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??