Seattlepi:
Aerospace Notebook: How about splitting the tanker award?
With the Air Force tanker competition in limbo until after a new president and his administration takes over in January, a proposal by a powerful member of Congress that the Pentagon buy tankers from both The Boeing Co. and Northrop Grumman Corp. has received a tentative nod from an unlikely corner.
"If they go to a dual award, which would mean not splitting the award but actually ordering one a month from each company, obviously we would look at that and be supportive of whatever the government wants to do," Ron Sugar, chief executive of Northrop Grumman, said Tuesday in an interview with Reuters. "Anything that gets good tankers to our airmen fast is probably a good thing," he added.
Rep. John Murtha, the Pennsylvania Democrat who chairs the House defense appropriations subcommittee, has proposed buying tankers from both Boeing and Northrop.
Boeing said it is not taking a position on a dual-buy option. "We look forward to a reopening of the competition to identify the right tanker to modernize its fleet of medium-sized tankers," a Boeing spokesman said in an e-mailed statement.
Although a split buy and a dual buy may not be the same thing, either would probably mean added costs to the Air Force because it would have to support different planes. And that's something that Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said is not acceptable. Gates recently said he would recommend a presidential veto of any legislation out of Congress to split the tanker buy. Of course, Gates may not be the defense secretary for long once John McCain or Barack Obama becomes president in January.
The dual-buy option is getting more attention because of Murtha, whose appropriations subcommittee chairmanship gives him a lot of power over military spending.
Last week, Murtha disclosed that he had inserted language into the fiscal year 2009 defense appropriations bill that directs the Pentagon to study the feasibility of buying tankers from both Boeing and Northrop. Murtha said he wants to know, among other things, what the increased costs might be. But a dual buy is the only way to get tankers to the Air Force anytime soon, Murtha said, given that another protest is likely by the loser of the next competition, which will further delay the tanker acquisition process.
"What we said was 'Look at a dual buy,' " Murtha said at a news conference. "Now, Boeing doesn't like that and I don't know if Northrop likes that. The Defense Department definitely doesn't like that. But let me tell you something, we are not going to have tankers if we don't do that, I'm convinced."
Because the Airbus A330-based tanker offered by Northrop and its partner, EADS, the parent of Airbus, is ready to enter production, and Boeing's 767-based tanker for the Air Force is not, a dual buy likely would mean that Northrop would supply most of the early tankers to the Air Force, depending on when the first deliveries were scheduled.
The Air Force wants 179 tankers as it seeks to eventually replace its aging fleet of some 500 Eisenhower-era KC-135 tankers.
Northrop and EADS won the hotly disputed tanker competition earlier this year, but Boeing appealed, and the Government Accountability Office agreed that the Air Force made serious mistakes and ordered a rebidding. But Boeing threatened to withdraw from the competition if it did not have at least six months to offer a bigger tanker to meet new requirements set by the Pentagon, which hoped to award a tanker contract by the end of the year. So earlier this month Gates announced that the much-delayed tanker decision will be left to the next administration because there is not enough time while George Bush is president to conduct a fair competition.
Meanwhile, Boeing is taking the next few months to evaluate which of its jets might have the best shot at winning the $35 billion Air Force tanker competition. Boeing's 767-200 tanker that it offered is considerably smaller than the A330.
The possibility of a dual buy raises many questions, not the least of which is, would the Pentagon, should it agree to buy two different planes, still press ahead with a new tanker competition? Would Congress go along with a dual buy if it meant the tanker deal would cost more?
Regardless of the talk about a dual buy, the presidential race is likely to shape the tanker outcome. If Obama wins, he is seen as being more supportive of the Pentagon buying Boeing's plane.
Even though Northrop's Sugar said in the Reuters interview he could support buying tankers from both companies, if that's what the new administration wants, he also said Northrop is prepared to compete against Boeing again ... and again ... and again ... for the tanker contract. "We are going to do that as many times as it takes," he was quoted as saying.