irtuskBoom or bust! – RAAF KC-30 loses boom
The incident happened while the first of five KC-30As bound for the RAAF – and the first A330 MRTT development aircraft – was conducting a night refuelling currency mission with Portuguese air force F-16s. Sources say preliminary reports suggest the boom’s probe snapped off near the F-16’s receptacle, causing the boom to spring up and strike the underside of the KC-30, possibly snapping off one of its two guiding fins and causing it to oscillate wildly until it snapped off at the pivot point.
The boom departed the aircraft and fell to the ocean below. Fortunately, both the tanker and the F-16 recovered safely to their respective bases with no injuries to the crews of either aircraft.
You gotta know the USAF will be VERRRY interested in this report too
Boeing withdraws from Indian midair tanker tender
Boeing has withdrawn from the midair tanker tender floated by the Indian Air Force (IAF) in September 2010.
. . .
Boeing has a new generation 767 under development but will not operationalise it until it gets the US Air Force’s order for 179 aircraft.
. . .
Dr Lall said: Only upon the outcome of the KC-X competition for replacement of US Air Force refueling takers will be able to fully determine our ability to participate in future international competitions. Boeing is committed to assist our international customers meet their military requirements but we are not in a position now to discuss any detail expressed by specific customers.”
However, he said, if the USAF accepted the Boeing 767 tanker and the IAF extended the date for the competition, “Boeing would be happy to take part.”
Sounds like they don’t want to fund the necessary development work on the 767 unless they actually win the KC-X.
Which is kind of strange, between the Italian and Japanese tankers, how much development work would an Indian bid actually take?
irtuskor as speculated at Ares, the floods could provide the excuse to just drop the competition altogether and spend the money on more social programs
irtuskYou’ll note that this problem is related solely to the B model. The A/C models don’t share this issue.
1. That isn’t clear from the article
2. Even if it is ‘only’ the B, so what?
Is not the ‘B’ the primary driver for many of the engine requirements? If it can’t work for the ‘B’ then it has failed to meet some of the most basic and primary requirements.
irtuskMore F-35B Delays, Software Schedule At Risk
Flight testing so far has revealed . . . a problem with screech – destructive high-frequency combustion instability in the F135 afterburner – which is preventing the aircraft from achieving maximum power.
Why I’m just SHOCKED that there’s a problem with the F135. I had been ASSURED that it was PERFECT and there there was ABSOLUTELY NO NEED for the F136.
irtuskhttp://leehamnews.wordpress.com/2011/01/03/looking-ahead-for-the-tanker-award/
Looking ahead for the tanker award
Unofficial word is now that the USAF is to announce its award in February, after slipping from January, December, November, October and August.
. . .
Meantime, Airbus and Boeing missed deadlines once again to deliver their tankers to customers. Both said they would deliver their airplanes to the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) and Italian Air Force respectively and once again the time came and went.
Airbus missed delivering its KC-30 MRTT—which it boosts as 90% similar to what the USAF wants in the KC-X—because, according to this article, it is writing manuals to meet Australian airworthiness requirements for the refueling boom. The boom, of course, is the first Airbus has ever designed and built.
The KC-30 is now two years late to RAAF.
Boeing, meantime, announced last summer it would deliver the KC-767 to Italy, but there has been no announcement that it has. This airplane is now five years late.
. . .
Politico has this interesting article discussing the unexpected split buy for littoral combat ship and how this relates to the KC-X tanker competition. The article is mostly about the Navy’s decision to split the buy for the LCS, but it is worth reading.
. . .
Richard Aboulafia and Addison Schonland did a 12 minute podcast on the tanker recently. Aboulafia suggests a dual award to resolve this; he says the WTO has no role in this procurement; and the USAF mistake.
irtuskWhy “East Tmor” ? I don’t understand…
East Timor
irtuskUnlike in WW2, there simply aren’t many parked outside at any given time.
Unless you have finished the plane but not yet ‘finished’ the plane
(see all the 787’s parked right now)
irtusk1) The exchange rate of the Euro/dollar. As said by dassault a rafale costs less than a SH but its price is higher due to the unfavorable exchange rate.
that doesn’t even make sense
irtuskoops, getting concerned over nothing
The conversion center is one part of a large aircraft production facility that EADS North America will construct in Mobile, Alabama, to build the KC-45 in the United States if the Air Force selects it as its new aerial refueler. The KC-45 will create or support 48,000 American jobs across the country, and create more than 1,500 direct positions in Mobile. Construction of the production facilities also will create thousands of related jobs in the Gulf Coast area.
EADS North America has also committed to build commercial A330 freighter aircraft at the same site, resulting in the capability to produce more than twice as many aircraft annually in the U.S. than required to support the U.S. tanker program.
irtuskIt’s not exactly a factory to build KC-45s from the ground up, but EADS NA said today it wants bids to build a “conversion” facility in Mobile, Ala
that sounds like less than was offered in the previous bid (edit: nope, see 2 posts down)
And Boeing launched what looks like a clever pysops campaign to out-psych EADS, using defense analyst and consultant Loren Thompson to spread the word that — shock, horror – the maker of the 787 Dreamliner thinks it may well lose the tanker competition
. . .
