Northrop wins the KC-45A tanker contract

[Dougstermd]

...that is a globalist position and does America no good.

Is it too much to ask that we build our own weapons and components? Is that too xenophobic? To nativist?

Just a few facts from someone who is not Biased
Northrop Grumman KC-45 Tanker




KC-45A Tanker Fact Sheet

The KC-45A competition was fair and the best team won:

The KC-45A competition underwent the most rigorous, fair and transparent acquisition process in Department of Defense history.
The Air Force went to unprecedented lengths to make sure both companies were kept fully informed about all requirements and the status of their respective bids.
Size of the proposed tanker was not dictated by the Air Force nor was size an established criteria. Each contractor was free to propose the best solution and platform to meet Air Force warfighter requirements.
Northrop Grumman did better analysis and developed a better solution than its competition.
The Northrop Grumman KC-45A is good for America's industrial base:

The Northrop Grumman KC-45A tanker program will create a new aerospace manufacturing corridor in the southeastern United States thereby broadening and strengthening the U.S. aerospace industry.
The Northrop Grumman KC-45A tanker will support more than 25,000 direct and indirect jobs in the United States—a conservative estimate based upon the U.S. Department of Commerce aerospace industry jobs projection formula.
Using more recent data from our suppliers and applying the Labor Department’s formula for projecting aerospace jobs at the state and regional level, the KC-45A will employ approximately 48,000 direct and indirect jobs nationwide.
The Northrop Grumman KC-45A U.S. supplier base includes 230 companies in 49 states.
Assembly and militarization of the Northrop Grumman KC-45A tanker will take place in Mobile, Ala., resulting in the creation of 2,000 jobs.
The Northrop Grumman KC-45A tanker program does not transfer any jobs from the United States to France or any other foreign country.
The Northrop Grumman KC-45A is vitally important to the U.S. Air Force:

Air refueling tankers are a vital component to national security.
The existing fleet of Eisenhower-era KC-135s is older than any other force element currently in the U.S. Air Force inventory.
The U.S. Air Force established the KC-135 aerial refueling tanker replacement program as its number one acquisition priority. We simply cannot expect our airmen to forever defend our national interests with aging aircraft.
"From deploying and employing American combat power from all the services rapidly anywhere in the world, to providing disaster relief and humanitarian supplies around the globe, these tankers will provide the air bridge for the United States to defend our national interest and assist our friends anywhere on the planet," -- U.S. Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne.
"Recapitalization of our Air Force's jet tanker inventory is long overdue. Air refuelers are a single point of failure in modern military operations. Across the spectrum of what we do, we absolutely rely on the capabilities they give to us," -- U.S. Air Force Vice Chief of Staff
Gen. Duncan McNabb.
Northrop Grumman KC-45A is ready now:

The first Northrop Grumman KC-45A tanker aircraft was built and flown in September 2007.
The Northrop Grumman KC-45A Aerial Refueling Boom System has completed 73 test flights totaling more than 200 flight hours. The boom completed the first in-flight fuel transfer on Feb. 29, 2008.
The Northrop Grumman KC-45A is based upon the Royal Australian Air Force KC-30B Multi-role Tanker, which has been built, flown and tested. It will be delivered on schedule to the Royal Australian Air Force in early 2009.
Foreign Content and Foreign Suppliers to U.S. Military Programs:

All modern jetliners are built from a global supplier base and both entrants in the KC-45A competition were no exception
The Northrop Grumman KC-45A will include approximately 60 percent U.S. content.
There are numerous examples of transatlantic cooperation on vital U.S. military programs, including the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the VH-71 Presidential helicopter and the C-27J Joint Cargo Aircraft program.
No sensitive military technology will be exported to Europe. For the KC-45A program, a commercial A330 jetliner will be assembled by American workers in EADS's facility in Mobile. The aircraft will then undergo military conversion in an adjacent Northrop Grumman facility, where all of the critical military technology will be added.

