I honestly don’t give a damn who won…as long as it was done right…

I watched this last night on C-SPAN, it was entertaining, to say the least…
looks here, it wasn’t done right:

Link: Boeing’s tanker bid damaged when Air Force changed criteria

Just a taste here:

The Pentagon had pulled a “bait and switch” in telling Boeing that it wanted a medium-size tanker, such as the 767.

“Had Boeing known that the Air Force wanted more, it would have bid the 777,” he said.

Boeing defense chief Jim Albaugh made that same point at an investor conference in New York.

“If they had wanted a big airplane, obviously we could offer the 777,” Albaugh said, “and we were discouraged from offering the 777.”

Time to revive the Herky thread me thinks 😎 I have a question about the AC-130H/U: have the 25 and 40mm guns been replaced by the 30mm Bushmaster II as was anounced some time ago? Upgrade should have started last year.

In the end, all the AC-130H and AC-130Us will have 2X30MM and 1X105MM. They are looking at a completion date of 2010 for all aircraft to be fitted with the 30MMs.
The 20MMs that the older AC-130H carried had been removed between 1998 and 2000 (the barrels had been taken off of them and the holes covered in Plexiglas early 1998, but some had retained the actual guns till 2000)

The AC-130U had always had the 25MM fitted but it was never the great success that they had hoped for.

We might also see the integration of the Viper Strike GBU-44/B.

If he bars the Pentagon from buying from firms receiving subsidies from foreign governments, Boeing is ineligible for Pentagon contracts.:diablo: The 787 receives subsidies from Japan & Italy.

The 787 isn’t used in the military. yet.

Seems in line with the previously rumoured prices to other customers, e.g. Australia.

🙂 I can’t seem to find their prices either 🙂

That document does not say the cost is $2.6 billion. It says the “average list price” is $2.6 billion, “though manufacturer list prices are subject to customary discounts, which may be substantial for larger purchases and launch orders“. Airliner list price is the top dollar, the starting point for negotations. Paying over 25% more than list price for a large order by a prestige customer with the possibility of substantial follow-on orders isn’t “massively low ball[ing] the deal”. Looks like a realistic price for all the mods.

I understand but, I still can not find any airline or company that has ever bought any version of the A330 for as little as $100 million as Schorsch had stated… I was just trying to find out how had bought them at that price…and how large the order was.

This deal came out to this…$10.6 Billion to deliver 64 aircraft (Plus $1.4 Billion for four extra test aircraft) That comes out to $176.5 Million per copy…fully configured with all the bumps and bruises and dangly things fitted. This seems way too cheep to me. Also, what will they charge for the additional planes 🙂 Again, I suspect that we will see some Lock-Mart style price bumps.

it’s a bit more than ” some other minor changes” !

The difference between the C-130E and the C-130H are minor changes compared to the C-130H vs the C-130J

Here are some infos about the contenders and some problems still to overcome by both. Intresting in both cases that are the engines f.e.

http://www.aeronautics.ru/news/news002/news094.htm

or the present prospects.

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htairmo/articles/20080220.aspx

In autum this year we will see both contenders in the air.

You are right, the engines in both cases are the Achilles heel of both aircraft. I like the idea of the prop fan and the mass amounts of power behind them. One of the main downfalls that Antonov has is that this had basically become a dead project. With them starting it back up they will now have to work from behind to catch up…in the end the A400M will prevail. Like that article points out, even Antonov has lost some of its workers and designers to the A400M project and I think that would be a good thing for airbus.

Head to head right now I would have to give the engine nod to Antonov. What a nice engine that is..and wouldn’t take much to get it up to par. Airbus’s engine will take a while, they are having a lot of problems with her, but like anything it will work itself out.

I do have to applaud both companies for offering a Turboprop aircraft…nothing still to this day can match a turboprop on a short field take off….keeping safety paramount. Instant power is good… spool up times bad…and the C-17 is finding out.

The C-130J is just too small to be a good contender in this area. It offers too little too late at a massive bump in price over the older C-130s.

An a side note..another thing I really like about the An-70 is the removable second level floor, so you can use that unused space when hauling low density cargo and or troops… it removes to carry bulk and air-dropable cargo.

Showing my lack of knowledge on the A400M..does it offer the same thing in a second level floor?

Another thing I like about the An-70 is that the props are a smaller diameter, getting them further off the ground…allowing them to not have as much damage from rocks and sand. The new props on the C-130J are having a hell of a time in the dirt and the rocks are causing a large about of de-laminations. I was a big opponent to the new props on the J model (for more than this reason, maintenance and deliverabilty is the main reason)