BS. Three of Japan’s KC-767 are OPERATIONAL & Italy’s KC-767s are closer to being operational than Australia’s KC-30 is.

Not to mention the SIGNIFICANTLY greater risk of a <58% US workshare tanker MANUFACTURED in Europe by Airbus/EADS & ASSMBLED in the US by NG/EADS NA vs a >85% US workshare tanker MANUFACTURED & ASSMBLED in the US by Boeing.

Neither of which have the pods on the wings…or match the current KC-X specs…oh and you have forgotten the ‘delays’ that these programmes suffered due to ‘unexpected’ issues that Boeing, with its decades of tanking experience had not anticipated….

So the KC-30 might not yet be in service.. but the overall programme is far less problematic (at this time) and looks a bit more realistic…

True but with FIVE GENERATIONS of Boom design & building experience it is comparatively easy for Boeing to alter its SIXTH GENERATION boom to meet the 1200 gal/min requirement (note that in the previous [round two] KC-X solicitation Boeing’s proposed 6th generation boom was to be a 1000+ gal/min boom vs a requirements for ‘just’ 900 gal/min).

Comparatively easy huh….I guess that’s why Boeing are questionning the need for a 1200 gpm rate when their 6th gen boom does not match that..
Easy to alter… like the 767 tankers for Japan and Italy…

What are you smoking? The KC-767 can operate effectively USING THE EXISTING INFRASTRUCTURE & comparatively little infrastructure improvement would allow it to “operate at its theoretical maxima”.. With THE EXISTING INFRASTRUCTURE the KC-30 can not even do the job as well as the KC-135R & requires MANY BILLIONS OF DOLLARS of infrastructure improvement to allow it to operate effectively much less “at its theoretical maxima”.

I already HAVE troted out lots of data which shows how much in excess of historical data the KC-135R (much less the significantly MORE CAPABLE KC-767) can off load within the EXISTING INFRASTRUCTURE.

I have already pointed that out. I even posted a figure FROM AN EADS NA STUDY showing such.

I also posted figures (from the same study) showing how tanker weight (ACN) vs runway strength (PCN) effects fuel offload & how tanker size (footprint) vs airfield parking area effects how many tankers can operate from each airfield [what REALLY matters is not the fuel offload of each tanker but the number of booms & total fuel offload of said booms from each airfield].

We are well aware of your reading abilities…but what you are reading is written by others. I sit on that side of the fence..doing the work that looks at infrastructure improvements and the reasons behind it, the costs, and so forth. That work is then wrapped into the studies you read.

So from that perspective the issue of infrastructure improvements/ cost benefit analysis and ‘performance’ enhancements are ones I see possibly as ‘raw’ figures… and hence have an opinion that is different from you..

The ‘comparatively little’ infrastructure improvements you speak about are very interesting…as in many cases the quantum is actually completely overshadowed by other aspects.. such as lack of actual phyiscal ownership or presence of additional land required.. for runway lengthening….or the specific cost of such improvements….

In comparison the cost of airside ramp and taxiway improvements may be high, but its falls within the realm of the possible……but hey you read the reports…somebody else does the work and presents you with the information…

I do.

And THE ‘law’ enacted which is throwing the NORMAL process out the window with the KC-X is the demand for a ‘full competition’. NORMALLY, the USAF need EITHER justify to Congress a sole source contract or OFFER the contract up for bid. NORMALLY, the USAF has every right to reject a bid offer it finds does not meet its requirements.

Not normally. NORMALLY there is no ‘law’ demanding a ‘full competition’.

Sadly for EVERYONE except those taking advantage of the situation to FORCE the USAF to accomodate a noncompetative offer that the USAF has rejected for NOT meeting its requirements.

It is absolutely INCORRECT. Bidders are responsible for making offers which meet the USAF requirements. The USAF is NOT required (nornmally) to alter it requirements to accomodate what ONE bidder wants to offer.

Again, NORMALLY there is no ‘law’ requiring a ‘full competition’.