 

[AA996]

Please stop calling the KC-45 a "Northrop Grumman". It is an AIRBUS!!! All N-G did was tack their name on it so EADS could say it's a US consortium. Just like the next president will be flying in a Eurocopter, not an Augusta/Westland/Bell. Bell just lent their name to the program so Eurocopter could snatch the contract from Sikorsky.

 

[RadioPatrol]

Please stop calling the KC-45 a "Northrop Grumman". It is an AIRBUS!!! All N-G did was tack their name on it so EADS could say it's a US consortium. Just like the next president will be flying in a Eurocopter, not an Augusta/Westland/Bell. Bell just lent their name to the program so Eurocopter could snatch the contract from Sikorsky.

Not now ..... Congress is looking into the matter ......

 

[edinsomd]

Next, we have the MMA contract to replace the P-3, and there is no way that the DoD can give the contract to Lockheed since they just won the JSF contract, so Boeing gets the award. The maritime patrol community spends a lot of time flying low and slow over the oceans, often at night, and propellers provide a much faster response to a sudden need for power than jet engines do. If a VP pilot messes up and gets too low at night, and tries to power out of the situation in that Boeing 767 the way he/she could in a prop aircraft, that plane is going into the water and killing the crew. It's been open knowledge for a long time that using jets to support the maritime patrol mission was inherently dangerous, and now we're placing our folks at risk because we need to spread the money around.

Its a 737-800 airframe, not a 767, first of all. The Navy wanted faster response time, longer legs, higher altitudes and more stores capacity than the P-3 AIP/BMUP could provide, and it got it. Of course there'll be growing pains and new CONOPS to be worked, thats always part of the learning curve. We'll figure it out. As for jets on maritime patrol, our S-3 Vikings did it for 20 years, the Brit's Nimrod longer than that, and still at it.
Ed

 

[MMDad]

...that is a globalist position and does America no good.

Is it too much to ask that we build our own weapons and components? Is that too xenophobic? To nativist?

We want international cooperation on projects like JSF to reduce cost. We sell our aircraft and weapons systems to everyone who will buy them. It's one of the few export industries this nation has left.

Do you hold us to a different standard than we expect from our allies? Do you honestly believe we should expect them to buy our stuff, but we should refuse to buy theirs?

There are two factors to consider with this procurement:

1. All parties were given the oppurtunity to bid, and the selection was made as the laws and regulations require.

2. If Boeing had the superior product, would they have felt the need to bribe an Air Force official?

 

[Larry Gude]

I don't...

We want international cooperation on projects like JSF to reduce cost. We sell our aircraft and weapons systems to everyone who will buy them. It's one of the few export industries this nation has left.

Do you hold us to a different standard than we expect from our allies? Do you honestly believe we should expect them to buy our stuff, but we should refuse to buy theirs?

There are two factors to consider with this procurement:

1. All parties were given the oppurtunity to bid, and the selection was made as the laws and regulations require.

2. If Boeing had the superior product, would they have felt the need to bribe an Air Force official?

...expect a damn thing from our 'allies'. I don't want international cooperation that they don't give of their own free will. If they wanna buy our stuff, we'll think about it IF it's in our national interest.

We are entering a race to the bottom on everything under the banner of 'free' markets. Buying Boeing over Mcdonnell Douglas because it's better and cheaper is free market. Buying Airbus over Boeing is suicide one little step at a time. World peace is not achieved by opponents controlling key components of one another's arsenals. World peace is achieved by being more interested in getting along than finding out how good one another's arsenal is.

MAD doesn't work because we make their guidance systems and they make our boosters.

This contract is wrong for America.

 

[MMDad]

...expect a damn thing from our 'allies'. I don't want international cooperation that they don't give of their own free will. If they wanna buy our stuff, we'll think about it IF it's in our national interest.

