, Lee Boulevard, Fort Eustis, VA 23604-5577
ZIP Code: 23604-5577
Solicitation Number: W911W6-11-R-0005
Response Due: 4/21/2011
Archive Date: 6/20/2011
Point of Contact: Velvet Taylor, 757-878-2306
E-Mail Address: Aviation Applied Technology Directorate (AMCOM-CC)
(velvet.taylor@us.army.mil)
Small Business Set-Aside: N/A
Description: 1. Request clarification on cost sharing. Several Universities were concerned about being able to meet a 50% cost share ratio in today's economy. Is the cost sharing mandatory? RESPONSE: Per the Supplemental Package, 8. Resource Sharing is discussed and as a matter of DoD policy is required. "Offerors must provide at least half of the costs of the program to the maximum extent practicable." The offeror can discuss factors affecting practicability of cost share for consideration by the Government, see Title 32 of the Code of Federal Regulations, Section 37.215(c) (37 CFR 37.215(c)). 2. Request clarification on subcontracting. RESPONSE: The subawards request within the solicitation and supplemental package is to encourage collaborative efforts with a prime recipient and other HEIs, specifically targetting HBCU/MI. The subrecipient award should be as a collaborative effort and not as a standalone task when proposed by the prime recipient. 3. What type of internships is the Government looking for and who pays for the internships as referenced under Center Criteria #9, Supplemental Package, pg. 15? RESPONSE: The Government is seeking input/suggestions from offerors and has no defined plan in place. The Army acknowledges that it no longer has an intern program, but the Navy and NASA continue to maintain intern programs. 4. Can cost sharing be with other federal funds? RESPONSE: Per 37 C.F.R. 37.530-37.55 and the Supplemental Package, pg 16, the "U.S. Government resources may not be considered as resource sharing. Contributions listed below will be regarded as "neutral" with regard to resource sharing goals, and they will not count as either a government or a private company contribution to resource sharing goals. These include: (a) cash or in-kind contributions provided by state or local governments (specifically for the BAA project proposal, and not generally provided for some other purpose) where the cash or in-kind resource is funded by the U.S. Government; (b) in-kind contributions by federal laboratories that are members of a proposing team (e.g., as in a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement), or (c) tangible products of past government funding that are legally owned by a member of a BAA proposal team (e.g. equipment developed as part of previous VLRCOE efforts and/or a Small Business Innovation Research contract)." 5. "MACH-tuck" was not identified by NASA as a concern for high speed rotorcraft. Will there be a concern for this? RESPONSE: One of the benefits of the ability to reduce main rotor rpm will be to lower the incidence of Mach tuck. High-speed capability is a goal that NASA is pursuing. 5a. In consideration of NASA's emphasis on large transport rotorcraft, has NASA considered the issues associated with a large center-of-gravity (CG) shift? Particularly, considering low speed operability, the Chinook model is an excellent one with a wide CG travel to address passenger and military applications. RESPONSE: The CG effects on handling qualities and flight controls are being assessed in NASA's research on large civil transport configurations in the Vertical Motion Simulator. There are technical issues to overcome with the large offset between the pilot's seat and the CG of the vehicle. 6. How does the NASA Subsonic Rotary Wing project plan align with the NASA road mapping exercises that were completed recently? RESPONSE: NASA did not include aeronautics in the road mapping exercises. The roadmaps are primarily for space exploration technologies. The roadmaps can be found at http://www.nasa.gov/offices/oct/home/roadmaps/index.html 7. Can you provide a list of work Universities can do in Rotorcraft Aeromechanics? RESPONSE: In Aeromechanics we are looking for improvements in all of our Technology Effort Objectives, as well as gain greater understanding in the physics of rotors and rotorcraft flowfields. We have made great progress in Aeromechanics Analysis but there is a need to improve our accuracy in areas where it is lacking. Three critical areas are hover performance, rotor structural loads and interactional aerodynamics (e.g. tail shake). 8. What happened to fly by light? RESPONSE: Lots of Fly-By-Light research and bench testing in the 1990's by the Air Force. It is widely used for avionics due to massive bandwidth requirements, but for primary flight control there are still key challenges: timing must be deterministic; prove reliability in harsh environment; field repair/maintenance and supply; and the technology readiness level (TRL) must be raised. 9. What is the damage mode for composites? RESPONSE: Delamination. Composite skins are very durable, and not prone to damage growth. Near- and far-field effects make skins, which react shear, unlikely to propagate damage (delamination growth). Joints, particularly bonded joints, are more prone to delamination growth from impact damaging events. 10. Is the Army heading toward 2 level maintenance for efficiency? RESPONSE: The S&T objectives are to reduce maintenance inspections, reduce labor, reduce false removals and increase component time on wing. The technologies being developed will apply to 2 or 3 level maintenance. The number of inspections (e.g., corrosion inspections) remains the same for 2 or 3 level maintenance. 2 or 3 level maintenance dictates where the inspection or maintenance action occurs. Future aircraft may go towards a 2 level maintenance approach. 11. Is the Historically Black College or University or Minority Institution (HBCU/MI) 5% goal mandatory? RESPONSE: The Government is encouraging collaboration with HBCU/MI with a goal of 5% of the value of total funded efforts under the agreement. 12. Are US citizens the only persons allowed to work on all tasks? RESPONSE: US citizens are not the only persons eligible to work on all tasks. As this Solicitation is for fundamental basic research in science and engineering at accredited institutions of higher learning in the U.S. where the resulting information is ordinarily published and shared broadly in the scientific community, export control regulations do not apply. The institution of higher learning remains responsible for compliance with export control requirements, including access to technical data and equipment. 13. What is the technology relevance during evaluations? RESPONSE: Proposals will first be evaluated as an integrated, balanced center and then the 5-year program technical tasks will be subjected to a scientific peer review by a team of knowledgeable scientists/engineers. The tasks will be evaluated on their own merit without regard to other proposals submitted under this announcement. These evaluations will result in narrative ratings, which will be used to develop an order of merit listing for proposals and technical programs submitted under this announcement. 14. What is the available funding annually? RESPONSE: $4M annually for a total of up to 3 agreements. 15. What are the criteria for evaluation? RESPONSE: The Center Criteria and Technical Task Criteria to be used for evaluation purposes can be found in the solicitation and supplemental package. 16. Intellectual property rights - subawards - do they need to be worked out in advance? RESPONSE: yes 17. What is the status of funding? RESPONSE: Government is still under CRA, but is ready to move forward. 18. Are water ingress and water in composite structures good topics? RESPONSE: Yes, they are good topics. The list of example research topics in the BAA for "Naval Operations" is not a comprehensive list. Topics outside the list but that address operation in a naval environment are not excluded. 19. As a reminder, potential offerors shall submit all questions via electronic mail to the Grants and Agreement Administrator, Velvet Taylor, at velvet.taylor@us.army.mil and not the technical personnel or other Government contacts.
Web Link: FBO.gov Permalink
(https://www.fbo.gov/notices/f923ed6ed37bdb98f8d25bd13770ba27)
Place of Performance: Address: Aviation Applied Technology Directorate (AMCOM-CC) ATTN: AMSRD-AMR-AA-C, Building 401, Lee Boulevard Fort Eustis VA; Zip Code: 23604-5577
Record: SN02413208-W 20110401/110330234809-f923ed6ed37bdb98f8d25bd13770ba27 (fbodaily.com)
Source: FedBizOpps Link to This Notice
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A -- The purpose of this Amendment to BAA W911W6-11-R-0005 is to publish all clarifications and questions and responses received and provided during the Pre-Proposal Conference held on February 14, 2011.