Another week, another Northrop Grumman complaint about the RFP for replacing the ageing KC-135 tankers.
Aside from the fact the posturing from EADS/Northrop Grumman is getting boring, their ultimate aim in attempting to get more recognition for the A330′s capability against Boeing’s likely offering, the 767, is unlikely to either please Defense Department officials or those lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
Considering most, if not all aerial refuelling tankers arrive back from missions with unused fuel, the RFP is right to declare that “more” does not equate to more recognition.
Image courtesy of EADS
Infrastructure will be the biggest driver behind the contract award – and if A330′s are arriving back at base with more fuel than today’s KC-135′s, storage as well as ground support costs will invariable increase. And that’s before you factor in the untold sums that must be spent on supporting the larger A330 at military airbases that may not be able to cope with its significant size over the KC-135′s.
But of course, this nugget is routinely overlooked and virtually dismissed by the cap-in-hand Alabama “give us your Euro jobs” teams that hope to create up to “50,000″ positions as Northrop Grumman claims if they land the deal.
EADS/Northrop Grumman should be thankful that as of yet, the US Air Force has not brought in the WTO’s indictment of illegal aid for every single Airbus platform to date. Northrop has already been embarrassed enough by Undersecretary of Defense, Ashton Carter when he outright (and correctly) dismissed claims that pricing data revealed to Boeing somehow constitutes an advantage when the current RFP has no bearing on the previous contest.
“The Department has played this right down the middle and will continue to do so,” said Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman.
Of course, this is unpalatable to the erstwhile supporters of the untested EADS/Northrop Grumman partnership with its mythical factory in Alabama.
What the same proponents of that team seem to forget is that this is supposed to be a contest – there is no evidence to suggest that Boeing is going to win. Look at history - they lost out on two previous occasions – a third bash will not guarantee anything. Importantly, the Defense Department cannot be seen to favour one over another for fear of another protest and a dressing down by the GAO.
Image courtesy of UnitedStatesTanker.com
Various Senators claiming that the RFP favours Boeing seem to conveniently forget that by claiming it as fact, are already doing a disservice to the protocol behind the process for selection, thereby undermining the requirements of the US Air Force and skewing the Defense Departments ability to finally get this contract awarded to a vendor once and for all.
EADS/Northrop Grumman had threatened before to withdraw from the competition. They are trying to force the customer into changing the RFP to suit their solution, not the other way around.
If they want out, keep them out, drop the pretence to placate the real desire for EADS/Airbus to fund its commercial aerospace factory in the United States with US taxpayer money and sole source the contract to Boeing.
It is no less than they deserve given their attitude to the Department of Defense throughout the contest so far.
EADS/Northrop should stop, breathe and exhale…
49. Paulo M | December 3rd, 2009 at 22:24
I agree – the 50k jobs in alabama are as likely as the 50k jobs Boeing claims.
BTW, many of the jobs probably don’t care who wins – they’ll subcontract with whoever wins.
Why do you feel the need to excuse B for their trouble on the 787 and 748?
I don’t think this is a new complaint by NG – their letter indicates they took this matter up with the AF several times before. I guess this is just the first time they publicize it.
Could this be the reason why the AF is delaying the final RFP? I hope not.
50. JmBee | December 3rd, 2009 at 22:52
But, if both planes had similar (delicate) electronics – why did I hear so many claim the KC-767 had better survivability in case of an EMP blast?
I agree with the fuel and fuselage. What teh AF would really like is an 330 wing coupled with an 737 fuselage. Maybe NG should investigate adding a boom to the B2?
The fact that the kc45 can carry the full 250klbs fuel load in its normal tanks and the kc767 requires additional fuel bladders to get up to 200klbs does mean you’ve lost the option to do a quick change. When your KC767 arrives carrying cargo to the warzone you’ll need to spend time modifying the thing to get it to uplift as much fuel as it can (or accept it carries less and thus needs to come home faster) – Then again, the KC45 is always heavier – burning more fuel whatever it’s payload and thus it will not be more efficient (than KC767) if it doesn’t carry enough to make it pay for it’s weight.
The USAF uses it’s tankers for cargo only 1% of the time becuase their current hardware is just not fit for the job – not because they are unwilling to use them.
your last paragraph is just plane wron. Read the RFP – the USAF wants a multirole platform that offloads a minimum amout of fuel (non mand reqrmnt for higher offload), carries a minimum amount of pax (non mand reqrmnt for more pax), has a minimum capacity for medevac (non mand reqrmnt for more) and meets a certain toilet sink flow rate (yes, it’s in there)
The C-17 was specifically designed to carry non palletised cargo to an unimproved landing strip at the front – 95% of it’s time it’s flying airbridge missions shutteling pallets and poeple. This burns through their airframe hours and ensures they will need replacement before their planned date.
