None Taken :ok:

They may even be able to de-spec it as it won't have to be able to cope with RAF bootleggers - there won't be any left in 5 years . . .

Obviously done to save Boeing from administration over the 787 fiasco.

Oh dear I cannot believe they are still trotting out this garbage.

What, just like Boeing and it's political cronies did when they lost the original competition.

Best of three?

For anyone, who in their most drug-crazed moments thought this was ever a competition about capability, here's a little aide-memoire to help you;

1. Voters elect politicians.
2. Politicians get put in charge of military spending.
3. Some military spending is done in the politician's district or State.
4. Some voters get the benefit of that military spending.
5. Go to 1. and repeat as necesary.

This applies equally as well for all those outraged nationalists who wonder how companies (hypothetically from Warton and Toulouse) can continue to produce late and expensive products without ever being challenged.

Wash your mouth out! The new term is 'On Call Receivers' - some utter crap from the US Navy which, regrettably, now infests ATP-56B....

Good luck to the USAF with their second-best Frankentanker from Ol' Bubba Boeing's red shed lot - they're going to need it! Just ask the Italians...:uhoh:

Even if the EADS contract was the most convincing on paper it seems correct to me that the US supports their own. If I was a spam, I would not be enraged if a $35Bn contract was awarded to the rival of one US's largest employers. Boeing is not in great shape just now.

.... if it wasn't for some political/economical BS, let me ask you if it is really needed an AAR asset for future military operations! or let me rephrase a little bit, if a new AAR asset was so important, like everybody wants us to believe why the the US Government decide in 2004 to suspend the investment?

787 is a Boeing Commercial project that has nothing to do with Boeing IDS/military... different budget, different organizations, different revenue, different long term objective etc

Brain Potter

Thank you......I did not want to say it.

culzean12

Totally agree with you. Just wish our politicians would do the same instead of sucking up to to the rest of the world in the name of political correctness. Dam, just about the whole world craps on us these days and we do nothing!!!!

Dear EADS supporters:
I still can't really understand your disappointment. Was the smell of the carrots so strong that you've lost your collective heads?
Think of US trade deficit.
Think of history of EADS subsidies.
Think of supply chain management.
Think of airlines getting a steady supply of USAF trained pilots rated for airplanes of the foreign arch-rival.
Etc.
All the things that politician will have to "explain" to its voters with "but we got an aircraft with a better expandability". Or whatever it is that you claim makes A330 such a better choice.

USAF needed a boogyman against Boeing to get a reasonable price. Along the way, it turned out that it needed to address the issue of Boeing's arrogance about being effectively the only reasonable supplier. It took a few tries but job done. USAF will buy a few more Eurocopters, I expect.

I, for one, am rather happy about this outcome since the opposite decision would mean to me that the politicians across the border are loosing basic touch with their voters. Our neighbours being ~10 bigger than us, I don't like to worry too much about the health of American democracy. It's bad for digestion. (Our local problems are enough for my sensitivities.)

On the other hand, I hope Sarkozy wasn't disappointed. Like really. Not what he said. Our cross-Atlantic relations are sad. I must add that I kind of lost the plot when EU decided to build a dependable 2nd source of satellite navigation for anyone who had reasons to worry about his access to the free American system.

I definitely don't mean to be crapping on you. You're in a good standing in my crowd. As to your politicians, or our politicians, or the other guys' politicians, ... eh.. I might as well go to JB without the help from the mods.

Cheers! bm

So the B767 is a 35 year old design! The C-130 is a 56 year old design. The A300 from which the A330 derives is nearly as old as the B767.:ooh:

Also tanker tasks are not all max range/max payload/max delivery ops. The technical shortfall of capability re the KC-45 is only a technical one on few possible occasions.


Under the current climate if I was a US taxpayer I'd keep the jobs in the USA if I could. Jingoism applies equally around the world...

It seems everyone agrees that the competition was not about capability, but politics and cronyism.

Second Best Won
 

Converted half-life airliners would do the job at a fraction of the cost of any new plane. Take your pick: A310, 737-8, 757, 767, DC-10 or MD-11.

Besides, manned fighters and attack a/c are history. Unless some drones need AAR, the present fleet is good enough.

A/B put their money on the wrong pony in 2008, supplying lots of help to the McCain campaign.

With a major share holding in Cobham Plc I'm delighted with Boeing's victory.:ok:

Rationale
 

Who would want a machine made in three or four different European countries with parts that sometimes work together and sometimes don't?

