For those not in the Pacific NW, the whole USAF Tanker brouhaha might not seem like much, but it’s a big deal up here. Especially since the USAF seems to have a serious case of the hates for Boeing, so much so that they are willing to rig the competition in favor of EADS, even though EADS is offer a product that does not meet the requirements.
I understand that there is some bad history between the USAF & Boeing, but this is not rational.
Also, this is not an Obama issue, they were doing this crap when Bush was in office. Also, the Navy just got down requesting & approving the Poseidon, the new Anti-Sub plane based on the 737 airframe. Nope, this is just the Air Force looking to make sure that their next tanker is built by a country that just loves to play politics with our military hardware, and operations (we often get denied basing & overflight rights from France, as well as official protests of our military ops, even when we have a solid case for military intervention).
I’m near DC, so we actually get commercials that are directed towards maybe 1000 people inside the beltway or commuting to somewhere inside the beltway.
I think the commercials have been going on since ’08. There was a run of them right after the stock market tanked that were saying “build both! now! (WPA type jobs!)”
Now they’re just getting mean at each other. The local all news commuter traffic radio station is playing both sides of the street.
Because Boeing has been F’ing the AF over for a LONG time now. As a former USAF grease monkey and someone who is in the aerospace biz at a company that does Boeing contract work for the C-17 I can tell you they are making money HAND OVER FIST off of the USAF (and by default, all of us). You should see the amount of money they charge the AF for C-17 component repairs. If any other company charged those prices on the civilian market (yes, the C-17 uses a LOT of civilian aviation parts) they’d be out of business in a month. The AF tried to save money by setting up some maintenance workshops at Hill AFB staffed by GS employees and Boeing threw a shit fit. Literally. They called out their lawyers by the airplane load.
That modified 767 tanker that the Italians got has also been grounded because of wing flutter and harmonics in the drogue and hose system. A friend of mine works for the company that is flight testing that aircraft (now YEARS overdue) in Kansas. They damn near lost one of their A-4 Skyhawk test planes a few weeks ago when the harmonics ripped the refueling hose OUT OF THE 767 while it was attached to the A-4.
This has less to do with the USAF trying to screw over Boeing than Boeing throwing a temper tantrum because they weren’t automatically handed ANOTHER USAF program that they could suck at like a leach.
(And the Boeing plane is flying Pratts. Pratts suck ass.)
It’s been about four years- or so…but didn’t I hear something on Rush about some female Cali Senator forcing the AF to buy those tankers?
It had something to do with her husband making a killing from selling Boeing instead of leasing from somewhere else.
>> Nope, this is just the Air Force looking to make sure that their next tanker is built by a country that just loves to play politics with our military hardware <<
You do know these tankers will be built in Mobile, Alabama, right?
And wherever they are built, if they don’t conform to the specs laid down in the AF’s own requirements, that seems fishy to me.
Yeah, gonna have to weigh in here. I DO this work, in the acquisition field. First, we had Boeing making inappropriate and illegal offers of employment to the DoD high-ups (who are now in prison) to ensure a “win”. Then the original competition was judged to be one of the “fairest” and most circumspect competitions ever run by a Federal organization. Then the decision was made to go to “the other guy”, and the conniptions started.
Either plane will be “assembled” in the U.S. Many of Boeing’s parts will be built overseas, just like the auto manufacturers do. Yes, many of the Airbus parts will be as well.
The protest was successful (thus causing a recompete) because the EADS plane EXCEEDED the requirements, and got extra credit for it. Because the evaluation criteria in the Request For Proposal didn’t state that was possible, Boeing protested that they could exceed the requirements as well, just hadn’t, and the decision was overturned. (Yes, there was a LOT of political pressure to do so. Go figure.)
Short version, Boeing has NOT covered themselves with glory in this instance. And all the ads, the political posturing, and the “advocacy” on both sides is going to make a clean competition impossible.
First off, the kerfuffle with the AF & Boeing Execs was, what, 10 years ago? All the guilty parties are gone, get over it.
Second, the Airbus airframes will be built in France, then possibly flown to the US for final fit out. The current competition is with EADS & EADS alone. Northrup & the Mobile, AL plant are no longer part of the equation. This is not the same as having certain parts of the supply chain overseas. So no, they will not be built in the US, which means we will be relying on a foriegn nation, one that, while technically our ally, never misses a chance to be a dick to us (so if you think Boeing is busy shafting the USAF on service contracts, just wait until the French give it a go).
The AF has not exactly covered themselves in glory here either. They have been bending over backwards to give EADS every break, all the while wearing the mantle of impartiality. They write an RFP for a mid-size tanker, So Boeing offers the 767. Then they go on & on about how they want the extra capacity of the A330, and Boeing is like, WTF? If you’d told us that before, we’d have offered the 777 (which is fine, because Boeing isn’t looking for an excuse to keep building the 767). Add on to that the A330 can’t operate out of as many critical airfields as the 767 can, and you got an AF acting all bi-polar about the situation.
If they really wanted the A330, they should have written the spec like that, and then weighed it against the 777. They are jerking Boeing around because they are pissy about the fact that their people were just as corrupt as Boeings execs 10 years ago.
If Boeing was smart, they’d have hand-outfitted SEVERAL models as tankers, gotten Experimental registrations for them, and showed them to the USAF. A sort-of “try before you fly” concept, but NOOOO, their bean-counters got greedy and wanted EVERY phase of the RFP response to be a cash cow.
What ever happened to the old days when a complex aircraft could be delivered in a short time between the military asking for it and a prototype flying? It seems to me that CAD should make this EASIER, not harder.
Rivrdog,
I wish I could answer that question. These kinds of designs used to get done so quickly.
I think a big part of the problem is that we are on the bleeding edge of aerospace technology these days, and every airframe has to eek out the maximum performance and capability. That means that you can’t just run out a rough design, tweak it over a few iterations, and then build it with a healthy margin of safety in the structure. Every kg is critical, so the design has to be built to such exacting tolerances that it can take a long time to make it all come together.
Which makes it very expensive to just put together a test aircraft and show it off (which is why each piece of the RFP has to be a cash cow; Airbus, Lockheed, etc all do the same thing).