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I give up. I can not beleive we're going to be flying a french aircraft. I know some of you are enamoured with the so-called technology of \"fly by wire\" but until you've spent countless hours chasing an uncommanded flight control input you have no appreciation of mechanical flight controls.

Right now, there are countless engineers totally mystified how a 777 with electronic fuel controls could have two engines not respond to power inputs. Right now, there are a bunch of Air Force aircraft limited to day VFR due to some weird problems, the scope and location of I can't get into. Right now there's an Airbus 340 sitting in a hangar not too far from here with uncommanded spoiler deployments..the list goes on. Why you'd want to take an electric jet into a combat zone with untold amounts of emitters throwing huge amounts of RF into the air is beyond me.

I won't even talk about how we're enriching the french economy with defense dollars..BAH!

WASHINGTON - The Air Force on Friday awarded Northrop Grumman Corp. and a European partner a $35 billion contract to build airborne refueling planes, delivering a major blow to Boeing Co.

The selection of Los Angeles-based Northrop Grumman and European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co., the maker of Airbus planes, surprised industry and elected officials. Air Force officials said the larger size of the Northrop-EADS aircraft helped tip the balance in its favor.

Chicago-based Boeing, which has been supplying refueling tankers to the Air Force for nearly 50 years and had been widely expected to hang onto that monopoly, could protest the decision, though the company said no decision has been made.

The contract to build up to 179 aircraft —the first of three awards worth up to $100 billion over 30 years — opens up a huge new opportunity for Northrop Grumman.

\"They don't come along at this scale very often,\" Northrop Grumman Chairman and CEO Ronald Sugar said. \"We do see this as being a very important component of our business for many years to come.\"

The deal also positions EADS to break into the U.S. military market.

In after-hours trading, shares of Northrop initially surged more than 5 percent before retreating to $78.83, an increase of 22 cents. Boeing's stock price fell $2.64 to $80.15.

The Northrop-EADS refueling tanker, the KC-45A, \"will revolutionize our ability to employ tankers and will ensure the Air Force's future ability to provide our nation with truly global vigilance, reach, and power,\" Air Force Gen. Duncan J. McNabb said in a statement.

Air Force officials offered few details about why they choose the Northrop-EADS team over Boeing since they have yet to debrief the two companies. But Air Force Gen. Arthur Lichte said the larger size was key. \"More passengers, more cargo, more fuel to offload,\" he said.

\"It will be very hard for Boeing to overturn this decision because the Northrop plane seemed markedly superior\" in the eyes of the Air Force, said Loren Thompson, a defense industry analyst with Lexington Institute, a policy think tank. And as the winners of the first award, EADS and Northrop are in a strong position to win two follow-on deals to build hundreds of more planes.

Boeing spokesman Jim Condelles said the company won't make a decision about appealing the award until it is briefed by Air Force officials. Boeing believes it offered the best value and lowest risk, he said.

Stifel, Nicolaus & Co. analyst Troy Lahr said in a research note it was surprising the Northrop-EADS team won given the estimated $35 million per-plane savings offered by Boeing. Lahr estimated the Boeing aircraft would have cost $125 million apiece. \"It appears the (Air Force) chose capabilities over cost,\" Lahr said.

Military officials say the Air Force is long overdue to replace its air-to-air refueling tankers, which allow fighter jets and other aircraft to refuel without landing. The service currently flies 531 Eisenhower-era tankers and another 59 tankers built in the 1980s by McDonnell Douglas, now part of Boeing.

But the new contract has emerged as a major test for the Air Force, which is trying to rebuild a tattered reputation after a procurement scandal in 2003 sent a top Air Force acquisition official to prison for conflict of interest and led to the collapse of an earlier tanker contract with Boeing.

The tanker deal is also certain to become a flashpoint in a heated debate over the military's use of foreign contractors since Boeing painted the competition as a fight between an American company and its European rival. Lawmakers whose districts stood to gain jobs from a Boeing win were pressing this point on Friday.

\"We should have an American tanker built by an American company with American workers,\" said Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Kan., who represents the district in Wichita where Boeing would have done much of the tanker work.

In Everett, Wash., a few dozen Boeing workers protested outside a Machinists Union hall holding up signs saying \"American workers equal best tankers,\" and \"Our military deserves the best.\"

The EADS/Northrop Grumman team plans to perform its final assembly work in Mobile, Ala., although the underlying plane would mostly be built in Europe. And it would use General Electric engines built in North Carolina and Ohio. Northrop Grumman, which is based in Los Angeles, estimates a Northrop/EADS win would produce 2,000 new jobs in Mobile and support 25,000 jobs at suppliers nationwide.