Then again after the problems with the T900 series engines could any serious military person pick the Airbus product?

The spare parts alone would be a nightmare.

Engines that are "iffy" and complex, pitot tubes that ice up, electrical connectors that don't connect. Was there any question apart from the fact that the DoD used the Airbus bid as a negotiating lever?

It is not a surprise that the US looks after its own - protection of our own sovereign capabilities has always been high on our own countries agenda for years, so its no surprise that the US does it.

However, doing it on such a scale may well have its repercussions which uninvolved parties will come to regret it, as US manufacturers of other systems are frozen out for not being 'European enough'.

Its also likely that there will be no overseas bidders for any large future procurements leaving US bidders to really overcharge the DOD and then the complaints will really start.

Sometimes the hypocrisy is however quite ridiculous. In a recent case, a UK company submitted a White paper to DARPA for an advanced concept and were after the usual intervening period of work, were paid for a definition study. However, when the US DoD decided to move to the next stage they classified the tender as NOFORN i.e. US companies only.

The contract was not awarded, as none of the US companies had the faintest idea how to make it work in practice and unsurprisingly, the UK company told DARPA where to shove it when they were asked to support the US bidders with clarifications.

Revenge is a dish best served cold .

The EADS KC-45A was to use US-built GE CF6-80 engines, not European ones.

"Then again after the problems with the T900 series engines could any serious military person pick the Airbus product?"

t hey US govt seemed happy to buy 737's despite rudder hard overs, lets not go down that route we'd be here all week

What are the odds EADS/Republicans protests this to the point where the air force will take a split buy just so they get something?

There are still the KC-Y and KC-Z tanker replacement programs.

KC-X was just the KC-135E replacement program... KC-Y is for the KC-135R, and KC-Z is for the KC-10.

Lots of chance for Euro-tankers to get a shot.

knowitall

The U.S. Senate got their fingers burned last year when the BP oil rig blew up in the G of Mexico

BP had paid about $17bn, yup BILLION, to their political funds. They thought they were invincable...bit like PM Cameron. Buzz I call him, as in Lightyear.

Can you blame them for being cautious with EUR companies after that mess?

Regards

I still find it amusing that while Boeing and Patty Murray were singing about "US national champions" Boeing were secretly talking to Cobham saying "Hey guys, our American AAR system is a pile of crap and doesn't work, can you Brits bail us out?" (Or words to that effect).

:rolleyes:

"Can you blame them for being cautious with EUR companies after that mess?"

BP's as American as it is European these days, then there's transocean, haliburton, exxon.....

Analysis: Why Boeing won Air Force tanker deal
 

DERG wrote

"BP had paid about $17bn, yup BILLION, to their political funds."

Source please? It really is rubbish

Obama biggest recipient of BP cash - Erika Lovley - POLITICO.com

"BP and its employees have given more than $3.5 million to federal candidates over the past 20 years, with the largest chunk of their money going to Obama, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Donations come from a mix of employees and the company’s political action committees — $2.89 million flowed to campaigns from BP-related PACs and about $638,000 came from individuals."

You've added too many zeros friend

Fuel prices are high and expected to go higher in the future. The A330 simply uses a lot more fuel than the 767.

RichardAboulafia.com

Except that you would need rather more KC-46As to the same work as a smaller number of KC-30s if you were intelligent enough to have realised that in the first place, instead of looking at aircraft numbers!

The fuel burn issue is, frankly, bolleaux. It's like saying the RB211 in the TriStar had a higher fuel burn than in the 747, so was more expensive to operate......except that the 747 had one more engine! A mistake which one airline's beancounters allegedly made...:rolleyes:

Do you people not remember EADS winning last time? I think that alone is enough evidence that this was anyone's game.
This. I personally couldn't understand why the Pentagon would ever take the A330 platform over the 767, seeing as the 767 nearly perfectly fits their desired mission profile and the A330 is way too much airplane, but the rumor mill was not very optimistic for B.

If my history is correct, Boeing won the first competition (rescinded for inappropriate conduct), EADS won the second (rescinded for inconsistent scoring), and now Boeing won this competition.

Yes, and I could buy a 15-passenger van to take my kids to soccer practice, but my Mazda 3 does the same job with a lot less fuel and a lot less car. Why don't the airlines use A380s or 747s to fly between Wichita and Pensacola? Because there's no use for that capacity.

Beagle: You can make your arguments without insulting people.

No, actually, it is not bolleaux. If the KC-30 is large enough to support a mission, sending a KC-46A on that mission would use more fuel.