Look at it this way: we sold F-14's and P-3's to Iran just before they overthrew the Shah. If we hadn't, they probably would have gotten MIGs or something else. Then they became our enemy. Yes, they had some of our best weapons systems, but we also knew exactly what their capability was. We knew their vulnerabilities better than they did. If it had come down to dogfights, wouldn't our pilots have had the upper hand just by knowing about those vulnerabilities?

Likewise, if we don't sell to our other allies, they will turn to the next best product. If we had your isolationist philosophy 30 years ago, we'd either still be fighting the cold war or we would have lost it. The soviets would have had that many more customers to sell their product to, and that would have fed their economy and their military machine. Face it, we didn't win the cold war because we "had God on our side." We won it because the Soviets couldn't afford to keep up with us.

I've never understood staunch isolationism. It seems rather arrogant to me. There are some Americans who want to be able to travel to any country in the world and be treated like royalty, but they also want people visiting here to kiss our butts. They want to pick and choose what we sell to whom, but they are offended if our trade partners try to do the same.

Isolationism is kind of like socialism. It can sound really good when you only listen to the buzzwords, but once you start to dig deeper and look at things like human nature and economics it becomes obvious that it isn't reasonable.

Without allies, we are sunk. We can't afford to pizz off the world any more than we have if we want to survive.

 

[Larry Gude]

Stop...

Look at it this way: we sold F-14's and P-3's to Iran just before they overthrew the Shah.

...right there. WE over threw their duly elected government and instituted the Shah. WE made our own bed and turned a solid ally against us. OUR politics ruined a good relationship. It is fine to sell to a friend, a real ally. When our own government betrays democracies and supports dictators and madmen, things get dicey.

 

[MMDad]

...right there. WE over threw their duly elected government and instituted the Shah. WE made our own bed and turned a solid ally against us. OUR politics ruined a good relationship. It is fine to sell to a friend, a real ally. When our own government betrays democracies and supports dictators and madmen, things get dicey.

I'm quite aware of how badly we screwed up in Iran. I've posted about it before. There are some great lessons to learn from that whole decades long chain of screwups. People blame Carter for that whole mess, but he's only culpable in the stupid way it ended. It never should have started in the first place.

 

[Larry Gude]

Carter...

I'm quite aware of how badly we screwed up in Iran. I've posted about it before. There are some great lessons to learn from that whole decades long chain of screwups. People blame Carter for that whole mess, but he's only culpable in the stupid way it ended. It never should have started in the first place.

...is no more responsible for Iran than liver pills.

This is ALL on Eisenhower and his administration. We set the stage for the return of Islamic governmental dominance by proving to everyone interested in liberty that we were actually what the Mullahs said we were; liars and deceivers.

We hide behind the shield of anti-communism as though that is the be all end all excuse and it is not. So what? So the whole world is communist except us? As you or someone else pointed out, communism died of it's own weight, as did the British Empire. When we stick to our principles, our founding ideas, we do well. When we betray those ideas, we win short term and end up betraying ourselves long term. Our documents were meant to constrain mans natural impulses, not all of which are good, both in private lives and in government scope and affairs.

We betrayed Iran.

So, trade, sure. But, our own national interests are our own and, as such, it is in our own national interests to be self sufficient in our national defense capabilities.

It's laughable to be afraid of communism. The sooner it spreads the sooner our products and ways and means return to preeminence. In the mean time, we are growing China to strengths it could not achieve without us just as we are making our oil producing opponents rich with our dollars.

We are defeating ourselves.

 

[itsbob]

Is it too much to ask that we build our own weapons and components? Is that too xenophobic? To nativist?

I'd rather our soldiers be equipped with the best equipment. If it's American made great, if not, it should be the best the world has to offer.

How would like to be the fighter pilot going into a dogfight KNOWING you don't have the best, fastest or most maneuverable plane? Or the infantryman going into battle KNOWING you don't have the most accurate or most reliable weapon... but knowing the enemy does?

