What pointing out that you are only interested in Boeing winning…your position is clear I’m not misrepresenting you when I point this out and even use your own term back at you if you don’t like being called a Boeing Kool Aid drinker STOP using it!

The fact that it is a DELIBERATE MISREPRESENTATION. As I have posted MANY TIMES, my interest is in the USAF getting THE RIGHT TANKER. Unfortunately among the options we have been given only one comes close to being that.

And UNLIKE Airbus/EADS/KC-30 Kool Aid drinkers I do not ‘blindly’ accept anything pro or con about EITHER & I do not post half truths, misrepresentations & out right LIES to try & fool people.

What pointing out that you still insist on calling everybody who don’t agree with your view Kool Aid drinkers….also more then once people have shown that you are wrong with cited links to officials and quotes

I DON’T call anybody/everybody who doesn’t agree with my view Kool Aid drinkers. I call people who ‘blindly’ accept anything pro Airbus/EADS/KC-30 &/or con Boeing/KC-767 AND ‘blindly disreguard anything pro Boeing/KC-767 &/or con Airbus/EADS/KC-30 who post half truths, misrepresentations & out right LIES Kool Aid drinkers.

In your OPINION!

THAT was the ruling of the GAO!

I have, they said that their ruling was not a comment on the quality of the Airbus product rather mistakes made in the selection process

And AMONG THE MISTAKES was that the KC-X Source Selection Team FAILD to reasonably justify how it assessed that the NG/EADS offer met some requirements.

Except for the minor fact that the Airbus was superior in all but two of the matrix where it drew and it wasn’t the Franken tanker that Boeing offered which clearly didn’t meet was required!

Except for the MAJOR fact that the matrix scoring was BOGUS.

As I said you are only interested in Boeing winning, you are a BOEING Kool Aid drinker (to use your tired term). For you Black is white and White is Black…I have no time for you your arguments are circular!

You are trolling again and DELIBERATELY MISREPRESENTING my position.

1. Yes they did you have been repeatedly shown this with links to USAF officials who say they did.

No I have not. What I HAVE been shown ignors THE most important point.

2. True

3. True

But in respect of point two and three accross the rest of the selection matrix the Airbus product was placed as superior.

But 2 & 3 being true makes the selection matrix the Airbus product was placed as superior BOGUS & without merit.

The KC-767AT meet MORE requirements than the KC-30, was superior in MORE requirements AND not just MORE requirements but HIGHER VALUED requirements. But the KC-X Source Selection Team that & ‘selected’ the KC-30 on alternate critera (criteria directly contradictory to the criteria identified in the solicitation).

You have made your point you are only interested in Boeing winning…we understand! You are by definition a Boeing Kool Aid drinker.

No, I have made my point that I am only interrested in the USAF getting the RIGHT tanker. The tanker it has asked for TWICE (three times if you include this 3rd round draft RFP for which the core requirements are essentially the same as round two but with a different means of evaluation for selecting the winner).

I have ALSO made it clear how disappointing it is that Airbus/EADS refuses to listen to what the USAF/DOD has been asking for & actually offer a competative platform enstead of continuing take advantage of the mess in order to ‘sell’ the USAF/DOD what Airbus/EADS wants to ‘sell’ them, ESPECIALLY given the fact that the USAF/DOD has already rejected it.

I have ALSO made the point that I believe (based on platforms known at this time) that Airbus actually will have what I believe to the best platform [A350-900R] for the KC-Y ‘large’ KC-10 replacement tanker. But who knows what will be available in 15 years…

There is a new selection process and an aircraft will be chosen be happy with that and stop dragging us all back to this circular argument!