Neither of us know the DOD assumptions about the missions profiles. But my guess is that they have a pretty good understanding of the typical USAF refueling mission profile.

Threads Merged? Not quite.
 

When I posted this yesterday on KC-X (merged) I mistakenly thought it had merged this string, too. I'll see if I can't delete it from the other thread, so as not to be (crossposting.)

Boeing Boondoggle: Pork Can Fly
Robert Scheer
Editor of Truthdig.com, Author, 'The Great American Stickup'
Posted: March 2, 2011 02:33 AM

Quote:
"The gift that keeps on giving" should have been the headline on the Pentagon's decision to award the Boeing Co. a $35 billion defense contract. Defense of the nation, of course, had nothing to do with it, since the end of the Cold War also ended the need for midair refueling of the nuclear-armed bombers intended to retaliate after a Soviet first strike, a scenario brought to the public eye in the 1964 movie Dr. Strangelove.

Indeed, at a time when drones seem to be bypassing the need for manned military bombers and fighters of any kind, and when schoolteachers and firefighters are being terminated across the country, the awarding of this long-delayed and always questionable military-industrial-complex scam is simply perverse...
The rest at: Robert Scheer: Boeing Boondoggle: Pork Can Fly
--------

When I wrote upstream from here that Second Best Won, I should have written: Second Worst Won.

GB

OFBSLF, I'm sorry - I didn't mean you personally! I meant 'if you were an assessor' in a generic manner. My apologies for the unintended denigration.

It will indeed to be interesting to see how the 767NoGo fares. Some years ago, we set a simple competition for tanker comparison. Take off from a 10000ft balanced field at sea level/ISA/still-air and what is your max fuel on board? Whereas the A310 and A330 could comfortably take-off with max fuel, the 767 was limited to something like 76 of its 91 tonnes. The first request from the US representative was for a 12000ft balanced field....which was refused.

So I will be most interested to see how the KC-46 performs under hot/high conditions; the Italians have already had to extend Pratica de Mare for their more basic 767-200 derivative but that still means that the MTOW is field-limited during the Mediterranean summer.

Back when the RAF's FSTA competition was between the A330 and B767, I asked the Boeing representative about the poor brochure runway performance figures for the 767-200ER at high weight. "That's where Airbus has the edge", he admitted..... Later some fighter General quoted 767 runway figures, but, having not a clue about scheduled performance, he quoted take-off ground run figures rather than balanced field figures...:rolleyes:

Perhaps the KC-46 will have much bigger engines and brakes than the 767-200ER, but with that wing loading they'd need to be much bigger/thirstier engines.

Maybe it's also going to be fitted with anti-gravity systems? Or will it simply rely on Ol' Bubba Boeing's hot air and spin to get it airborne at max fuel?

at least its boom will probably be able to safely and reliably pass fuel before the Airbus one will

Re post #56
 

Heathrow Harry

Yes..my bad!

US DOD has had its tanker profile laid out for a very long time (since before EADS won the second competition). 767 fits the bill, A330 does not. If it bothers you that much, then you can buy European defense for your country.

K_9

Location: Seattle

'nuff said

Indeed, Brain Potter!

I wonder whether Ol' Bubba Boeing will have more success with this digitally-remastered old airliner than he's had with the 'plastic fantastic' 7-late-7? Or the KC-767I which was something like 6 years late and still hasn't passed its operational acceptance with the Italian Air Force.

Still, at least the ignorant rednecks are happy - they won't have to worry about their 'warfighters' (I hate that stupid American term) flying a 'goddam French airplane'.....:rolleyes:

So Boeing won the contest yet they cannot, or will not, give any clear details on whether it is a hybrid of 767 versions or based on one version, no details on the range, payload, and fuel offoad of the winning bid.

Perhaps they are still re-writing their bid to fit what is required?

EADS mulling over KC-X protest
 

From Flight:

EADS mulling over KC-X protest

:eek:

EADS Won't Appeal USAF Tanker Choice: Report
 

From Defense News

EADS Won't Appeal USAF Tanker Choice: Report


EADS Won't Appeal USAF Tanker Choice: Report - Defense News

Will they or wont they? They certainly should :yuk:

ftrplt

.. Maybe. when they have actually finished designing it.. ;)

Given your moniker and location I thought you would have been privy to what went on with the boom incident? More so I thought you would have had a good understanding of the regularity of boom mishaps throughout tanker fleets globally??