Usually, even if foreign weapons and equipment are chosen thousands of Americans still get jobs, and in the end it usually ends up being American made. Just like our M1 tank is manufactured in foreign countries under a license agreement with the manufacturer and the US governemnt, we do the same thing with mass purchases we make. The 9mm pistol for example, it's an Italian manufacturer, but all the 9mm in the military are made here in the US.

They at least deserve to have the best of everything when their lives may depend on it.

 

[MMDad]

...is no more responsible for Iran than liver pills.

This is ALL on Eisenhower and his administration.

Ike deserves about 90% of the blame, but all who followed share about 1% of the blame, and Carter gets 9% for screwing up the end of it.

Carter forgot that the enemy you know is usually better than the enemy you don't know. Too bad that lesson was forgotten less than 25 years later.

 

[Larry Gude]

That's...

I'd rather our soldiers be equipped with the best equipment. If it's American made great, if not, it should be the best the world has to offer.

How would like to be the fighter pilot going into a dogfight KNOWING you don't have the best, fastest or most maneuverable plane? Or the infantryman going into battle KNOWING you don't have the most accurate or most reliable weapon... but knowing the enemy does?

Usually, even if foreign weapons and equipment are chosen thousands of Americans still get jobs, and in the end it usually ends up being American made. Just like our M1 tank is manufactured in foreign countries under a license agreement with the manufacturer and the US governemnt, we do the same thing with mass purchases we make. The 9mm pistol for example, it's an Italian manufacturer, but all the 9mm in the military are made here in the US.

They at least deserve to have the best of everything when their lives may depend on it.

...a noble sentiment, bob and also besides the point. Are Baretta's the best equipment for the job? Does it make any sense to you, at all, that the land of Sam Colt and John Browning is using Baretta's? Me neither. That's politics. And it's wrong.

I think we all know that plenty of components and parts are not all that good and far from the best, but they work.

The M4 has been beaten by numerous replacement entries and the shooters in the field would much prefer the 416 uppers, but, hey, more politics. M4's are good enough. I just can't believe a US manufacturer can't come up with a piston driven upper.

If the airbus is far superior and we run into...say...politics of a foreign nation interrupting parts and supplies, it may still be the best but it is useless if it is stuck on the ground.

USA, USA...

 

[MMDad]

If the airbus is far superior and we run into...say...politics of a foreign nation interrupting parts and supplies, it may still be the best but it is useless if it is stuck on the ground.

USA, USA...

That's where economies of scale come in. We couldn't be dependent on another country for parts. We already have commercially available support in this country because they are in wide use by the airlines. If the supply chain were interrupted, you can be sure that the airlines would fix it to support hundreds of aircraft long before it ever affected a few Air Force airrcraft.

By the way, I just ordered a bunch of daisies from Mexico. They cost a lot less, and look better than US grown daisies.

 

[Kerad]

The USAF should go with the best plane available...and that's what they say they did. Boeing needs to point the finger at themselves for offering an inferior product.

 

[MMDad]

The USAF should go with the best plane available...and that's what they say they did. Boeing needs to point the finger at themselves for offering an inferior product.

If the Boeing product were not inferior, Boeing would not have resorted to bribery in order to try to win the contract.

 

[Kerad]

If the Boeing product were not inferior, Boeing would not have resorted to bribery in order to try to win the contract.

I agree.

 

[Pete]

I wonder how much of the Airbus award was to ensure the bribery thing was a non issue?

 

[Larry Gude]

Are you...

I wonder how much of the Airbus award was to ensure the bribery thing was a non issue?

...trying to suggest, *gasp* that bribery goes on in Western Europe at the highest levels???

Why, that would mean that all the pro Airbus/Anti Boeing folks are...naive, wouldn't it?

 

[MMDad]

...trying to suggest, *gasp* that bribery goes on in Western Europe at the highest levels???

Why, that would mean that all the pro Airbus/Anti Boeing folks are...naive, wouldn't it?

Try reading his post again. I understood it.