Another Instance of Excessive Navy Part Costs Unveiled

Purchasing officials at Miramar Naval Air Station this year paid Grumman Aerospace $5,775 for a jet fighter machine gun part that would have cost less than half that amount had it been ordered from General Electric Co.--the firm that made the part.

Copies of documents obtained by The Times show that air station officials in December placed a near-wartime priority on purchasing the replacement gun component for a Grumman-built F-14 Tomcat fighter.

Miramar officials ruled out General Electric as a possible supplier because the company was unable to meet a one-day bidding deadline that Miramar had imposed.

However, despite the urgency placed on the purchase, the part was not ordered from Grumman until two weeks after the call went out for bids.

Miramar purchasing agents telephoned both Grumman and General Electric urgently requesting quotes on Dec. 20--nine days after mechanics requested the part--but it was not until Jan. 3 that it was ordered from Grumman’s plant in Bethpage, N.Y., Navy purchasing and shipping records indicate.

When the part was delivered to Miramar could not be determined last week, but insiders believe it arrived in late January. General Electric’s written bid of $2,300, sent by Western Union Mailgram, arrived Jan. 24.

Michael Drake, a Grumman spokesman, last week defended the cost difference between General Electric’s bid and the price his company charged the Navy for a General Electric product. Drake said Grumman may have incurred expenses for “overhead, transportation, quality checks and related costs” in delivering the part to Miramar.

“Those are the things that go into pricing and the Navy recognizes that,” Drake said.

But Rep. Jim Bates (D-San Diego), who has become an outspoken critic of procurement activity involving Grumman and Miramar, was anything but understanding.

“What this means is that there was a potential competitive bidding situation that was ignored,” Bates said. “Grumman had no reason to charge the fee they did because they didn’t meet the priority requirements anyway. And, certainly, the need for the part was not so overwhelming that it justified disallowing a quote from the original manufacturer of the part.”

The Pentagon in May relieved Miramar’s commander and supply officer as well as a rear admiral after it was discovered that the air station had paid Grumman about $630 each for two replacement ashtrays for E-2C Hawkeye radar planes, $800 for two wrench sockets and $2,410 for an F-14 ground lock that prevents the horizontal stabilizer from moving during maintenance.

Purchasing employees at Miramar told The Times that the ashtrays were ordered to replace others that had been thrown away.

“A commanding officer would come in and say, ‘I don’t want any smoking in the plane,’ so out would go the ashtrays,” said one employee, who spoke on condition that she not be identified. “Then, the new commander would decide, ‘Smoke if you want,’ so we’d have to order ashtrays again for the crew and that cost as much as $900 each. It was crazy.”

Grumman, seeking to avoid “further controversy,” announced this month that it would credit the Navy nearly $100,000 for 7 ashtrays, 17 wrench sockets and 35 ground locks delivered over the past 15 years.

Last week, The Times obtained copies of shipping documents showing that Grumman in 1983 billed the Navy $696,496 for 16 Tomcat electronic modification kits that, by contract, were supposed to cost $67,280. A Grumman spokesman attributed the the discrepancy to a clerical error on an invoice and said he doubted that the Navy was actually charged the larger amount.

Navy officials said they were not immediately sure how much was paid for the modification kits.

As for the purchase from Grumman of of General Electric-manufactured gun drive assembly, the Navy declined immediate comment. However, one Navy officer, who asked not to be identified, said he was confident that the additional expense was worthwhile.

“Our job is to be prepared and to keep these planes in the air,” he said. “They’re not designed to sit on the ground waiting forever for parts.”

The gun drive assembly rotates the six barrels of a 20-millimeter Vulcan machine gun, which has a firing rate of 6,000 rounds per minute. The Vulcan resembles a 19th Century Gattling gun and is the Tomcat’s primary weapon for close-in fighting.

Jack Waller, a spokesman for General Electric at its plant in Burlington, Vt., where the Vulcans are built, said that the Navy was probably justified in buying the gun drive assembly from Grumman if there was an immediate and legitimate need.

“We are not an off-the-shelf supplier; we don’t stock spare parts,” Waller said. “If the Navy had called . . . we would have told them that we would have to take some time to get a quote and take a look at our pipeline and see if we had one in stock or had to build one. In any case, it would have been a matter of several weeks.”

On March 21, after comparing General Electric’s $2,300 bid to Grumman’s $5,775 bill for the gun drive assembly, Miramar’s supply officer, Cmdr. Jerry L. Fronabarger, sent Grumman a letter requesting a price breakdown that would explain the wide gap between the two figures.

Grumman spokesman Drake said last week that the company had not yet responded to Fronabarger’s letter.

“We do have a letter in hand from the Navy and we’re responding to that letter,” Drake said of Fronabarger’s correspondence. “I don’t have any idea when.”

Fronabarger was among those relieved of duty last month along with Miramar’s commander, Capt. Gary E. Hakanson, and Rear Adm. Thomas J. Cassidy Jr., commander of the Pacific Fleet’s F-14 squadrons. All three officers denied knowledge of the exorbitantly priced ashtrays that prompted their firings.