KC-X can (and the transport division or whatever it’s called hopes it will) relieve the C17.
It’s not that KC-X is better, but it will be cheaper to operate and be more efficient in the air-bridge role. That leaves the C17 to shine in it’s intended mission
[CORRECTION TO ABOVE POST]
To ikkeman: | December 3rd, 2009 at 18:14
“all you say maybe true, but you did nothing to discredit or reduce the validity of what Leelaw said.”
I not trying to discredit anyone here. And his point is very valid: the 767 is at the end of the product lifecycle. The A330 is nowhere near the end of it’s lifecycle – hence it’s large backlog.
“Also, as far as I know, the KC-45 carries all required fuel in its standard tanks – no filling the belly cargo with aux tanks.”
Yep indeed – my oversight – even better then!
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To JmBee:
“No, just like your desktop computer the CPUs and *** flight control system *** can and have been upgraded for both aircraft”
But this flatly contradicts:
“. . . The one area where it suffered was in it’s [ie 767’s] lack of a Fly By Wire [flight control] System . . .”
“In fact if you would bother to read Northrop’s complaints about not being given extra credit you would realize the fuselage is actually the KC-30’s Achilles heel.”
Funny how that was one of the [many] reasons why the USAF said originally in no uncertain terms that they wanted the KC-30/45 over the 767.
“Again, not an issue for a tanker, at it’s MTOW a KC-30 [i.e. KC-45] is carrying 245 tons of fuel and it can’t carry any cargo period or it would be over its weight limit.”
It won’t be over its weight limit if it would otherwise be sitting on the ground because there is no refueling mission underway. (a KC-45 could be doing something else more useful than sitting on the ramp.)
“How exactly is a KC-30 or for that matter a KC-767 in anyway better than a C-17 with the exception that it can offload gas to other aircraft?”
I never said the C-17 was “better”. But the C-17 production is finished. And there a lot of missions the C-17 is used for that could be done by other aircraft.
And if you have a load of 767 tankers sitting idle most of the day, because they can’t do anything other than air-to-air refueling missions, that would be a non-utilized investment. However, a fleet of KC-45s could be constantly providing a useful return on their investment by being able to fulfill support roles currently only possible using scarce C-17. That’s my point.
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To Aotearoa:
“Ever heard of a proposed frame to be call A350 Dave?” . . . “So how wide is the KC35 Dave? If the 330 is the optimim, then why is the 350 going to be XWB?”
It’s very simple, you should know that the A350 is a larger plane (than the A330-200), designed to carry more pax for a given fuselage length – bridging to the larger 777s. Note: one of the A350’s requirements was to carry 9-abreast pax in economy in a higher level of comfort than can the 787. The A330’s 222in fuselage cross section, on the other hand, is sized (a) for eight abreast economy using same 17.2in seat width as a 747 etc. and (b) comfortable six-abreast business; and (c) side-by-side 96in industry standard cargo pallets underfloor (A330 killed the 767 commercially because of these and other advantages – esp its business class). But this is off-topic here.
“Dave, get off your Euro horse and if you must, get the massive (sic) Euro Air Forces to buy what their Political masters have been investing their illegal subsidies into and leave the Yanks to their own.”
I am surprised that you don’t seem to be aware that the “Euro” airforces have bought s**tloads of big-ticket US aircraft: F16s, F18s; AWACS; JSFs; C-130s; and yes, even C-17s, plus of course, all those Chinooks; Apaches; Blackhawks etc..(not to mention lots of F4s & F104s in years gone by etc.).
Now it’s about damn time the US Govt reciprocated. Otherwise, indeed, Europe ***should*** stop buying all these US products.
By the way, wait for the WTO verdict on the US State of Boeing, and all the freebies that it receives. Not to mention those freebies from Japanese govt — esp for the 787’s subsidized wings etc.
“Mate of keesje are you?”
Actually I’ve no idea who he/she is. The only real name I know from this forum is the FleetBuzz Editorial administrator, Saj Ahmad.
52. Dave_BC | December 4th, 2009 at 10:36
Sorry, but the WTO will not be ruling on the subsidies Boeig got from any foreign gov’t – I Guess EADS/EU didn’t wanna ruffle the asian feathers.
