And The $40 Billion Air Tanker Contract Goes To…
We may know tomorrow…
This from Wired:
The Pentagon tomorrow is expected to announce a winner of a contract — potentially worth up to $40 billion - to replace the Air Force’s fleet of aging ancient tankers. Just to recap for those of you too busy reading about lasers and fighters to care about tankers: after 9/11, congressional appropriators snuck in some legislation that would have allowed the Air Force to lease 100 aerial refueling tankers from Boeing. An investigation spearheaded by Senator John McCain eventually derailed the deal. Umpteen hearings and two jailed defense execs later, the tankers were put up for competition, pitting Boeing and its 767 against Northrop Grumman, which is offering the Airbus 330.
Here’s my take: It doesn’t matter how many numbers you crunch, in the end, the Air Force needs tankers and I just don’t believe Congress would fund a tanker program based on European aircraft (even though Airbus problems to build them in Alabama). And the Air Force knows that. Is that wrong? Well, it’s still a heck of a lot better than the original plan to lease 100 aircraft. That said, the Air Force has made surpising decisions in the past, so who knows.
Oh, and the announcement may slip to next week.
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I’m a Boom Operator on a KC-135. Most of them are pushing 50 years old, so its about time for good old congress to start thinking about the future. My dad flew -135’s his entire career and I just might do the same thing when I get a pilot slot. Maybe that happens, maybe it doesn’t. The joke is that the last KC-135 pilot probably hasn’t even been born yet. At any rate, here’s the low down.
1) The KC-767 is American built (Boeing) and the KC-30 (from AirBus partnered with Northrop Grumman) is not. Enough said.
2) The 767 is smaller on the ramp than the 30 would be. This becomes a problem when you have only a limited number of aircraft flying sorties and jets coming from multiple bases. If you can get more tankers closer to the fight, their response time is better which means the fighters time over target increases.
Theres more technical reasons, but i’ll defer to General Barry McCaffery’s after action report from March 26, 2007….
“We are overly dependant on Kuwait for logistics. If Iranian military action closed the Persian Gulf—the US combat force in Iraq would immediately begin to suffocate logistically. We cannot depend on a Turkish LOC in the coming five years.
We need 500 USAF C17’s and the tanker fleet required to support them. The Air Force flew 13,000 truck loads of material into Iraq for pinpoint distribution last year. The two USAF Squadrons of C17’s now in-theater make a gigantic contribution.”
…..I believe we currently have around 200 C-17’s. Therefore Congress should appropriate money for 300 more of those, and probably 500 KC-767’s. Currently, Congress is trying to buy 180 KC-Somethings. However many they buy its not going to be nearly enough. Air Force logistics is allowing this war to be fought. Its the life blood of the Army at the moment, giving them new supplies and equipment. We’re wearing out or airplanes big time flying all sorts of shit over there.
February 28th, 2008 at 5:14 pmThe Boeing bill was the last gasp attempt to save the aviation industry in America. That is why Boeing was ‘given’ the contract. McCain’s actions simply destroyed the last hope of saving American aviation.
If the USA does not start practicing Economic Nationalism we will end up making nothing and being poorer. Europe, China, India, heck, MEXICO, ALL of them protect, subsidize and nourish home industries. Only the United States opens its doors and allows foreign Government owned Corporations to compete directly with private American industry.
Tell me, if you owned a Dairy Queen and right next door was an ice cream parlor RUN and OWNED and PAID for by the taxpayers of your municipality, how long do you think you would be in business? How many business cycles can you survive compare to your ‘competition?’ How much equipment can you ‘invest in’ compare with the store next door? FINALLY, who will have a better chance at surviving and flourishing in the regulatory nightmare that is present today in local, National and International business environments? Who? The private company or the one with a direct channel to the Prime Minister of ?
America in 1950 made 98% of what it consumed. It was a colossus. I am shocked to see where we have dropped to now a days. We simply dont make a damn thing anymore. We are getting poorer for the first time in over 100 years. Britons have overtaken Americans in per capita income for the first time since the 19th century!
So, argue all you want on the technical merits, or the security implications of the Air Bus deal. Its not about either of those. Its about whether we are going to be ‘in the game’ or not. Are we going to FIGHT to protect what we have left of our manufacturing base or not? If we let the ‘invisible hand’ continue to work its magic we will pull back the curtain in 10 or 20 years and see a much poorer America, more exposed than ever before to danger and weaker than it will have ever been in its long history.
But as the Sherriff in the movie ‘No Country for Old Men’ recently said ‘You cant stop what’s coming.’ I really dont think we, those that read this blog and others like it, can; American Liberialism reigns triumphant. Heck why blame them! John McCain is “our” candidate. He killed the Boeing bail out. What the hell do you think Democrats will do with this bill? They will support European national interests, of course! Got to go….this is No Country for Old Patriots.
February 28th, 2008 at 7:58 pmwell, i have read that a few weeks ago ; that doesn’t surprise me, already many components that go on Boing are manufactured not far from my home. Airbus and Boing have much the same technologies as far as the security is concerned, only a difference of size : Airbus chose to become the biggest planes manufacturer when Boing maintain the average on the world market ; it means that they share the world marcket ; changing their structure to manufacture all sorts of planes would cost too much money, impossible to envisage that !
and anyway, by 2015 EU and north america will be of the same union : transatlantic union
February 29th, 2008 at 12:47 amHonestly it was upsetting to see Boeing lose the contract. But at the same time, one must remember that Northrop is in fact and American owned company, they just don’t make a plane that big. Airbus is a fine plane. I’m sure Northrop will do great things with it given their experience making warplanes such as the B-2, F-5, and F/A-18. I believe they’ve also made a couple trainers for the military. Northrop has a long and respected history with the military. Also, It just wouldn’t make any sense for them to buy the aircraft they intended to convert from the very company vying for the contract in the first place now would it? So really when you get down to it, it’s an American company specializing in warplanes trying to compete with the largest manufacturer of jumbo jets in the country on a deal for fuel tankers. That’s the essence of American capitalism. Personally I don’t really care who got the damn contract so long as the guys in the sky can stop flying 50 year old aircraft. Not to mention I hold stock in both companies.
