[tripleblack]

TheHill.com - GAO sides with Boeing

This could get ugly.

When the head beancounters are on your side in a contract award squabble, that's good news for you!

Looks like the Euros might end up losing out in the bid to build the next generation flying gas stations.

[Tominator]

My opinion of the matter is that those in the military responsible for the process were seeking to take advantage of the current pro-military attitude that seems to have no bounds of late.

They wanted the biggest, fastest and most expensive airplane they could get!

Base-Line budgeting is nothing new in the military and gives the Liberals reason to vote against military spending.

Take Obama bin Lama for instance. He would slash spending on new weapons systems.

[ONEZ ST]

1. The bidding process was not the fairest in many folks eyes. It was laced with errors like most Govt contracts. The motto is Get it quick, get it right, get it cheap - - - pick any two you cant have all three.

2. The selction process was held twice already.

3. Boeing whines louder than jet engines.

4. THe Air Force will not get the much needed tanker for many years to come and when it does they will not get the value they need, but what everyone else thinks they need.

5. The word AirBus tends to cloud the picture. AirBus A330 tanker is a partnership, a consortium including engine maker GE, Northrop and many other sub contractors in the USA. And by the same token Boeng does not mean 100% Made in the USA. Nor does it mean net profits stay in the USA.

It will be interesting to see how this re-plays now that the SOD has fired the Sec of the AF and AF Chief of Staff in a total restructure of the service. In the end it will be the GAO that pacifies the loudest whiner. Should Boeing loose a second time they need to shut up and color. So lets get the contracting process tightened up and the rebidding begin. When GAO makes "their selection" maybe, just maybe the Air Force will get a tanker that meets mission needs.

[napalmbomb]

There are problems with both sides of this argument,
1st. Boeing screwed up in the beginning when they were trying to get the Air Force to lease the 767 tankers, the problem was that they could buy a lot more of them for what the lease was worth. Thank Sen. Tom Daschel's wife who was the lead negotiator/lobbiest for Boeing. The deal was screwed up from the start.
2nd. Why is the Air Force wanting an aircraft the size of the A320?? The reason they were looking at the 767 was because of it's size and range, it's smaller size means that it is able to operate from a larger number of airfields. And has a range close to the Airbus. The Airbus is a much larger and heavier plane. The reason only so many KC-10's were bought was they were originaly planned to be used for ferrying squadrons over to Europe and Asia during the cold war.
As far as where it will be built the plane will be mostly a shell and all of the refueling equipment and systems will be built and installed here. (Mobil Alabama)

[Cobra6]

I worked for Boeing for a long time on GMD and FCS. Boeing has gotten into a bad habit of thinking that they know what the customer wants - (even better than the customer does) and they are very arrogant and do not listen. That is why they lost the F-22 Raptor contract to Lockheed.