If not, is there a fallback position which will allow face saving on both sides?
How about an irreverent misquote ?
"We're surrounded. That simplifies our problem"
Crunch Time: USAF Says Boeing?s Tanker ?Several Months Behind? | Defense content from Aviation Week
"Boeing’s time line for delivering 18 full-up
KC-46A tankers to the U.S. Air Force is getting tighter and tighter.
The manufacturer is several months behind schedule on the tanker program, which means the first aircraft will not be delivered until after September, top Air Force officials told Congress in written testimony May 25.
“We are making steady but slower progress than we had anticipated,” Lt. Gen. Arnie Bunch, the service’s military deputy for acquisition, told the House Armed Services Committee. “We are running into areas where we are being delayed.”
Boeing has fixed the design problems with the tanker’s refueling system it saw last summer, and has had no new technical issues with the aircraft, the company says. But those design problems delayed completion of key flight tests; the challenge now is making up for lost time.
The test program is running behind the planned pace because several test aircraft are still undergoing upgrades to incorporate design changes, Bunch wrote in his testimony. Meanwhile, Boeing’s design of several subsystems and production of conformed hardware are still pending
FAA approval, further slowing flight tests, he wrote. ..... "
LFH