The GAO did not object to the tanker lease RFP (which as has been established WAS written specifically for the KC-767 variant that the USAF & Boeing had previously agreed to) OR the USAF rejection of the KC-30 &/or subsequent sole source of the contract to Boeing. Under NORMAL circumstances such is perfectly legal & acceptable.

Exactly.

Not only a flawed process but a process that was not follwed in accordance with the rules of the process.

The role of the GAO is to ensure that the process is ‘legal’ & is follwed in accordance with the rules of the process, NOT to make the determination of the winner.

BS.

{as previously posted}
Not having a working boom was only PART of ONE of four reasons for it being rejected. And in fact ALL FOUR reason are STILL valid today (except that Congress won’t let the USF reject the uncompetative paltform).

The KC-30 increase in size STILL does not bring with it a commensurate increase in available air refueling offload.
The KC-30 STILL presents a higher-risk technical approach and a less preferred financial arrangement.
The KC-30 STILL has an 81% larger ground footprint than the the KC-135.
The KC-30 STILL requires greater infrastructure investment in order to operate effectively in worldwide deployment.
{as previously posted}

No, YOU need to understand that the NORMAL ‘law’ DOES NOT require a ‘full competition’, ONLY that the contract be offered up for bid. The NORMAL ‘law’ DOES NOT require the USAF to alter its requirements to accomodate a noncompetative offer.

AT MOST I have had some small (just one vote of MANY) in electing THREE people in Congress…

So we have magreed that the legal aspect of any procurement is more important in determining the outcome than the USAF’s requirements, analysis and determination. Thank you.

We have also established that unless the GAO agree that the determination is ‘legal’ or correct then the USAF/ DoD selection is not absolute.
So in effect the GAO HAS already determined the outcome of this selection and will do so again.

Thanks for that.

Now I’m not sure of how much work you have done with the USAF and procurement of goods and services. So I’m basingmy opinion on the requirement for competition on the procurement of goods (in my case USAF bases in Europe and covering significant infrastructure works) and services (labour and professional services) that have been part of my professional life.

In these cases the writing of the specifications for the ggods and services was subject to both UK/EU law and Federal regulations, overseen by USAF legal Counsel and UK legal review. The legal review of the documentation revealed a mutual preoccupation with the ability of competition to occur in both the provision of services as well as goods (manufactured products). The USAF legal team were in particular very vigilant that the specifications permited more than one product to be considered within the tender process to avoid falling foul of Federal procurement laws.

Now there may be a different set of laws that covers the procurement of airframes versus the bases that accommodate them…and I am very happy to be shown they exist.. otherwise I’ll go with my own experience.

As for your oft repeated and seemingly out of date reasons..

The KC-30 currently appears to be a lower technological risk than any current flying KC-767….see Japan and Italy…
The current Boeing booms seem unable to deliver the 1200gpm…Boeing’s own fiugres..
The infrastructure improvements… whilst costly are lower than the cost of delivering the infrastructure improvements required to allow the 767 to operate at its theoretical maxima….admittedly you will trot out lots of data which shows how much in excess of historical data the 767 can off load within the current runway lengths…great go for it…
Oh…and globally…the balanced field length verus overall off load capacity will affect capability…again having worked with the USAF on Mildenhall itself I’ll use that experience as an opinion base.

And you have voted for far more of your representatives than I…:)

EXACTLY!

In ALL THREE rounds the RFP has been clear as to what it is the USAF wants AND what most closely matches.

So the RFP is written to conform to ONE product..

Now the basic underlying issue is that procurement has to be open to full competition.

So the RFP has to allow other products to compete.. if its not then the competition not valid…..

If other products (as this competition states that current airframes are a pre requisite) on the market are so far from the RFP that the ‘winner’ is a fore gone conclusion then its not a full competition…hence its not legal..

So the RFP has to be altered to allow these other products to compete…even if it means going away from the initial ‘ideal’ solution…..