\"I've never seen anything excite the people of Mobile like this competition,\" Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., said. \"We're talking about billions of dollars over many years so this is just a huge announcement.\"

It's an embarrassment.
I'll refresh everyones memory by reminding us the whole genesis of this idea was to acquire MUCH NEEDED ultra cheap tankers by modding commercial jets that had been boneyarded in droves after the airline downturn after 9-11. Thanks John McPain your ego has cost your country billions of dollar$, what a hero

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The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.

Its about MACAIR.
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Once McD. got in Boeing. It ruined the company. McD Burned the pentagon for many years. that Pain is still being felt.

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\"A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week. \"

George S. Patton

I bet it can't do a four point rollover like the KC-135 did back it the day on one of its test flights.

30mm Jr had his guard weekend and said everyone's very upset. Enough so that alot of the borderline retirement eligible cc's are pissed enough to not re-up when the Airbutts start to show up. for them it's not so much the politics and ecnomics as it is function. Boeings have a habit of holding up and lasting.

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\"Those who hammer their guns into plows
will plow for those who do not.\"
- Thomas Jefferson

AIRBUS,

You have over 19,000 AMERICAN WORKERS NOT WORKING because of Aircraft orders and here WAS THE PREFECT WAY of getting them back Working and another 1000+,

And when the 4star said after being asked \"Why buy an French Aircraft\"? He replied \"It might be built by the French But, It'll have a BIG AMERICAN FLAG on its tail and being Flown by American Crews and Maintained by Americans\"

If it Flies like a \"Frog, Made by Frogs, in \"[spit] \" then it is a \"FROG\"
And being assembled in Alabama still doesn't FLOAT.

This Tanker will run \"WAY OVER $$$$\", have Major problems , I can see it now.

Goose

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\"Live Free Or Die\"

please tell me these idiots did not purchase the tankers in EURO's. Let's if they did and the dollar continues to fall we might just pay two to three times the cost of one Boeing tanker. Idiots.

well the dollar fell even further. If the contract was fixed in US dollars Airbus is going to loose major cash. If the contract was is EUROs the US tax payer is screwed.

This could actually push airbus over if their planes are no longer able to compete with Boeing on the world market.

http://www.euractiv.com/en/trade/eu-us- ... cle-162686

The EU and the US have been locked in a dispute over state aid to large commercial aircraft builders, Airbus and Boeing, since Washington and Brussels filed complaints against each other in 2004.

According to international trade rules, government support for manufacturing is illegal if it can be proved that it harms the companies or industries of another WTO member state.

Transatlantic tensions had been held at bay by a 1992 bilateral agreement setting limits on aircraft subsidies. But, in October 2004, US authorities announced they were abandoning the pact and filing a formal complaint to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) over Airbus's failure to comply with its terms.

The bilateral deal allowed the EU to subsidise up to 33% of development costs for new aircraft, in order to help the younger Airbus compete with the more mature Boeing. However, it prohibited support for the actual production of aircraft.

The US accused the EU of handing out production subsidies and claimed that, in any case, all aid to Airbus should be eliminated as the company had overtaken Boeing in terms of global-market share.

The EU immediately retaliated by filing its own complaint against the US, pointing to \"massive\" indirect subsidies to Boeing, worth around $20 billion, in the form of military contracts, R&D and tax exemptions.

Procedures in the WTO were slow to get started as US and EU negotiators struggled – but failed – to reach a deal replacing the 1992 Accord on aircraft subsidies.

The US decided to follow through with its complaint in November 2006 (EurActiv 16/11/06), in what some saw as a deliberate blow to its rival as it struggled to deal with a series of management upheavals and delivery delays, which finally led to the announcement, in February 2007, of major restructuring plans threatening 10,000 jobs across Europe (EurActiv 02/03/07).

The European Commission presented its first written accusations against the aerospace and defence giant Boeing to the WTO on 22 March 2007.

European trade experts spent the past two days defending the Union against similar US accusations in the first hearing of the case before a WTO trade dispute panel.

