Comments on: Tanker Award Shows Pacific Strategy

By: Richard

Richard — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 21:19:48 +0000

God the son, Jesus Christ, prays to God the father for his children. Take a moment and visulize Jesus Christ praying for you. Picture for a moment your name coming off His lips. Perfect Love! God Bless You!

By: Richard

Richard — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 21:19:09 +0000

By: SPM

SPM — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 21:04:01 +0000

What Boeing is claiming — that they thought the USAF preferred a smaller plane — is baloney. The criteria for the USAF’s evaluation was known to both parties, ans since both the 767 and A300 are widely used commercial aircraft, both companies knew exactly what their competitor’s performance was. Put those two together and Boeing should have known they weren’t going to win the competition with the 767.
Hence either Boeing thought they could “fix” the contract as they did before but failed, or they weren’t able to offer a competitive plane because of commercial production commitments. The 777 is slightly too large, and can’t be produced in time because production slots are booked up for a while with Boeing’s commercial backlog, and 787 civil production is booked up solid for a long while due to its popularity, and there is absolutely no way Boeing could propose a 787 tanker and deliver. Boeing therefore put forward its 767 proposal and hoped that bias might win the contract.
Airbus on the other hand has the right size plane in the A300 and because it isn’t selling as well as the 787 or 777, it can offer production slots for the KC45 tanker on the timescale required.
Personally I don’t think Boeing is that bothered about losing this contract. They are only interested on foisting the 767 for which there are no commercial orders onto the USAF. They don’t want to sell a 787 or 777 tanker at this stage because they will have to cancel commercial sales in order to do so. What Boeing is trying to do is to put political pressure to either split the contract or to change the KC10 contract to favor Boeing, because at that time 777 production will be running down and 787 production may also have some slack in it.

By: irtusk

irtusk — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 03:34:08 +0000

> the French protected Dassault by not participating
> in the Eurofighter
it wasn’t to protect dassault, dassault was part of the EF consortium, it was because france didn’t agree with the direction the design was going
> the British chose the Eurofighter when they could
> have been partners in the F-22
ORLY?
1. um, no
2. they are partners in the F-35
i’m not going to say there isn’t protectionism, just not the examples you cite
here’s the key though:
jobs aren’t the main point of protectionism
strategic national capability is
the navy doles out contracts to keep 2 nuclear sub shipyards in business because they feel it’s a strategic national capability
the thing is, we lose ZERO strategic national capability by closing the 767 line
it is an obsolete, end-of-life plane and the company that makes it has moved on to newer and better things and needs exactly zero help from the government to stay in business
> how about an honest procurement process that
> results in the decision makers getting what they
> asked for.
i take it that you’re thrilled with tanker contest resulting in the decision makers getting all that they asked for and more

By: solomon

solomon — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 05:24:40 +0000

Freefallingbomb,
What arrogance…the French protected Dassault by not participating in the Eurofighter, again chose to make the Leclerc when the Leopard 2 was available…the British chose the Eurofighter when they could have been partners in the F-22 the story goes on and don’t brag about ship building when the US Navy has the worlds best LHAs and LPDs yet the European firms continue to protect their industries. Face it, European have a subsidized industry and yet when it comes to US projects the call is for fair trade. I agree but would add the word FAIR FREE TRADE…oh and the statement, how about an honest procurement process that results in the decision makers getting what they asked for.

By: freefallingbomb

freefallingbomb — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 18:57:03 +0000

“Grandjester” wrote: “If you can believe it, John McCain had a big hand in it.“
Trouble is: When a grand jester (exceptionally) says something serious… nobody takes him serious. But today his information hit the mainstream news:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080308/ap_on_el_pr/mccain_air_force_tankers
And now I’m going to stay judiciously out of this whole air tanker deal discussion again… there’s something murky and smelly about it…
Can’t remember either when was the last time we made such a polemic about a single weapons deal here in Europe, not even during the specifications of the Tornado and Eurofighter programs. If the thing worked, was better than the rest and its costs didn’t exactly triple, we chose it, paid for it and that’s the end of the story. One time I win, one time you win. As a direct result, since 1945 our European Airforces were or are still half U.S. American (the planes), much of the older European Armour and Artillery also is and most of our land forces’ ammunition is entirely U.S. American in origin. Only our navies never felt much inspired by U.S. American warship designs, maybe because the Old World itself has a slight lead there. But I can’t think of ANY European company and its workers (?!) screaming with full lung-power like a hungry nursery or like a gipsy shouting-match against the irreversible facts of international economic COMPETITION and even less so against multi-national projects, like the E.A.D.S. / Northrop / Grumman air tanker cooperation for example. I think that right now nobody beats us Euros in successful multi-national projects, but if necessary each of us separately shops 100 % foreign (speak: U.S. American) again, and completely without complexes. Even European children know that YOU CAN’T ALWAYS WIN !

By: irtusk

irtusk — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 15:36:30 +0000

> or you’re on EADS’s payroll
which explains my support for the F-35 (LockMart) and Chinook (Boeing)
> Boeing got shafted
if you call losing to a superior bid with a superior product getting shafted
> and the more news that leaks out about this
> contract the worse it sounds
like what?
the only thing that’s ‘leaking’ is a few senators’ credibility as they continue to grandstand with no evidence to back them up
> Unless you can pull the official assessment out
> of a body orifice then you’re just putting out
> guesses
the superiority of the KC-30 is so blindingly obvious you don’t have to see the official assessment to realize the KC-767 never had and never will have a chance
> Oh and how can you say that the 777 is too big
> when it is slightly larger than the 330 while
> the 330 is MUCH larger than the 767?
i never said it was too big
i said
1. it was too expensive
2. it’s takeoff performance is too poor
> the Air Force made the same mistake on this
> contract that they did on the CSAR-X
the chinook was/is the correct choice
> they asked for a medium tanker and decided on a heavy one instead
FALSE
the RFP didn’t specify a size

By: solomon

solomon — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 08:00:49 +0000

Oh and how can you say that the 777 is too big when it is slightly larger than the 330 while the 330 is MUCH larger than the 767? Face it cowboy, the Air Force made the same mistake on this contract that they did on the CSAR-X…like its been said here, they asked for a medium tanker and decided on a heavy one instead.

By: solomon

solomon — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 07:22:59 +0000

Irtusk,
Either you were on the procurement board of the USAF or you’re on EADS’s payroll. Boeing got shafted and the more news that leaks out about this contract the worse it sounds. Unless you can pull the official assessment out of a body orifice then you’re just putting out guesses. In the end this is A DEAD DEAL WALKING!

By: Smith

Smith — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 19:54:47 +0000

First off, the 777 was out for this round because it is much too big, even compared to the KC-45. When the USAF looks to replace its KC-10s, I’d expect to see the 777 revisisted.
Second, don’t forget that the prime contractor of the KC-30 is NG, not Airbus, and the engines are American. The current calculation is that Airbus’ take from the deal is less than 2% of their yearly revenue. Combined with the slow procurement rate, this isn’t much of a moneymaker.
Third, McCain killed the lease deal years ago because he smelled pork and uncovered the details of the deal, which were enough to cause the Boeing CEO to resign, and send the Boeing CFO to prison along with a Pentagon official. McCain was correct in determining that the deal was not in the interest of the taxpayers.
But don’t think I hate Boeing — I love the company and live in its shadow here in Everett. But I can tell you that the legacy of Condit and Stonecipher are not appreciated and that some cleaning was in order.