I don’t know what you yanks are reading, but while the A380 delivery delays have caused some eye-watering losses to Airbus, the programme is far from ‘failing’.

The order book is pretty healthy, and the problems there have been have been annoying, but far from difficult.

And prospects look good in the longer term.

The KC-10 is a tanker.

Well done.

It was, however, made by McDonnell Douglas at Long Beach (now part of Boeing), and not Lockheed.

Who is the idiot again?

I have given plenty of facts detailing exactly why the KC-30 is a better tanker than the KC-767, none of them “my own garbage” and I have more knowledge of the tanker market and ongoing tanker competitions than you’d glean from the “articles we’ve all read.” I’ve spoken to dozens of current tanker aircrew and procurement officers in at least seven countries, for starters. Nor is my judgement based on kneejerk numb-skulled nationalism, or ignorant and ill-informed prejudice…..

“If you can give an objective answer…how/why is the 330 better?”

I’ve answered this, but since poor old joe seems to be too dim to understand, I’ll repeat myself.

1) It carries more fuel than the KC-767.
2) It can carry more passengers and more cargo, and can do so while carrying more fuel.
3) Though it’s a larger aircraft, it can operate from shorter runways (a 10,000 ft balanced runway) while carrying full fuel. (Eg from typical real world tanker OLs). The KC-767 cannot.
4) The A330MRTT can offer more fuel for offload further from base.
5) Major parts of the tanker-specific systems are more mature than those of the KC-767 and are already in frontline service on Luftwaffe and Canadian A310 MRTTs.
6) Airliner technology is advancing all of the time – most of it aiming at saving operating and support costs, rather than at improving performance. Thus “newer” does tend to translate into lower operating and life cycle costs, and does often mean more use of newer materials, fly by wire, etc.

Moreover, since large elements of the 767 are built in Italy and Japan, the KC-767 is no more ‘American’ than the KC-30 would be – and some have predicted that the KC-30 would actually provide more US jobs, and more work for US industry.

But then if you’re stupid enough to think that the A380 and A400 programmes indicate that Airbus couldn’t build a dog house, you’re not going to be convinced by mere facts and logic………:rolleyes:

Is the KC-767 a “smaller, cheaper, more fuel-efficient tanker than Airbus can offer”?

Smaller, certainly.

Probably cheaper only if you count only the upfront sticker price.

More fuel efficient? “Northrop’s plane is larger and more fuel-efficient.” not least according to your linked article.

And crucially, if capabilities-to-cost evaluation metrics are included, the KC-30 will be shown to offer better value for money.

Which do the USAF want?

An inefficient, inadequate, small tanker with a lower sticker price, but with high running costs, and inferior capabilities

OR

A more efficient, more capable aircraft that offers lower running costs and which does the job better?

The $40m disparity in up-front costs will be more than made up for in reduced through life costs.

It’s like buying a two-door, 1.2 litre $12,000 car (based on a 1980 model) instead of a five-door, 2.0 litre $16,000 car based on a much newer model, even though the cheaper car will cost $12,000 more in operating and running costs over its life, burning more gas, and requiring more expensive parts and servicing.

The Bristol Bureaucrat, you mean?

Like the F-35 ‘Dave’ it’s unofficial name is already gaining ground in RAF crewrooms…..

It’s not just about comparing theoretical maximum numbers of pallets, pounds of cargo, or pounds of fuel that be carried.

If a given aircraft cannot lift those loads from a representative tanker operating location, then the capability is irrelevant. If your rival can lift a larger number of pallets, or more cargo, or more fuel, and can do so from runways that you would need to reduce weight to operate from, then the advantage may be much more significant than (say) a mere 13 pallets.

Nor is it enough to simply look at an aircraft’s take off run (or take off to clear a 50 ft obstacle) and compare that figure with runway length. You need to take account of stopping distances, in the event of an aborted or rejected take off. It may be that aircraft A has a shorter take off roll than aircraft B, but because of longer stopping distances (especially at higher weights), it may actually need a longer runway in order to operate safely.

The key parameter is the required balanced field length at operational weights.

It’s over-simplistic (wrong, even) to suggest that: “we need (larger) numbers of tankers to spread various places around the globe and not a lesser number of larger tankers.”