In the worst-case scenario, the EU and the US would both win, paving the way for a ferocious round of two-way sanctions that could seriously dent transatlantic trade.
Positions:

In the filing of its case against the US on 22 March, the European Commission said that the \"lavish subsidies\" given to Boeing have allowed the US group \"to engage in aggressive pricing of its aircraft which has caused lost sales, lost market share and price suppression to Airbus on a number of select markets\".

The EU says that US federal, state and local subsidies benefiting Boeing, amounting to $23.7 billion over the past two decades and up to 2024, are inconsistent with WTO rules.

Among others, the EU accuses the US of providing vast amounts of hidden support to Boeing through military contracts and federal research programmes, worth around $16.6bn during the past 20 years.

It also says that Boeing's commercial aircraft division has benefited from \"significant federal tax breaks\" and points to a $4bn package of tax breaks and exemptions, credits and infrastructure loans from the state of Washington.

In the hearing on 20-21 March, US officials claimed that the benefits of the $15bn of launch aid awarded to Airbus over the past 30 years by France, Germany, the UK and Spain, amounts to \"well over $100bn\", based on calculations of the additional cost that Airbus would have incurred if it had obtained financing \"at commercial interest rates\".

They said that long-term loans granted by European governments at below-market rates have \"enabled Airbus to pursue an aggressive strategy to increase its market share\" and to \"launch a series of large civil aircraft models at a scale and a pace that would have been impossible without subsidies\".

\"Subsidies have enabled Airbus to develop a full family of airliners targeted at its US competitors,\" the US team said.

\"It is not tolerable that one producer should have ready access to billions of dollars in up-front, risk-free financing\" to develop aircraft, they said, adding that the zero-interest repayments, conditional on the commercial success of Airbus models, have cost thousands of American jobs and cut into Boeing's earnings.

Meanwhile, Gretchen Hamel, a spokeswoman for the US Trade Representative's office, said that the United States was still prepared, and would prefer, to negotiate a solution to financing airliners.

The European Union rejected the claims and said that Washington had failed to show how Airbus-financing had led to lost sales for Boeing or lowered prices.

In its defence at the hearing, the EU said that the US case against Airbus \"ignores relevant international agreements and is supported by very limited and often incorrect facts\".

Governments' lending policies are \"not determined by purely commercial considerations\", the EU argues, because they do not need to maximise profits and can \"pursue public policy goals.\"

The EU said that its governments' lending policies were purely aimed at helping to develop new planes, in support of \"public policy goals\". It argued that the money was legal because it was repaid as Airbus sold aircraft, although it acknowledged that, in the case of severe production setbacks, the loan terms could benefit the company.
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how about a public policy goal of keeping AMERICANS working with american tax dollars. you know I am a republican but the tanker deal stinks. God I hope the contract was fixed in US dollars so can drive a steak through AIRBUS

Do you know who to thank for this. That greedy boneheaded C#$T that was doing the contracts and was trying to backdoor herself into a job with Boeing. They couldnt go with them with out the fear of a lawsuit which would push the airframe would be pushed back even further. So scarebus got the contract by default. I am sick of this shit forget the rest of the world. I have worked Airbus crap and it is scary junk.

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Press one for English, Press two to disconect untill you do.

Every contract gets a lawsuit these days.

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The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.

By JOELLE TESSLER, AP Business Writer
Wed Jun 18, 6:32 PM ET



WASHINGTON - Boeing scored a major victory Wednesday in its battle to wrestle back a $35 billion Air Force contract from Northrop Grumman and its European partner.

The Government Accountability Office upheld Boeing's protest of the refueling tanker contract and recommended the service hold a new competition. The congressional watchdog said it found \"a number of significant errors\" in the Air Force's February decision, including its failure to fairly judge the relative merits of each proposal.

While the GAO decision is not binding, it puts tremendous pressure on the Air Force to reopen the contract and could pave the way for Boeing to capture part or all of the award from Northrop and Airbus parent European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. And it gives ammunition to Boeing supporters in Congress who have been seeking to block funding for the deal or force a new competition.

The decision also is a setback for Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee in waiting, who was instrumental in the Pentagon's long attempt to complete a deal on the tanker.

The Air Force will determine its next steps after completing a review of the GAO ruling within 60 days. The service will select the \"best value tanker for our nation's defense, while being good stewards of the taxpayer dollar,\" said Air Force Assistant Secretary Sue C. Payton.

Boeing said it looks forward to working with the Air Force on the next steps in this \"critical procurement for our warfighters.\" Northrop said it continues to believe its plane was the best option for the military.

