Suprised no one posted about the gear swing a couple of weeks ago.

Potential bad news on the horizon though….it appears the IAM may go on strike, vote tomorrow:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d8a7e9ae-7885-11dd-acc3-0000779fd18c.html

Grow up.
You are trolling. Either politely answer peoples comments and arguments or acknowledge you are being shot down in flames.
Going on and on about the size of the damn airplane is neither here nor there.
The USAF screwed up when they gave credit to the A330 tanker for its cargo capacity when this wasn’t specified as a key requirement in the spec.
It seems that in the light of actual operational experience they should have given this requirment a bigger weighting in the spec.

The tanker competition is contentious on several levels. Stating a disagreeing opinion is not trolling. It is unfortunate that some are so emotionally invested in “their” tanker that they respond to an alternative view with senseless name calling. This has been done to me several times, each time I have taken the high road, and I have never received any apologies. I also generally try to avoid profanity.

If there wasn’t any controversy or disagreement, this issue would have been solved a long time ago. I submit that labeling those who present alternative views as “trolls” when they are clearly not will not enhance the level of discussion.

Those advances, though, can occur independently of the airframe, so why not get them and greater capability in the aircraft as well?

Because those greater aircraft capabilitites are very expensive and won’t add greatly to survivability in the future given the rate of technological increase of sensors and missiles.

I think the argument goes something like: Swing wings, variable geometry inlets, thrust vectoring, and real stealth all cost a lot of money and contribute to unreliability. Given that sensors, electronics, and missiles are where the action is (rate of improvement is greater), why spend money on all that stuff when buying a greater number of airframes will put more sensors and more missiles into the air?

No confusion. Your argument confuses the primary role of the aircraft with what it does to enable it to do that role. It could be an argument for maintaining proficiency in tanking (particularly relevant to boom operators, I think) with a smaller tanker, reducing training hours on larger tankers to the level needed to maintain type proficiency. It isn’t an argument for compromising effectiveness in their primary role in order to reduce training costs. Big can of worms there . . .

The KC-380 reductio ad absurdum argument is just that – absurd. A rhetorical trick, not appropriate in a reasoned debate except to remind someone who is tending to an extreme view of where that could lead. Of course, bigger is not always better: a C-17 is not better at everything than a C-27. That isn’t being argued here. What is being argued about is exactly what is the optimum size for a USAF tanker. There’s room for disagreement on this, since it depends on exactly how they’ll be used. Past usage is not an infallible guide (see what SOC says about the KC-135 & cargo, for example).

The RAFs experience with VC-10 & Tristar tankers, especially since 2001, led it to seek something nearer the Tristar than the VC-10 in size, & the greater fuel offload at range, & time on station, of the A330 were rated as major plus points in the evaluation when it was compared to the KC-767, as was the cargo-carrying ability. The RAAF came to the same conclusions, & apparently for much the same reasons, thinking the A330 is the right replacement for its Boeing 707 tankers, about the same jump as from KC-135 to A330. Canada & Germany preferred smaller tankers, & bought converted secondhand A310s, in the latter case to operate (eventually) alongside A400M tankers. The Italians have gone for a KC-767 & KC-130J mix, the KC-767 being as much as they think they want. Horses for courses. There is no single right answer.

Wow, astonishingly verbose prevarication.

Bottom line: The KC767 is already 46% larger than the aircraft it would replace and the best the competition can come up with is an even larger aircraft. Most 135 missions are for training and only a small portion of available fuel is used. A bigger aircraft is wasteful.

Regarding SOC. First and foremost, since he apparently is serving, he is to be congratulated. Thank you SOC. Second, it is very, very common for the warfighter to want bigger, faster, stronger. Very understandable. Professional soldiers are well acquainted with the principal of concentration of force, getting there first with the most.

Are you illiterate? Our styles our clearly different. We’ve both been members here for years, & would have been banned long ago if we were the same person. He consistently says he’s French, I consistently say I’m English. Our use of language is consistent with our stated nationalities.

Your comment about Airbus demonstrates your attitude. You are a xenophobe, with a hatred of what you see as foreign. You have no respect for truth. You appear incapable of understanding that your rudeness is that, & think that insulting foreigners is fair comment.