February 29th, 2008 at 3:30 pmWe the American people thank the Pentagon & our wonderful government for once again selling us out to a foreign interest. Yes folks Alls loin dans l’amour et la guerre, better start learning French since we’re sending them about $20Billion to build our next fleet of American Military Air Tankers. You’d think with all the flap about national security that these Morons would have keep our military business at home. How can we be sure the French won’t sell us out to the Chinese or any other anti-American government or Terrorist Religion. They should have put the plant to build these in Dubai. That would have made it much easier for our enemies to get our secrets.
February 29th, 2008 at 4:46 pmAs an American citizen I believe in buy American products. The Air didn’t even care if more “high tech” jobs were available for us Americans. That was not part of the deal. Its sad to see us sending so much technology over seas. Boeing’s deal would have given us alot more jobs on the tanker than airbuses’. Do we buy Eruo Fighters next? Why not? I think this is a disgrace to the USA. Lets get rid of our technology and lets let all the poor illegals into this country. Where are we now,..third world poor country.
February 29th, 2008 at 4:52 pmI’m all for competition in business but this along with everything else going on in our country is really sad. The fact that Northrop Grumman is a US company doesn’t mean a bowl of beans if they’re not building the plane here. There are more US companies than can probably be counted at this moment having products built over in COMMUNIST China because they can get cheap slave labor over there. More are flocking there everyday. Guess where all the labor savings profits are going? Into their pockets while our country losses job after job and we go further into dept to a country whose government would love nothing more than to destroy us. In the process all the US citizen gets is cheap, tainted, junk. Our bought and paid for government is letting big business, corporate America, and wall street (small case used intentionally) essentially sell our country to the enemy for the profit of a few. Just a few weeks ago some great wall street guru was featured in a story saying how bad it looked for OUR economy. In the same story he mentioned how he just sold his NY condo that he bought for $400k in the 1970’s for $15 million dollars and was moving his family to Taiwan to be closer to the action because he liked what he saw over there. As far as I’m concerned, good ridance, if we’re lucky he’ll do something wrong and they’ll execute him.
As Camillus said above, we used to be the greatest manufacturing country in the world, now due to greed that has all pretty much been destroyed. “Made in the USA” used to mean the best quality you could possibly buy. Sadly anyone born after say the late sixties probably doesn’t realize that. The seventies started the cost over quality mentality with the auto industry and it just snow balled from there. Companies used to take pride in the products they produced, now its all about the bottom dollar, all the produst has to do is last as long as the warranty. If it’s too good it’s “over engineered” and the profit margin isn’t as high as it should be. Business might be about making money but when you have no limits as to what you’re willing to do to get it you’re headed for serious trouble, as is our country. I certainly got a little carried away but the way our country is headed is pathetic. Didn’t there used to be some kind of a rule where everything related to the military had to be manufactured here in our country? There was a logical reason behind that, allies do change occationally, do we want our military at the mercy of another countries manufacturing? A country without manufacturing is weak and at the mercy of others. Due to the greed mongers who are getting rich, our manufacturing is damn near gone. Anyone in our government who is allowing this to happen or promoting it is anything but patriotic and should be charged with treason! I’m not a big flag waver but I love this country and am totally disgusted at the way so many are selling it out for a buck.
February 29th, 2008 at 5:32 pmdon’t cry :
Délocalisation
EADS a promis qu’il délocaliserait à Mobile (sud des Etats-Unis) l’assemblage de l’A330 cargo et qu’il allait créer un total de 1.300 emplois.
La victoire d’EADS sur Boeing commençait malgré tout à provoquer vendredi des réactions indignées à Washington.
Pour le républicain Duncan Hunter, membre de la Commission des forces armées de la Chambre des représentants, “la décision de l’US Air Force va coûter plus de 100.000 emplois” aux Etats-Unis, en profitant à “des gouvernements européens qui refusent de nous soutenir dans la guerre contre le terrorisme”.
Nouvel Obs —> traslator
”Six U.S. senators and 49 House members are advisers for a group working toward a Transatlantic Common Market between the U.S. and the European Union by 2015. ”
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=59713
Bob
I am afraid it’s the pervertion of free marckets that allow the “Capitalism”
Myron James, try to read more “neutral” news, and you’ll see that we are more on your side than any of your “good” allies, it’s not in our habits to shout it in the MSM, cf “la Muette”, the surname of our army, and discretion is the leitmotiv in our relations
March 1st, 2008 at 1:34 amI can’t quite seem to understand what everyone in the damned country has against the French, they make good wine, good food, and they were smart enough not to waste billions of euros to help us fund a war that had no reason after all.
We used to be a manufacturing powerhouse… that was until we started handing out military technology to other countries like that mountain of F-16’s we sold to Israel, great idea, give cutting-edge AMERICAN military technology to a country in which their military could take over our country before we could fart. Don’t forget for a moment that our country also trained Al-Qaida back in the day. Beyond that Boeing tried to sleeze their way into a non-competitive contract years ago for tankers, but it was found that they bribed a weapons buyer who now sits in prison, all to inflate the cost of the contract. Seems like there would be some risk of the same occurring, which would rob my tax dollars from things in desperate need, like health care. It took the guy in charge a long time reviewing the bids before he came to a decision. I trust he signed off on the best possible deal to bring a good product to our soldiers.
March 2nd, 2008 at 12:43 pm