Well, after a series of delays, looks like the USAF tanker decision is due any day now. Looks like before end of February. This is the mother of all defense contracts worth an estimated $100 billion over the life of the deal. So big that it has gotten the attention of Airbus across the pond. Airbus pitching to build the tanker along with Northrop Grumman in Alabama and has promised to build the A330-200F in Alabama as well, if chosen as the winner. Airbus is also claiming all kinds of other goodies as well, like 10,000 new jobs to be created, a bigger airplane, so the Air Force might not need as many, etc. etc. Boeing of course if claiming to be the expert tanker builder here with a more efficient airplane, smaller so it can land in more places, just the right size, and of course saving thousands of American jobs. So, who do you think should be the winner and why?

The KC-767:



or the Airbus A330 MRTT:

Sad News.... its a same that our own military will not buy aircraft from an American company like Boeing... Very sad. Boy our own government wants to boost jobs and the economy and they wont even buy our own products.

Northrop Wins Tanker Contract, &񗝘Beating Out Rival Boeing
By AUGUST COLE
February 29, 2008 4:30 p.m.
Northrop Grumman Corp. and European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co. broke Boeing Co.'s lock on the market for aerial refueling tankers, winning a $40-billion contract to turn Airbus jets into flying gas stations for U.S. military aircraft, according to a person familiar with the situation.
The unexpected win will likely bolster Los Angeles-based Northrop's standing as a major contender for large programs, while also expanding EADS's foothold in the U.S. defense market.
The Air Force's decision to choose the Northrop-led team is a major setback for Boeing, particularly after Boeing lost out on a $23-billion chance to be the sole supplier of tankers in 2001 after the discovery that a top Boeing official and a former Air Force acquisition official had conducted illegal job negotiations.
Under the contract, the Northrop-led team will build up to 179 tankers based on the Airbus A330 jetliner. The first planes are expected to enter service in 2013, replacing the Air Force's aging fleet of KC-135 tankers, many of which have been in service for more than 40 years. Eventually, the government expects to spend billions more dollars to replace more than 500 tankers.
Given the huge financial stakes and the politics at stake, few in the defense industry expect the decision will stand without protest. Over the last couple of years, protests on high-dollar contracts have been filed with increasing regularity, leading to delays as government officials review every aspect of the deals.
Lockheed Martin Corp. and United Technologies Corp.'s Sikorsky helicopter twice protested the Air Force's November 2006 decision to award Boeing a more than $10-billion contract to build search-and-rescue helicopters. After the Government Accountability Office sustained the protests, the Air Force in October 2007 asked for new bids and a winner is expected this summer.
Air Force officials said they have tried to minimize the chances of a successful protest by conducting the tanker competition as openly as possible and meeting on a regular basis with both competitors to eliminate surprises. These measures, in part, are the reason the award has taken more than a year since the contract's request for proposal was posted in January 2007.
"There is a price to pay for openness and transparency, and that is time," said Air Force acquisitions chief Sue Payton in November 2007.

Not sure how it's a dark day for the USAF considering they picked the best aircraft for the job. Sure as an American part of me wanted Boeing to win simply because it's Boeing. But then there is that part that wanted the USAF to pick the best aircraft and that aircraft is the A330 and not the 767.

Sorry gentlemen but I could not disagree with you more when you make statements like dark days for the US taxpayers and USAF, your government has actually played a blinder with this one and made the right decision for the USAF and US taxpayers.

How many of you have actually done any research into the KC-X tanker programme before making such statements?

The best aircraft for the job has won this contract, make no bones about it, the Airbus is a newer and much more capable airframe when directly compared to the much older 767-200, infact the KC-767 is already having major issues being introduced with the JASDF and the Italian AF with technical and performance issues by Boeings own admission causing several delays, and don't forget that the JASDF and Italian AF are both yet to receive an operational KC-767 tanker.

I will give you some rough figures from various articles/sources I have read on this subject.