Yes there is a new selection process & HOPEFULLY this time the proposals will be assessed on the relative merits of the proposals in accordance with the evaluation criteria identified in the solicitation. AND hopefully this time those who are in charge of the selection will listen to AMC tanker commanders (like John Handy & Stu Pugh) instead of bowing to political pressure.

some politician trying to make up stories again. If he and Boeing are so confident in there product and that the 767 is the correct plane for the job then they shouldn’t have to resort to crazy tactics. Personally i like the A330 but it is up to the USAF to decide what plane best meets their needs. That could be either, us member’s of the public trying to guess what the US airforce refueling and transport future needs are is pure guess work. The strategy of the US airforce could change over the next 50 years. One thing we have seen is that the US is finding it harder and harder to get basing rights near the battle field. Is this continues at its current rate in 50 years time to US will have no base rights in any country. This will involve longer flights and more refueling. Also it makes the navies carrier’s more important and USAF long range bomber’s more relevant.

It is a matter of fairness & consistency, NOT that ANYBODY thinks it is NECESSARY for Boeing to win.

The thing with subsidies is that the European governments aren’t just giving money to airbus. The money is normally loaned to Airbus to develop new aircraft and then as the aircraft sells Airbus repay the money that was loaned. Another way to look at it is that when Airbus developed it’s first aircraft the European countries governments that had stakes in Airbus paid for it’s development. This money was then paid back as the aircraft became a success. This same money that was loaned for the first aircraft has then been used to develop all the other aircraft. Thus if the big EU countries had just gave Airbus £5 billion for its first aircraft and not wanted it back Airbus could of used put away the money it would normally have paid back to the governments to develop the next aircraft. This in hindsight would probably of not caused so much controversy.
The government loans could also be seen as that Airbus was given money to start as a company and has paid money to the governments to keep for it’s next aircraft. This way Airbus is using the EU governments as a bank. Whether in the future Airbus will borrow money from the governments is yet to be seen.

What you are missing is that Airbus COULD NOT get the loans through normal means. Without government financial aid in the form of favorable loan conditions, Airbus WOULD NOT have gotten the money to develope the A300/310, A320, A330/340 &/or A380. Even IF it could have otherwise, it would have cost significantly more to do so.

Boeing gets it’s fare share of tax breaks and other benefits that Airbus doesn’t get so it’s all a bit swings and roundabouts. The only way to resolve this would be to have both companies paying the exact same tax wages outgoings etc. This will never happen as it’s to hard to do. All worldwide companies have advantages and disadvantages depending where they are based. This is how it goes and to say the A330 tanker should have some kind of $5 million penalty is just crazy.

BS. Airbus & EADS get tax breaks and other benefits just like Boeing.

The best thing Boeing could do just now is put every effort into getting the tankers it has on order’s with Italy, japan etc sorted out and fast. These are making Boeing look like they aren’t reliable and can’t make tankers anymore on budget and on time. The should also be doing this for any other military customer that is using a civilian airframe like P-8, AWACS etc

Japan already has 3 OPERATIONAL tankers with is 4th to become operational in 2010. The Italian tankers have already passed one of the two certifications required for Italian Air Force acceptance. THE problem with the Italian tanker is Italy’s insistance on doing much of the work themsevles & THEIR inexperience (which has often required the aircraft be flown BACK to Boeing to ‘correct’) and that all of the developement & testing has been done on ONE airframe greating slowing the prosess.

Same goes for Airbus and it’s A310 and A330 tankers. We don’t hear so much about big problems that are dragging on for years as much as Boeing but they still should be showing they can deliver tanker’s on time and if possible under budget. Also they should look at getting the A400 and any other planes sorted asap as this just makes them look bad.
All in all Northrop/Airbus appear to be having less problems with there tanker’s than Boeing. This may not be correct but if you read the press this is what you would think.

That is because Airbus/EADS does not have an army of enemies digging up & calling out every tiny little issue they are having & Airbus/EADS doing a VERY good job of keeping such issues out of the media.