The conclusion is that the RFP which most closely defines what the USAF wants is not compatible with the pre-requisties of open competition and current airframes. This type of RFP works for a ‘cleansheet design’ (say F-35) but not for the derivative type.

So the USAF RFP will need to permit both to compete fairly….even if it means allowing things further from the ideal than initially envisaged (like size and weight…and capacity/ capability variations…

We can be certain that the winner will be decieded not by the USAF/DoD but by the GAO.

Fair play. Though I can put up pictures of several traffic junctions I designed that have survived quite well over the past 12-13 years since I designed them (left the RN mid 90’s then got a job as an apprentice civil engineer and spent 5 years at that before getting heavily in datacomms/internet at the end of the 90’s). Spent 3 years day-release studying structures, materials and the built environment at technical college. Apart from snapping bits of metal in a hounsfield tensometer I do remember a few of the more basic concepts involved in building construction – and this structure fits none of them.

It would help to see those…in the mean time I’ll start the ball rolling….a current project of mine on site…

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=289065

How do you mean on its own foundations?. A suspended raft or additional rafting/piling in the existing foundations?. If the latter see earlier point….the structural steel would have to be able to resist wind-imposed shearing loads. That means extreme stiffening such as huge steel piles or external bracing. Where the island is sited leaves no margin for external bracing.

Consider it to be a totally independent structure to the remainder of the complex…a 10/12 storey tower..sitting on its own independent foundations.
Wind load is a consideration but nothing outrageous…or unusual for a building of that aspect ratio. External bracing? No need..

As a minimum it should be piled….you wouldnt anticipate padded foundations on a building this size. At least I wouldn’t. It may be that the building is built on one huge raft foundation, as you rightly say we dont know, the fact is that it doesnt need to be. Even if the ground substrata is modest an office building doesnt need more than healthy strip foundations. If the addition of the aircraft carrier on the roof has forced them to build that deeper (or sink steel pilings all the way through the building) for seemingly no operational benefit where is the sense in that?.

An office building needs a tad more than a strip foundation, expecially one that is 4/5 floors, with decent floor loading.

The tall building in London is both piled and rafted..the raft is actually a single large pile cap effectively.. but hey building over the Thames gravel and London clay is interesting to say the least… its also 147m tall…

OK now I am interested. Imposed wind loads will generate shear force at the point of interface between the tower and the building. You mitigate that shear force with bracing or with long cantilever arms (deep pilings). If you cant brace for lack of width how do you transmit the shear force through to the building within footprint?.

There is no interface between building and tower in the horizontal plane. Consider the island to be its own tower.. to the ground. All you need is a movement joint between the ‘office’ looking part and the island part (which includes the part below the steel island). This movement jonit is on the each fllor plate to ensure people don’t fall in the gap, at deck levle to keep the weather out and vertically on the facade to keep the weather out. No structural loads need to be transfered from one part to the other.

Aaaah the old cheap materials and cheap labour argument. Of course that makes it perfectly understandable that they would build something of little to no obvious operational value in such a complex and inefficient fashion.

Having been part of the team that built a reasonably large building in China then the arguement is a very real one.
As for its lack of obvious use perhaps we can discuss that part of it as an interesting discussion…

You never know though perhaps they’ve actually filled in the whole top floor of that building with concrete, based on foundations a quarter of a mile deep, and they plan to undertake touch and goes on this installation!!!!. They are Chinese you know and they might just do anything………however bizarre and impractical!. Myself….I give them credit for a little more professionalism!.

Having seen what they are prepared to consider first hand then nothing surprises me.

And another one I was involved with previously…..
The airport (akin to T5) had something like 3x as many labourers on site, because the individual cost was lower. In desigining hte amount of bespoke design that could be considered in the elements was orders of magnitude larger than over here as the cost of creating these elements was substantially lower..

This is not about a western view of economic viability…or ‘saving money’…that notion is simply not applicable over there in the manner we understand it…

Its not speculation – its basic structures design!. You dont impose point load on one set of foundations unless you can avoid it…..and in this case they can definitely avoid it!. There is absolutely no need to put that structure hard up against one side of the building. You aren’t going to simulate wind-over-deck with a building who’s aspect to the wind tends to be fairly static!.