Look at the figures KC-30A/B compared against the KC-767A

KC-30 thrust 2x 71,000lb, KC-767 thrust 2 x 60,200lb
KC-30 max take off weight 507,000lb, KC-767 max take off weight 412,000lb
KC-30 has a range of 7,770 miles compared to the KC-767's range of 5,800 miles

The KC-30 carries more passengers,cargo and can offload much more fuel then the KC-767, yes the KC-30 is bigger and weighs more then the KC-767 but it still out performs the KC-767 in more or less every area of capability, to me the decision seems to be a no-brainer.

One of the major factors in all this is the age of the 767-200, its an old Aeroplane that even civil airlines no longer have much interest in, the 767 production line at Everett is all but dead and many argued the KC-X deal was just an excuse to keep the line open, the A330 on the other hand is a much younger aircraft designed from the outset to carry lots of cargo and this is one of the major factors of its success with airlines around the World and a major factor in yesterdays announcement.

The KC-30 is larger and heavier then the KC-767 but it has greater reach and requires less runway then the KC-767 does, the important secondary role as a passenger/cargo carrier is also interesting, the KC-767 can carry 19 standard military pallets but cannot function in the tanker role at the same time, the KC-30 in comparison can carry 32 standard military pallets and still carry 280 passengers and maintain a limited ability to also carry out a refuelling role.

With the same load of 200,000lb take of weight the KC-767 requires around 8000ft of runway to get airborne, the KC-30 carrying the same load of 200,000lb requires around 6,100ft of runway to get airborne, that is a major difference and means the KC-30 can operate from many airfields that the KC-767 could not

The KC-767 has a smaller ramp footprint but with the KC-30 being such a better performer the USAF and American tax payers are actually getting way more bang for their buck with 179 KC-30 tankers then they would be with 179 KC-767 tankers, to me that sounds like the correct decision has been made and the USAF are getting the best aircraft for the job.

I will leave you with a couple of quotes from yesterdays announcement.

"The KC-45A is the tanker of the future," said Gen. Arthur J. Lichte, AMC commander. "It will enable us to carry more fuel and cargo, and allow us the flexibility to refuel any type of receiver on every mission. It will come equipped with systems to take this capability closer to the fight while protecting our Airmen as they operate in hostile skies."

The KC-X source selection used a "best value" determination to select a winner based on five factors: mission capability, proposal risk, past performance, cost/price and an integrated fleet air refuelling assessment -- performance in a simulated war scenario. These five factors were developed after consulting with industry and were finalized prior to starting the competition. Considered together, these grading criteria ensured the Air Force maximized the capability delivered to the warfighter while optimizing the taxpayers' investment.

Cheers
John

A story from the Seattle Times

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2004258210_tanker04.html

Rival to Boeing's tanker was 'superior' on all counts, analyst says
By Dominic Gates
03-03-2008
Seattle Times aerospace reporter
Boeing was comprehensively beaten on almost every aspect of the competition
for the $40 billion Air Force tanker contract awarded Friday, according to a
report published Monday by a defense analyst with close Pentagon
connections.
If so, Boeing may have only the slimmest chance of reversing the victory of
Northrop Grumman and Airbus parent company EADS.
Loren Thompson, a defense analyst with the Lexington Institute, issued a
memo Monday that discussed the outcome based on "weekend conversations with
government officials intimately familiar" with the Air Force decision.
On the five specific criteria used to decide the winner, Thompson wrote,
"Northrop Grumman's victory was not a close outcome. ... The Northrop-EADS
offering was deemed much better in virtually all regards."
Responding to the firestorm criticism about the award, the Pentagon's chief
weapons buyer, undersecretary of defense for acquisition John Young, issued
a statement Monday saying a team of independent civilian and military
analysts appointed by him would vouch that the Air Force "conducted a very
open, fair and detailed competition process."
Those two assessments suggest Boeing's hope of a reversal of the award may
now rest on largely political grounds — opposition to the outsourcing of
U.S. jobs on a government defense contract.
The Air Force had scheduled its first formal briefing to Boeing for March
12, a couple of days before Congress' Easter recess.
But a bipartisan delegation of lawmakers from Washington state and Kansas —
including Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, both Democrats from
Washington; and Sens. Sam Brownback and Pat Roberts, both Kansas
Republicans, called Monday on Defense Secretary Robert Gates to debrief
Boeing this week on the decision.
Both Democratic presidential contenders, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack
Obama, criticized the award Monday.
Thompson, who last week used his government contacts to call the surprise
outcome of the tanker contest an hour before the official announcement, said
in an interview Monday that Air Force officials "were very convinced early
on that there were problems with the Boeing proposal."
According to his conversations with officials, said Thompson, "Northrop
offered a superior proposal in every measure and Boeing simply did not do a
competent job of presenting its case."
The Northrop proposal, which put forward the much bigger A330 against the
767, even swung the Air Force around from its original thinking.