As far as i was aware these 179 tankers are the first batch out of 3. The plan was that all the 3 batches should be the same aircraft and this will make things simpler instead of running 2 aircraft. Some people now seem to be wanting a split buy to replace KC-135 and KC-10. This is an idea but it leaves the situation of that if the 767 doesn’t win the first round the production line will be shut down so it most likely won’t be available for KC-Y and Z. When thinking how long the whole tanker replacement program is going to run for i would be wanting an aircraft that has development potential. For this i would favour the A330. In another way if the USAF puts of renewal for 10 years or says it will be a new aircraft for KC-Y and Z then this leaves the door open for a new development or for the 787 and A350 to have a go. These aircraft could be well suited to the tanker mission depending on what is required. If the A330 is bought for KC-X then maybe for KC-Z it should be a smaller aircraft. By the time KC-Z is required the USAF should have a good knowledge of how the new tankers and strategy is working out and if it should go smaller, bigger or stay the same size.
When thinking about it will there be a smaller Airbus or Boeing product available? Their aircraft seem to be getting bigger and they are not replacing the smaller market planes.

No, it has NEVER been the plan for the KC-X, KC-Y & KC-Z to all be the same aircraft. It HAS always been the plan to have AT LEAST two platforms with two of the three contracts being for ‘medium’ KC-135 replacement & one of the three contracts being for ‘large’ KC-10 replacement. The USAF knows from DECADES of experience that the most capable tanker fleet is one where the bulk of the fleet is ‘medium’ KC-135 like tankers with a smaller number of ‘large’ KC-10 like tankers for those SMALL % of mission where the ‘medium’ KC-135 like tankers are not enough.

THE problem with the KC-30 is that it is LARGER & HEAVIER than the ‘large’ KC-10 & yet there are idiots trying to pass it off as a ‘medium’ KC-135 replacement when there is no need/desire for a ‘medium’ KC-135 replacement with greater fuel offload than the KC-135R (READ the AMC tanker white paper).

When is a decision due on the tanker?

Final RFP is due early 2010 with a decicion by the end of 2010.

The mandatory requirement jump is huge thing to go from 37 to over 300. Can either aircraft meet 300 odd requirement? If only 1 can then it’s not really a competition and if you have 300 odd mandatory requirements that 2 different aircraft pass then it doesn’t seem to be strict enough and will lead to the same situation as last time. The fact there aren’t going to be many bonus points and total number of requirements has gone from 800 to 373 in an attempt to simplify the process but that all these are mandatory i think will either lead to 1 aircraft pulling out and there being no competition or it won’t be possible to pick a winner cause both have done the same. Then it will be the same situation now where who ever wins will get taken to court and the competition winner will be overturned.

Such is the problems when Congress thinks it can solve a problem…

How i see it though is the USAF picked the A330 as the aircraft it wanted and thought was the best. Why would this change in a few years to favour the other aircraft?

The USAF picked the KC-767 (& REJECTED the KC-30). The KC-X Source Selection Team ‘selected’ the KC-30 BUT did not assess the relative merits of the proposals in accordance with the evaluation criteria identified in the solicitation is doing so.

i think that the new carriers arent going to be nuclear powered is moronic to be quite honest.

I read somewhere something along the lines of “… does not currently provide a reactor large enough to power a vessel of its size”

Do what the usa does – USE TWO SUB REACTORS THAT ROLLS ROYCE ALREADY MAKE!

The longterm costs of having conventional carriers will far FAR outweigh the short term of building them as nuclear powered…

Not having a ‘large’ (~40,000 tons or more) carrier nuclear powered is moronic. With the high cost of modern ships, the higher initial cost of nuclear power (vs ‘convential’ propulsion) is MUCH less significant than in the past.

Sorry but if you can build a ‘small’ reactor, you can build a larger one. Besides, modern reactor technology has progressed so far from the antiquated K15 used in Charles de Gaulle. The S9G reactor of the SSN-774, for example, is expected to last the ENTIRE 35 YEAR SERVICE LIFE of the boats without refuelling or major overhaul.

And the long term costs of having nuclear powered carriers will FAR out weight the the short term costs of building them as nuclear powered.