Fueled By Politics

The BBC reports on the latest military procurement problem: Air tanker deal provokes US row

Boeing’s loss of a $40bn contract to build a new in-flight refuelling aircraft for the US military has drawn angry protests in Congress.

Lawmakers from Washington state and Kansas, which have big Boeing plants, voiced “outrage” that it had gone to a consortium including Europe’s Airbus.

The planes will be assembled in Alabama but constructed largely in Europe.

Boeing has said it is awaiting an explanation from the military before deciding whether or not to appeal.

The new aircraft, named the KC-45A by the US Air Force, is based on the Airbus A330 and will be manufactured in partnership with US defence firm Northrop Grumman.

First off, the Air Force might be a little reticent to deal with Boeing on this project because of the fraud convictions involving Boeing and Air Force officials in the aborted $100 billion program to lease tankers. Some in the system might have less than absolute trust in Boeing after that episode.

Wikipedia has a nice little primer on in-flight refueling that covers the principle and terminology involved.

The Royal Australian Air Force has an informative article on why they chose to go with the Airbus instead of Boeing which is very relevant to the US Air Force choice because the RAAF uses US aircraft in many roles.

Wikipedia also provides articles on the Grumman/Airbus KC-45 and the Boeing KC-767.

I logged a lot of in-flight refuelings when I was flying in RC-135s, and a lot of hours flying to “work” in KC-135 tankers. Boeing was offering little in the way of improvement over the KC-135, no doubt planning to make the real profits on “change orders” to make the aircraft work in the various necessary roles.

Grumman offered a larger aircraft with a lot of built in capabilities that seemed to be able to do the job right out of the box. Boeing is acting like the contract was theirs by “divine right” and they didn’t have to do any work to get it.

Boeing is a multinational corporation and major components of the 767 are made in other countries – this is not an “all American aircraft”. The design is almost 30 years old, about twice as old as the A330 and there have been a lot of improvements in those years that are not reflected in the design. Boeing has the capabilities of producing an aircraft as good or better than the A330, but they didn’t bother.