"The Air Force started out believing that the larger aircraft was a
liability," Thompson said. "Northrop did such a superior job of analysis
that they convinced a reluctant Air Force to treat the larger aircraft as an
asset."
His memo listed the five key criteria as capability, risk, past performance,
cost and "integrated fleet aerial refueling assessment," a score from a
computer model that measures performance in various war scenarios.
"Boeing didn't manage to beat Northrop in a single measure of merit,"
Thompson wrote.
The two proposals were assessed as equal on the perceived risk that the
contractor would not perform as required.
By every other measure, Northrop won. On past performance, the big delays to
the Japanese and Italian 767 tanker programs weighed heavily against Boeing,
Thompson said.
And Thompson, who was considered by EADS to favor Boeing in the competition,
added this damning endnote to his memo:
"The reviewers concluded that if they funded the Northrop Grumman proposal
they could have 49 superior tankers operating by 2013, whereas if they
funded the Boeing proposal, they would have only 19 considerably less
capable planes in that year."
Scott Hamilton, an Issaquah-based analyst who has long considered the
Northrop-EADS proposal superior, described that bottom line as "astounding."
Hamilton criticized Boeing's public-relations campaign during the contest
for focusing on aspects such as the creation of U.S. jobs and government
subsidies to EADS, rather than the merits of the two planes.
"Boeing doesn't seem to have a leg to stand on for a successful protest,"
said Hamilton. "I think that [local] anger really ought to be directed at
Boeing for putting together such a poor proposal."
Although the Northrop-EADS tanker will be assembled in Mobile, Ala., the
major A330 airframe sections will still be built in Europe and shipped
across the Atlantic.
Boeing declined to comment Monday as it awaits its debriefing from the
Pentagon. But reaction to the political elements of the contest continued to
build Monday.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said Monday he hadn't made up his mind on the
outcome of the contract award.
McCain, the likely Republican nominee for president, helped scuttle a
previous 2001 deal that gave the contract to Boeing.
"Having investigated the tanker lease scandal a few years ago, I have always
insisted that the Air Force buy major weapons through fair and open
competition," McCain told The Associated Press. "I will be interested to
learn how the Air Force came to its contract award decision here and whether
it fairly applied its own rules in arriving at that decision."
Obama, of Illinois, expressed disappointment Sunday that Chicago-based
Boeing lost out.
Obama said it was hard for him to believe "that having an American company
that has been a traditional source of aeronautical excellence would not have
done this job."
Clinton, D-N.Y., a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said she
was "deeply concerned about the Bush administration's decision to outsource
the production of refueling tankers for the American military."
While details of the decision are not fully clear, Clinton said, "it is
troubling that the Bush administration would award the second-largest
Pentagon contract in our nation's history to a team that includes a European
firm that our government is simultaneously suing at the [World Trade
Organization] for receiving illegal subsidies."
Dominic Gates: 206-464-2963 or dgates@seattletimes.com
Material from The Associated Press was included in this story.