FYI, Airbus was set up by a consortium of European manufacturers because they believed that separately, they could not survive in the civil airliner market, being too small to afford the increasing development cost of new airliners, & hence compete with the fewer & bigger US firms especially Boeing), unless they joined forces. It was initiated by industry, which then sought – and got – government support. Firms joined the consortium even when their governments didn’t back it, as with the British participation. The British government withdrew support for the A300 (the only product, at the time) when an American engine was selected instead of Rolls-Royce, but the wings still ended up being made here, because British manufacturers knew a good thing when they saw it, & wanted a stake, & Airbus Industrie was looking for industrial partners, not governments.

Incidentally, the specification for the A300 was based on an idea by an American Airlines executive. US manufacturers wouldn’t build it, but Sud-Aviation liked it, & got together the partners they needed to build it.

I’ll just ignore the (usual) personal insults and respond appropriately.

Regarding nationalities, how would you know who/what is “foreign” to me since I have never revealed my nationality? You have jumped to conclusions my friend. I suggest dealing with the arguments.

Someone, I forget whom, FINALLY admitted that AI or EADS is 13% owned by the French Government. Others have related the government backed loans. Few have metioned how much taxes policy can affect corporations, effectively giving another level of control to government. Add it all up and it’s not hard to reach the conclusion that Airbus is a government consortium. Little items like RR withdrawing after losing a competiton lend credence to the nationalistic nature of AI. (Since RR would only participate if they, themselves bailed out by the government, were selected as the engine provider.) Yet, somehow, many still have the gall to refer to AI as a PRIVATE company. Why is it xenophobia to state the obvious: Airbus is a state entity? The fact that you are so defensive about it reveals at least a kernel of truth……

I’ll grant you the A300 stuff you claim. I’ll even go one step further. U.S. airlines BEGGED for a 150 seat, two pilot, airplane for years, yet Boeing refused to built it because they didn’t want to re-do the wing on the 737 series. They ended up producing the 737-300, which wasn’t big enough. Only after AI produce their first really good airplane, the A320, did Boeing respond with the NG series……15 years after U.S. airlines wanted it. So there, I posted something anti-boeing, pro-AI. That doesn’t change the fact that AI is just a government jobs program.

PS ten extra points if you know what delta three was.

Let’s recap:

The original 767-based offer was considerably larger than the airplane it was replacing (KC45 EW = 265,000, KC767 EW = 181,000). Boeing had a couple of bad eggs who broke the law on the original bid. Those people got fired, paid big fines, and went to jail. We have now had mission creep and a foreign owned firm that does not support U.S. foreign policy wants to provide an airplane that is almost 46% larger (by empty weight) than the 767 based platform (which was large to begin with, KC-1355R EW is only 99,000 lbs). They’ve dressed up their pig in makeup by offering to produce it in a red state, because the military people who make the selection currently have red civilian masters. But the money gets appropriated by a blue Congress. Meanwhile, those heros in white scarves with stars on their shoulders, who claimed they desperately needed these tankers 6 years ago, are soldiering along just fine.

Them’s the facts.

Where did he say badges mean nothing? I said that.

Aren’t you the same person? You seem to be. I guess only the mods know for sure.

Lets address something concrete: NEITHER of you has ever dealt with the 84,000 lbs.

Boeing hires people to build airplanes. Airbus only builds planes so they can hire people.

I already have done better than that, but you ignored my previous post.

France imports large numbers of cars. French manufacturers have just over 50% of the market, including vehicles imported from their factories abroad. Some “foreign” cars (e.g. the Toyota Yaris) are made in France, just as most of the “foreign” cars in the USA are made there. The big car manufacturers are international businesses, with production spread all over the place. Looking at the name badge tells you about the relative success of firms, not national economies, & little about protectionism.

Toyota has a smaller share of the US market than GM, last I saw, at 17.4%, about the same as Ford. Is that “essentially tak[ing] over the market”? And most of those Toyotas are made in the USA, by Americans.

BTW, Toyota has a higher market share in France than in the UK. In the UK it’s about a third of Ford sales. GM outsells Toyota 2:1 in Europe, & Ford is comfortably ahead of Toyota. Where is this protectionism?

You’re right, it doesn’t exist. France does not carefully manage it’s balance of trade. France never demands offsets and they allow anyone to sell anything. France is a veritable capitalist mecca and an absolute free trade zone. The U.S. should ignore it’s negative balance of trade and purchase European “badged” products. That will help the U.S. dollar to fall even further and thereby put even more pressure on the non-capitalist nations.