The New Gen Tanker
By George Landrith
Re-fueling tankers are a critically important part of Americas national security assets. Tankers perform in-flight air refueling of fighters bombers and airlift & surveillance aircraft so that they can fly farther and stay in the air longer. In truth without tankers our militarys ability to accomplish its varied missions would be severely compromised.
To put it bluntly having cutting edge stealth fighters and bombers without capable tankers is like having a hall of fame quarterback but no offensive line.
Unfortunately our current fleet of tankers first came into service in 1956 when Dwight Eisenhower was President. The tanker fleet is old and aging and we have been in need of new tankers for quite a while.
The Pentagon recognizes the need for a new high tech tanker and has begun the process after a few false starts of obtaining a new tanker called the KC-X by the military.
The competition for the KC-X refueling tanker one of the largest contracts to date in defense history has become unnecessarily complicated and ultimately our militarys fighting men and women are paying a price for the delays and political gamesmanship.
After carefully preparing the requirements for the next generation tanker the Pentagon requested bids. Final bids were submitted last year to the Air Force by both competitors for the contract Boeing and the consortium of the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company (EADS) the parent company of Airbus and Northrop Grumman (hereinafter collectively referred to as Airbus".)
As the bidding process proceeded political gamesmanship became apparent as Airbus lobbied for changes in the requirements to benefit their bid. Unfortunately those changes also degraded the new tankers real-world operational abilities.
Boeings submission was the only proposal that met the Air Forces requirements and standards. The Airbus submission was called the KC-30 and failed in a number of important ways to meet the stated requirements even with all the changes made to the requirements to satisfy Airbus demands.
Procurement officials shocked many experts by picking the inferior Airbus tanker. The Boeing tanker was clearly the better product and the most responsive to the Air Forces
requirements. This was not only our conclusion but the independent Government Accountability Office (GAO) carefully reviewed and audited the entire process and came to the same conclusion the Boeing Tanker was the only bidder to meet the stated requirements providing a better safer more capable tanker at a lower price and that politics had subverted the process.
In the end GAO concluded that process was deeply flawed and that those flaws led to an inferior tanker being selected at a higher cost to taxpayers. It was a stinging indictment of the Airbus tanker a less capable tanker at a higher cost.
Throughout the process Airbus employed an aggressive region-by-region public relations campaign paid spokespeople and clever rhetoric and managed to obscure the real issue in the KC-X competition.
To make matters worse we caught an Airbus representative making false statements about their planes capabilities in an attempt to build support for their bid. They repeatedly claimed that their plane could refuel the V-22 Osprey tilt rotor aircraft. But government documents reveal the truth it cannot.
The real question is simple which aircraft offers more to American national security to the American economy and to the American taxpayer? Or put differently which tanker gives Americas war fighters the best and most capable tanker?
Which tanker benefits the U.S. economy the most and provides the most jobs? Which tanker will cost the American taxpayer the least both to purchase and to operate over the
next four decades? The answer to all these questions is the Boeing tanker. That is not merely our opinion or the opinion of many other military and economic experts but the independent GAO came to the same conclusions.
Very simply Boeings strong American roots and experience in tanker design and production ensure that beyond the rhetorical smoke and mirrors thrown up by Airbus Boeings NewGen Tanker offers more for America by nearly any and every real world measure.
More for the U.S. Economy
Boeings NewGen Tanker is an American plane built by an American contractor. In contrast the Airbus plane will initially be built in Toulouse France. Airbus parent EADS is a Netherlandsbased group that is majority owned by a partnership of governments including Germany France Spain and Russia. Airbus has asked Northrop Grumman to take the public lead in the United States to shroud the fact that its entry dubbed the KC-30 is in essence a modified version of the Airbus A330 a commercial airliner assembled in France by Airbus.
It is revealing that the Airbus KC-30 was developed for and sold to the Australian Air Force with no involvement from Northrop Grumman. Airbus is now offering this same tanker to the U.S. Air Force but has used Northrop Grumman as its American face." But this only highlights the truth that Airbus would like to obscure that awarding the contract to Airbus will effectively export high paying American aerospace jobs to France and will effectively kill off our technological know-how advantage.
Given these facts it is hard to argue that any American company or any sizable number of American employees will be an important and integral part of the Airbus contract. While Airbus claims that the final assembly of the tanker will take place in America even Airbus
admits that final assembly represents only 5 percent of the value of production. Simply stated 95 of the contracts value are not included in final assembly. Thats not much benefit for American workers even if they keep their promise about building a modest plant in America.
A statement by the Airbus team claims that their KC-30 Tanker aircraft will be assembled in Mobile Alabama bringing thousands of new aerospace jobs to the U.S. that do not exist today." Northrop has been littering the country with regionally focused releases claiming job gains for the areas of the country targeted and enlisting local political leaders to support its cause. Again final assembly is only 5 percent of the total production value. This is a mighty small bone to be throwing to America.
While the claimed intention to do the final assembly of the plane in Alabama may be little more than a public relations ploy we will assume that it is true for purposes of comparing economic impact and jobs information. In truth it doesnt actually matter because either way the Boeing tanker will provide more high-paying American jobs and more economic benefit for America.
Even Airbus full-court public relations campaign cannot obscure the simple math: the Boeing aircraft will produce about twice the direct U.S. jobs as its competitor not to mention billions of dollars more generated in overall economic activity.
Given its European origins it is not surprising that more than 40 percent of the content of the KC-30 will be foreign. In contrast Boeings NewGen Tanker is comprised of 85 percent U.S. content 42 percent more than the French KC-30.
The Boeing NewGen Tanker will provide more than 50000 new U.S. jobs 100 percent more than the 25000 originally claimed by Airbus.* Additionally these American jobs created by Boeing will drive more than 2 billion dollars a year in total economic impact domestically.
So it is not just more American jobs but also more economic impact as those American employees buy goods and services in their respective communities helping other American businesses.
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Frontiers of Freedom Institute was founded in 1994 by U.S. Senator Malcolm Wallop as an educational institute (or think tank) whose mission is to promote conservative public policy based on the principles of individual freedom peace through strength limited government free enterprise & traditional American values as found in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.
