Feb 27, 2013 18:55 UTC
Latest updates[?]: Summary of GAO's in-depth program report; New program dashboard figures, aerial tanker fleet scenarios, KC-46A industrial partner list, and KC-46A schedule graphics in article.
KC-135: Old as the hills…
DID’s FOCUS articles cover major weapons acquisition programs – and no program is more important to the USAF than its aerial tanker fleet renewal. In January 2007, the big question was whether there would be a competition for the USA’s KC-X proposal, covering 175 production aircraft and 4 test platforms. The total cost is now estimated at $52 billion, but America’s aerial tanker fleet demands new planes to replace its KC-135s, whose most recent new delivery was in 1965. Otherwise, unpredictable age or fatigue issues, like the ones that grounded its F-15A-D fighters in 2008, could ground its aerial tankers – and with them, a substantial slice of the USA’s total airpower.
KC-Y and KC-Z buys are supposed to follow in subsequent decades, in order to replace 530 (195 active; ANG 251; Reserve 84) active tankers, as well as the USAF’s 59 heavy KC-10 tankers that were delivered from 1979-1987. Then again, fiscal and demographic realities may mean that the 179 plane KC-X buy is “it” for the USAF. Either way, the stakes were huge for all concerned.
In the end, it was Team Boeing’s KC-767 NexGen/ KC-46A (767 derivative) vs. EADS North America’s KC-45A (Airbus KC-30/A330-200 derivative), both within the Pentagon and in the halls of Congress. The financial and employment stakes guaranteed a huge political fight no matter which side won. After Airbus won in 2008, that fight ended up sinking and restarting the entire program. Three years later, Boeing won the recompete. Now, it has to deliver.
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Feb 25, 2013 09:35 UTC
Rejected draft cover
President Obama used his weekly address to lay the whole responsibility of the sequester on Republicans in Congress. There is a good dose of scare tactics thrown in, including at the Department of Transportation where they apparently can’t execute a 2% budget reduction except by disrupting flights across the US.
- Suddenly the White House has very granular data on the sequester scourge, down to the state level (here’s Virginia [PDF] for instance). The Washington Post has a round up.
- But some Republicans in Congress would rather see sequestration happen than yield further on the tax/spend mix, and defense industry support in Congress is no longer what it used to be. NYT | Politico.
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