If Boeing does not win outright, they can turn around and scream: we TOLD you the competition just wasn’t fair! Even before the decision was made we were behind the curve and that can only be because of those subsidies those French-affiliated people received.
irtuskI have zero doubt in my mind that Boeing could have won the competition if they had put serious strategy into winning. Rather than being flexible with their long-standing customer they chose the rigid route. Shame on them.
The only way they could have won was to not hire Druyun back when EADS didn’t have a boom.
Once the lease got scuttled, EADS had time to get their boom ready and Boeing was doomed because they didn’t have an answer for the KC-30
irtuskTanker Wars: Why Boeing Is Losing
Senior executives at Boeing have grown pessimistic about their prospects for prevailing in the latest Air Force tanker competition. . . . This is surprising, because the Boeing entry in the competition has much lower life-cycle costs than the bigger EADS entry, while still carrying much more fuel than the plane it would replace. . . . So what went wrong for Boeing?
The biggest thing that went wrong was that the Air Force chose to ignore a ruling by the world’s preeminent trade body that Airbus has engaged in a 40-year pattern of predatory business practices to expand its share of the commercial transport market.
The Air Force hasn’t ‘chosen to ignore’, it is their legal obligation!
WTO protests can ONLY be punished through the WTO. Any ‘extracurricular’ punishment is illegal.
A second and related factor is that the Air Force has calculated the post-production life-cycle cost of the Airbus plane using assumptions that tend to minimize the higher cost of operating a bigger plane.
. . .
But Boeing’s team is convinced the Air Force has failed to capture the full life-cycle burden of fuel and construction for the bigger plane
If they truly believe the USAF is being unfair about it, they’ll have their chance to plead to the GAO. But I don’t see it. The USAF already extended the lifecycle timeline from 25 years to 40 years and they are using the same number of hours per year as the current fleet. The only complaint they can make on that front would be in how future fuel prices are calculated, which is of course purely speculative anyways.
And the construction costs most certainly are being accounted for. The only complaint they can register is if they think the USAF’s choice of bases is ‘unfair’, which is going to be a very tough thing to prove to the GAO
A third factor is the calculation of warfighting effectiveness ratings . . . the complex warfighting model used to calculate effectiveness in stressing wartime scenarios continues to favor the larger Airbus plane due to its greater fuel-carrying capacity. But what many outside observers have failed to note is that the success of the EADS entry in that comparison is tied directly to the fact that its planes were allowed to access bases denied to the Boeing planes. The Airbus tanker literally cannot complete the specified missions without access to those bases, and yet Boeing was not allowed access in the modeling of comparative wartime performance.
More likely explanation: KC-30 had the range to use those bases and KC-767 didn’t. Tough luck Boeing :diablo:
A fourth factor weighing against Boeing in the comparisons is a pattern of allowances made for the EADS entry that amounted to bending the rules to keep its proposal viable. First, the Air Force delayed the deadline for the EADS proposal.
Certainly not something they can protest at this point. There is a little thing called ‘timeliness’. If they had such a problem with the deadline extension, they should have fought it back then. You can’t allow the entire competition to proceed and then when it doesn’t go your way say ‘whoops, we think the whole thing should be invalid because of a decision made a year ago’. Sorry bub, that bird has flown.
Second, it allowed EADS to respond late to engineering inquiries from evaluators.
don’t have any info on this
Third, it deleted a performance requirement concerning secure communications from the solicitation because EADS could not meet it.
the key question is WHEN did they delete the requirement?
again, if it was before the final RFP, then sorry Boeing, you’re time has passed
Fourth, it waived duties on the importation of certain key parts required in the EADS plane.
I don’t know how this all works, but does it really make sense for the government to tax itself?
Finally, it sought to minimize EADS wrongdoing in viewing competition-sensitive information that Boeing did not view.
Such a vague accusation as to be meaningless
And of course Boeing has viewed the same information now, so they have no room to complain.
Cumulatively, these various instances can be construed as a pattern of bias favoring the European team.
Or AF making reasonable accommodations with a bidder. And I’m sure Boeing hasn’t received a single accommodation or concession in this contest :rolleyes:
irtusk. . .back when they first developed the tanker in 2001, the 767 was the only available option . . .
The A310 MRTT was also out there
I was talking about from Boeing’s perspective, ie why they didn’t and aren’t going to offer the KC-787
irtuskBut with Northrop Grumman out of the picture, would they still be built in the US?
yes, Mobile is still the plan
In fact, getting a plant in the US is one of the primary reasons EADS is so keen to win this bid
irtuskCan’t a Republican Congress just say they wont permit a non US type buy, and hand it to Boeing?
Republicans were leading the fight for KC-30 last time because the plant would be in Alabama
Democrats tended to favor the Boeing bid with its large union footprint in washington state and illinois
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