Ol' Bubba Boeing has had to come clean about further delays to the KC-46A
Pegasus Frankentanker programme. Not only has the date for the first flight of the B767 (remember those?) based aircraft slipped, but it seems that the Pig'sAr$e programme is going to cost Ol' Bubba a cool extra $1billion (having already passed the capped limit agreed between DoD and Boeing), but they've finally admitted that the flight test campaign might slip a year.....
From
Bloomberg:
Boeing Co. (BA) is revising its master schedule for developing the new U.S. Air Force aerial tanker, adding to uncertainty about a plane that already has run up an estimated $1 billion in excess costs for the contractor.
Boeing’s proposed revised schedule won’t be presented to Pentagon acquisition officials until early next year, after an Air Force evaluation....
A decision on starting low-rate production at Boeing’s Everett, Washington, plant is scheduled for August 2015; a decision on full-rate production in June 2017. The Pentagon test office this year warned that the start of combat testing, scheduled for May 2016, could slip a year.
Boeing officials are “currently seeking internal” approval by the company’s top leaders for a proposed revised schedule before coordinating it with the Air Force.
Among the difficulties forcing Boeing to revise the schedule were a six-month delay in turning on the power of the prototype tanker, a reworking of about 5 percent of the initial aircraft’s wiring after it wasn’t installed to specifications and “slower than planned” completion of assembly line “functional” testing.
The first flight of a fully equipped KC-46 is estimated to slip to April from earlier next year, Major General John Thompson, the tanker program’s executive officer, said last month.
More at
Boeing Seeks Revised Schedule for U.S. Aerial Tanker - Bloomberg
Dear oh dear. It makes 't Bungling Baron Waste o' Space look almost competent.
Should have stuck with the vastly superior A330MRTT-based KC-45...