What the USAF needs are tankers that meet current requirements, and not Cold War requirements.

To support expeditionary warfare, the USAF needs tankers that can operate from real world tanker forward operating locations, and that can do so without reducing the fuel available to offload.

To support expeditionary warfare, a tanker (or the aircraft it is supporting) may not be deploying to a fully-equipped, fully-prepared USAF airfield, with pre-stocked spares and ground support equipment, and with plentiful manpower. It may be deploying to a more austere base (perhaps not a USAF facility at all), and all support personnel and equipment might need to be deployed with the tanker. In these circumstances it may be preferable to operate a larger tanker, which can also carry support personnel, spares, and ground support equipment, rather than to operate a smaller tanker, which cannot, and which will therefore require extra C-130 or C-17 sorties.

Of course the tanker aircraft procured must be cheap enough to be affordable in the numbers required, but a cheap, small tanker is a false economy if it cannot operate from real world tanker operating locations, and if it requires more support from C-17s or other transport aircraft, or if it cannot carry sufficient fuel to offload at the required towline.

A KC-135 might be adequate to support a B-52 deploying to Fairford, whereas a fighter squadron deploying to Al Udeid (or to a new FOL in one of the northern ‘stans) might be better supported by KC-10s, which can carry more of the essential ground support personnel and equipment. If the larger tanker is also able to operate at higher weights from shorter runways, the advantage is clear.

Nor is the ‘sticker price’ of much interest, unless you also take into account through life support, running and training costs. If a KC-30 costs $40 m more than a KC-767 (and that remains to be seen) but also offers more of the required capabilities, and saves (say) $80 m in reduced through life costs, then which aircraft represents the greater value for money?

Reducing the argument to the comparison of simple line items in Jane’s specifications (or the specs posted on manufacturers’ websites) is over-simplistic, potentially misleading and sterile.

“Hard details” to back up my arguments.

1) Tanker role superiority. The A330MRTT has more fuel to offload, further from base.

2) Basing flexibility. The A330MRTT can operate with full fuel from a 10,000 ft balanced runway, the KC-767 cannot. This means that an A330MRTT can operate from all airfields currently used by RAF VC10s and TriStars (for example) whereas at full weight, the -767 can’t. The 767 does have a lighter ground loading, but the 330’s heavier footprint is not a significant disadvantage, because it does not ‘rule out’ the airfields you’d want to be using.

3) Role flexibility. Because the Airbus has a wider cabin cross section, it can accomodate standard pallets ‘side-by-side’ whereas the 767 cannot. The A330 cabin is superior in the passenger role, too.

4) Maturity. Airbus MRTT system elements are already operational, in the tanker role, on German A310MRTTs. The Airbus wing pods are operational, and were developed and integrated without major problems. The KC-767 wing pods caused flutter, and the solution causes drag. Both companies are flying their boom designs.

5) Industrial advantage? The Northrop Grumman KC-30 would provide and protect US jobs, and would provide competition to Boeing.

Darned right, I “continually tout the Airbus design”, and darned right, I do so “for one reason and one reason only.”

But as to why, it’s not because Airbus is European, it’s because the Airbus is the superior tanker.

And why does that bother me? Because I want to see the UK’s most important ally using the best possible equipment, and not to have inferior solutions foisted on them to protect the interests of particular US aerospace companies.

Usually the US solution is also the best. The F-22 is the best possible F-15 and F-117 replacement, if you can afford it. The F-35 is the best possible replacement for USMC AV-8Bs and for USAF F-16s (though perhaps not for everyone else’s). The P-8 is the best P-3 replacement practically available to the USN. The Longbow Apache and CH-47F are the best possible attack and heavylift helicopters, respectively.

But sometimes the European designed solution will be superior – US101 for CSAR-X, for example, and KC-30 for KC-X.

Where are the ‘hard details’ to back up the contention that the KC-767 is a better tanker?

Both. And neither.

In the good old days, there were newcomers running round allocating new designations to everything, while Belyakov and Waldenburg refused to recognise any of them.

Has Belyakov died, or just finally retired? I haven’t seen the old buzzard for years.

And how about Waldenburg?