If you want to build a flight deck with several hundred tons of steelwork sticking out then make the building wider and stick the whole mockup in the middle….where the load is spread out over all of the foundations not just one side!. Also where you can put reinforcement in to counteract the imposed load on the structure from wind action on that rather large sail area.

Unless that ‘tower’ has steel pilings running right through the building and down into bedrock its going to suffer from wind imposed stresses – it can’t not be impacted by them because, sited where it is on the building there is no room for the kind of lateral reinforcement such a tall, narrow, structure would need.

OK so maybe it has huge great steel pilings that run through to bedrock I hear you say!. The question has to be why!!!. That is a very expensive and inefficient way of building something that seems to serve no operational function. I know the Chinese do things their own way, but, this is either lunacy built on inefficiency or someone is on the wind up!.

Jonesy..

Keep to ship details.. your view of building structures is far from demonstrating the same level of knowledge….which is a shame.

The reality could be far different from what you are illustrating… the island, regardless of its location with respect to the remainder of the building will be on its own foundations in order to minimise the potential differential settlement issues between the disparate elements of the building.

We do not know the ground conditions of the location but chances are the entire building is piled and the area beneath the island is on longer and or thicker or more numerous piles…or its on a pretty massive raft as well.

The wind load will be dealt with within the foot print of the island.. there is no structural need (or efficiency) in distributing it to the other parts of the the building..

In addition the cost of materials and mainly labour in China are so very different from here that this bring a concpetually different way of designing buildings into play.

I don’t know ANYBODY making such an assumption.

The unsupported assmption some ARE making however is that by simply having greater capacity than the KC-767 translates to the ability to actually utilize it a significant portion of the time. Just look at the historical averages (&/or the 2008 total chart – including not only the KC-135 but also & in particular the KC-10). Sure better planning & the greater offload capacity of the new tankers will NO DOUBT increase those numbers.

Based on the 2008 total chart & assuming say a 50% increase per sortie offload OF EVERY SORTIE & the KC-767 gets you about ~83% of the total while the KC-30 only gets you up to about ~93% (the KC-777 gets you up to just over 98%). In such example the ‘extra capacity’ of the KC-30 would only be of use ~10% of the time. And that is even using the unrealistic assumption that the same number of KC-767s & KC-30s operating in the same numbers from the same bases as the KC-135s. Factor in the shorter transit of more KC-767s vs KC-30s & that 10% drops & could even be reversed.

All of this is extrapolated from current KC-135 based operations. Perhaps one could look at a step change in operational philosophy rather than an evolution (say KC-97 to KC-135)….albeit that was one required by the strategic shift in USAF operations.

Your points do rely on the current model being continued…and the alterations that you illustrate are based on the ends of the current spectrum as opposed to a completely new paradigm.

No it does not. Not in real world US tanker operations the VAST majority of the time.

I think this confirms that the assumption that the operational model developed for the KC-135 will be continued but with a new tanker.

Whether tanker operations evolve.. which they would with the 767 tanker or are revolutionised (relatively) with a larger tanker is the key issue. If a greater level of change is viewed as desirable then the 777 is certainly an interesting choice…being more capable (cpacity/ flexibility etc) than a 30 but more constrainted in basing terms…

BTW the ramp illustrations in the Boeing presentation are ‘creative’ in terms of the layout etc of the airframes….and are very favourable to Boeing whilst presenting the worse picture for the -30. But they are both correct… merely well edited.

No, THE reason the military needs equipment is to “provide for the common defence”.

Which is a political aim….

And the military being used to achieve political aims DOES NOT infer that military procurement is political.

If you say so…but you’re wrong.

Oh and for the first question?

I think this draft RFP will be altered, as perhaps rightly it should be, as both EADs and Boeing read and digest its contents.

What will be very interesting is to see how it evolves, which criteria are challenged as so forth as clues as to how the companies will respond..