It is good to recall that sales to companies in certain states get a competitive advantage on bid decisions. So, if you bid through an instate reseller, your bid gets substantial preference over out of state bidders. In Ohio we call it the BuyOhio program. That program is public information. I also posted several days ago about Public Information Management policies that certain states and state agencies have. Since delivery for the aerostat system you mention is still many weeks away, any state might not make public comments or free their vendors to make overt statements without approval until the timing is right for them.
We may all have to wait some for official press releases from the purchaser for more details on this sale IMO. You can also speculate that the initial sale would be through competitive bidding but once a specific platform/capability is in the table of equipment, any future bids might be sole source, at least as far as the manufacturer goes. You can imagine the nightmare if a state had 12-24 aerostats from 12 or more manufacturers with a dozen different ISR and comms packages.
We can also speculate that ISR might not be the only use for aerostats for a state government. Many western states and some mountainous eastern states have communication problems when doing emergency operations in unpopulated areas. The WASP capability that the DoD purchases could also have application for state and local government entities IMO. That would be another new market/product line for the company to consider or be working on IMO. Many of the Defense contractors my company works with are eager to diversify into non-federal or non-defense related sales. Kudos to Glenn and the team for pulling this off when others are trying so hard. A lot to discuss here. I speculate that we will be talking about the implications of these developments for months. Thanks for furthering the discussion. Warm regards, IndyJonesOhio