Personally, I would have loved to see Airbus tell the EU to go after “foreign” subsidies. It would have been a laugh riot to see the EU file a case against itself for the Italian stuff. It would also have been great to see the EU file against Japan, and never sell another aircraft into Japan EVER. LOL. In the words of Braer Rabbit, “Pweeese, don’ t’row me in dat briar patch”.
Ikkeman
“The USAF uses it’s tankers for cargo only 1% of the time becuase their current hardware is just not fit for the job – not because they are unwilling to use them.”
While I would agree the KC-135 is unsuited for cargo, the USAF does have the KC-10, which unlike the current KC-X contest was envisioned as a multi-role cargo/tanker from the outset. In fact the KC-10 was originally called the “Advance Tanker Cargo Aircraft” during it’s development phase. I would agree using the KC-135 is not necessarily a good measure, but the KC-10 was developed from the DC-10-30CF as a cargo carrier from the outset.
The fact that the USAF does not utilize the KC-10 very extensively to carry cargo is a very good measure of the utility of a combination cargo/tanker in USAF service. If the KC-10 was being heavily taxed in it’s cargo role the USAF I would 1) agree that cargo is a valuable metric; and 2) the USAF would have a strong case to make that cargo capacity should be given a higher priority in the KC-X contest. However, given that the KC-10 does not play a significant role in cargo transport the USAF would find it almost impossible to justify giving NG extra credit for cargo even if they did feel that down the road they wanted to increase the cargo utilization of their fleet. If they aren’t using what they have right now there is no way they can justify asking for more in a politically charged contest like this one.
Excellent points JMBEE, facts the those looking to push the KC-30 down the throats of the American taxpayer overlook.
Another claim being made by that camp, Dave_BC as an example, is that the C-17 is “at the end of its line”. Well, not exactly… The C-17 production run will be extended by at least USAF 10 aircraft, if the Senate gets it’s way this fiscal year, the RAF is considering another and there are rumors that a large order will be forthcoming from a Middle Eastern customer.
I would not be surprised to see the U.S. Air Force fleet alone to surpass 250 befor any serious discussion of a production end happens. I wold hope that this Administration takes a long term view of the consequences of both buying the KC-30 and ending the C-17 line.
“The fact that the USAF does not utilize the KC-10 very extensively to carry cargo is a very good measure of the utility of a combination cargo/tanker in USAF service” etc.
No, it is not a “good measure”. One cannot just take this old Douglas aircraft and equate it with the Northrop-Grumman KC-45. The argument that the USAF apparently doesn’t find it worthwhile to reconfigure the KC-10 for transport duties is not applicable to the KC-45. For one thing, the KC-10 is very good indeed at refueling just one aircraft at a time. This resultant low throughput necessitates maximum continuous use in the refueling role to make it cost-effective in that primary role. To further exacerbate its relative inflexibility (compared to KC-45), in order to be able to carry out its refueling mission, KC-10 suffers from a similar handicap as the both the KC-135 (and also the proposed KC-767) – namely a large portion of the fuselage volume is taken up with auxiliary fuel tanks (because, like the KC-135 and KC-767, the KC-10’s wings are too small to contain all the fuel needed for the refueling mission).
The KC-45 on the other hand, has no such constraint. Not only does it offer multi-point refueling, but all the fuel tankage is contained in the wings so a ‘reconfiguration’ into any other support role isn’t necessary.
55. JMBEE | December 4th, 2009 at 19:34
what makes you think the KC-10 is well suited for pax/freight hauling?
It carries a max of 27 pallets or a combination of 17 pallets and 75 pax…
KC-45 offers either 32 pallets, 226 troops or a combination of both at an MTOW (and OEW) about half that of the KC-10.
It would appear that the reasons for NG’s pullout have been released.
Relates mainly to the fact that the USAF appears to have adopted many of the Boeing complaints that the GAO rejected, and made the complaints upheld by boeing as mandatory (as opposed to the other option of non mandatory).
Mike M, to see you in your ‘holier than thou’ mode and castigate B380 with his supposed “racist” comment, is a bit rich coming from somebody who never ceases to delight in attempting to ridicule posters here, with terms like “Euroboy”, and not to mention your liberal use of four letter words on this forum.
B380′s light hearted and humourous reference was certainly not racist. The only reason you focused on that, is to divert attention away from his reasonal points including those about the troubled 747-8 programme.