Sources Sought
Requesting information for MISHAP ANALYSIS & ANIMATION FACILITY (MAAF) FLIGHT RECORDER DOWNLOAD SOLUTIONS ACQUISITION AND SUSTAINMENT
Dept of Defense · Dept of the Air Force · Sol. FA940126Mishap
Due in 19 days
AI summary Beta
The Air Force (377th Mission Support Group, Kirtland AFB, NM) is running a Sources Sought / market research to find companies that can build and support hardware and software that downloads data from military aircraft flight recorders for the Mishap Analysis & Animation Facility. The planned work is one 12-month base period plus four 12-month options. This is a request for information, not a request for offers, so a response is a capability questionnaire.
Watch out for
- Manufacturer NDAs required. You must get non-disclosure agreements from several recorder makers to obtain pinouts and decompression algorithms, which are not in your control and may take a long time or be refused.
directly with flight recorder OEMs as required to obtain proprietary
- Very specialized technical skills. The work needs deep flight recorder expertise (CCA-level flash extraction, bus protocols, many legacy and modern recorder types), which few small firms have.
• Lead Systems Engineer (Key): Must possess deep domain expertise in legacy and
- 3-business-day repair turnaround. You must repair or replace broken download systems quickly, and the quality plan calls for a contractor-funded replacement module if a unit cannot be repaired.
within 3 business days of notification to restore non-operational download systems.
- Unlimited government data rights. The government keeps unlimited rights to source code, schematics and documentation developed at its expense, which limits your ability to protect or resell your own designs.
Unlimited Data Rights to all software, source code, schematics, API specifications, and
- CUI-cleared facility needed. Your facility and staff must be set up to handle Controlled Unclassified Information, which can require extra security work and cost.
Security Clearance: Facilities and contractor personnel must maintain clearance to
- Sources Sought only, no award yet. This is market research; responding does not secure work, and the Air Force has not said how a later contract would be set aside or evaluated.
Read from the notice and 2 attachments.
- PWS.pdf
- REQUEST FOR INFORMATION_SAM.pdf
Full brief
What they want
- Design, build and test download interfaces (chassis, cabling, test fixtures, software drivers) for full flight recorders and bench-removed circuit cards
- Support a long list of flight recorders from GE, General Dynamics, Fairchild, L3Harris, Honeywell, Universal Avionics, Curtiss-Wright and Mercury
- Make sure raw data extractions are bit-exact and work with each manufacturer's own decompression and transcription software
- Keep tools current as software, drivers and parts go obsolete; repair or replace broken download systems within 3 business days
- Train MAAF government staff to run the equipment and do limited diagnostics
- Deliver software, source code, schematics and technical documentation with unlimited government data rights
- Make everything run on modern Red Hat Enterprise Linux or Microsoft Windows as stand-alone, offline systems
- Period of performance
- 12-month base period plus four 12-month option periods (per the PWS)
- Place of performance
- Contractor facilities and AFSEC/SEFE (MAAF) facilities at Kirtland AFB, NM
- Offers due
- 2026-10-28T12:00:00-06:00
What to include when you submit
- Answer the RFI questionnaire (PDF 'REQUEST FOR INFORMATION_SAM.pdf') in four sections: corporate and business profile, technical and engineering capabilities, software/architecture/data rights, and sustainment and operational support
- Section 1 asks for legal name, CAGE code, UEI, address, point of contact, web address, business size under NAICS 541330 or 541511, small business designations, and any GSA MAS, IDIQ, GWAC or other contract vehicles
- Section 2 asks about raw flash and circuit-card extraction methods and your experience with the listed recorder makers
- Section 3 asks about operating system support, license handling on air-gapped systems, data rights practices, and how you obtain OEM proprietary technical data
You must have
- Facilities and contractor personnel must be cleared to handle Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI)
Security Clearance: Facilities and contractor personnel must maintain clearance to
- Must negotiate and keep non-disclosure agreements directly with the recorder manufacturers to get their proprietary pinouts, data structures and decompression algorithms
directly with flight recorder OEMs as required to obtain proprietary
- Two key personnel are named: a Program Manager and a Lead Systems Engineer with deep knowledge of flight recorder data structures, bus protocols and circuit-card flash extraction
• Lead Systems Engineer (Key): Must possess deep domain expertise in legacy and
- Government will own unlimited data rights to software, source code, schematics, API specifications and technical documentation developed at government expense, so a firm that relies on proprietary code may have a conflict
Unlimited Data Rights to all software, source code, schematics, API specifications, and
Current contractor
Not named. The PWS says the government equipment includes legacy download hardware 'previously fabricated by the contractor', which suggests an earlier contractor built the current tools, but no company or contract number is given.
Not in the notice text
- How and where to send the RFI response (no email address or portal is given in the text provided)
- Page limits or file format for the response
- Contract type and estimated value
- Whether a future contract will be set aside for small business (the notice lists no set-aside)
- How a future award would be evaluated
- Number of download systems and the schedule for each deliverable
- Point of contact for the contracting office (not in the text provided)
- The PSC code is blank in the notice
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Key facts
- Response due
- Oct 28, 2026, 6:00 PM UTC
- Posted
- Sep 28, 2026
- Notice type
- Sources Sought
- Solicitation
- FA940126Mishap
- Agency
- Dept of Defense · Dept of the Air Force
- Office
- FA9401 377 MSG PK
- NAICS
- 541511
- Business type
- IT, software & telecom
- Place of performance
- Kirtland AFB, NM, 87117
- Contracting contact
- CASSANDRA BENGFORTcassandra.bengfort@us.af.mil5058467341
Full notice text from SAM.gov
The contractor shall provide engineering, acquisition, and sustainment services to develop, maintain, and sustain modern hardware+software solutions for USAF aircraft flight recorder download and data decompression / transcription. This effort encompasses developing download capabilities for both full-up (undamaged) flight recorders and bench-level extracted Circuit Card Assemblies (CCA) across diverse solid-state recorder architectures. All software and hardware interfaces developed must execute on modern computer hardware and operating systems (e.g., Red Hat Enterprise Linux or Microsoft Windows) and yield output file formats fully compatible with Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) data decompression and transcription software tools.
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