The GAO decision marks the second big blow to the Air Force this month, coming on the heels of the ouster of its two top officials over mistaken nuclear shipments.

The Air Force also is trying to rebuild a tattered reputation following a 2003 procurement scandal that sent its top acquisition official to prison for conflict of interest and led to the collapse of an earlier tanker contract with Boeing. McCain played a key role in exposing that scandal.

McCain sent two letters in 2006 urging the Defense Department to make sure the bidding proposals guaranteed competition between Boeing and Airbus. Months later, Airbus's parent company retained the firm of a McCain campaign adviser to lobby for the tanker deal.

McCain on Wednesday called the GAO decision \"unfortunate for the taxpayers,\" saying Air Force officials \"need to go back and redo the contracting process and ... hopefully they will get it right.\"

Democratic presidential nominee-in-waiting Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., lauded the GAO decision and called for a \"fair and transparent\" rebidding of the contract.

With a leadership vacuum, a concerned Congress and an upcoming change in the White House, the Air Force needs to act quickly, said Jim McAleese, a defense industry consultant in Virginia.

The tanker contract has sparked a fierce backlash among lawmakers from Washington, Kansas and other states that stand to gain jobs if Boeing succeeds in landing the award.

\"The Air Force will have no choice but to rebid this project,\" said Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash.

Sen. Pat Roberts, a Kansas Republican, said he would introduce legislation requiring a new competition if the service does not reopen the process.

The tanker contract also has touched off a heated debate over the military's use of foreign contractors because the Northrop tanker would be based on an Airbus plane largely built in Europe. Backed by union officials representing Boeing workers and \"Buy-American\" proponents, Boeing supporters on Capitol Hill have painted the competition as a fight between an American company and its European rival.

Boeing estimates the tanker contract would support 44,000 new and existing jobs with more than 300 U.S. suppliers. The company would perform much of the work in Everett, Wash., and Wichita, Kan.

Northrop said its tanker would support four new factories and 48,000 jobs with 230 U.S. suppliers, including more than 1,500 new positions in Mobile, Ala., where the tanker would be assembled.

Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., said it is \"very disturbing\" that the Air Force \"will likely have to go back to square one on the warfighter's No. 1 priority.\"

The contract for 179 aerial refueling tankers is the first of three deals worth up to $100 billion to replace the Air Force's entire tanker fleet over the next 30 years.

Although the GAO denied some parts of Boeing's protest, it offered a lengthy rationale for why the contract should be re-competed. Among its conclusions was that the Air Force awarded the Northrop team improper extra credit for offering a larger plane that could carry more fuel, cargo and troops. It also found that the Air Force improperly increased the likely costs of the Boeing bid and failed to show that Northrop's tanker could refuel all necessary planes.

\"The GAO has issued a sweeping denunciation of Air Force acquisition practices that raises fundamental questions of fairness,\" said Loren Thompson, a defense industry consultant based in Virginia.

Boeing's backers in Congress also maintain that illegal European Union subsidies to Airbus gave Northrop/EADS an unfair advantage. Those subsidies are at the heart of U.S. Trade Representative complaint against the EU before the World Trade Organization.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., stressed that Congress needs to examine more than just the narrow technical issues raised by the GAO review, including the role of subsidies and American jobs in defense contracts.

Shares of Chicago-based Boeing Co. rose 27 cents to $74.65 Wednesday, while Los Angeles-based Northrop

Let's hope they get their ducks in a row and don't do anything stupid this round. It's not often one gets a second chance of this magnitude.

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\"Those who hammer their guns into plows
will plow for those who do not.\"
- Thomas Jefferson

Third chance....this will be the third time the contract will be up for bid...

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Let's hope they get their ducks in a row and don't do anything stupid this round. It's not often one gets a ANOTHER chance of this magnitude.

More better?

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\"Those who hammer their guns into plows
will plow for those who do not.\"
- Thomas Jefferson

Maybe the third times the charm

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I know a bunch of -135E/R wrench turners that do!

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\"Those who hammer their guns into plows
will plow for those who do not.\"
- Thomas Jefferson

I just read where \"Gates\" is going to \"Rebid\" the Tanker Fleet contract and \"He will oversee it after the GAO found \"Errors\" in the bidding process and that \"Boeing should of been the winner\"


AMERICAN 1111111111



Goose

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\"Live Free Or Die\"