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2008-03-17 Home Front: Politix

So why did Boeing really lose Air Force tanker contract?

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Posted by 2008-03-17 12:11|| || Front Page|| [11131 views ] Top

#1 Key Phrase:

"land in more places closer to combat zones."

That is NOT what the UASF asked for. They want cargo capacity, fuel capacity, and long range.

Grumman/EADS delivered that. Boeing basically told the airforce "here is what WE think you need", with an older airframe that they themselves arent even going to produce any longer.

Posted by OldSpook 2008-03-17 13:23|| 2008-03-17 13:23|| Front Page Top

#2 I would tend to think that tankers are long range planes and also far too precious and vulnerable to be put in first line (where the small airports are) and thus being able to land here or two hundred miles North is relatively irrelevant.

Posted by JFM">JFM 2008-03-17 13:37|| 2008-03-17 13:37|| Front Page Top

#3 OS: the ability to land in more palces closer to cambat zones is really a back handed way to describe smaller airfields and related airside facilities. As a bonus, this would enabel more aircraft to be sited at any ne location and that results in more booms / hoses in the air.
the change in the requirements, as i read it looks like a typical USAF scope drift and Boeing didn't grasp it soon enough. whether there was politics ( McCain) or residual scandal punishment involved, anything we could say would be pure speculation.
i find it interesting that nobody has mentioned the 'buy American' DFARS and related articles that the Congress has put in place over the past years to protect American Industry.
I also find it interesting that over the last week, the terminlogy for the EADS bird has been 'assembled in America,' rather than the previous 'made in America.'
The GAO will be an interesting place to be for the next 3 months or so....

Posted by USN, Ret. 2008-03-17 14:15|| 2008-03-17 14:15|| Front Page Top

#4 Instapundit thought this might be some sort of quid pro quo for France for... future considerations.

Posted by Seafarious 2008-03-17 14:23|| 2008-03-17 14:23|| Front Page Top

#5 Might be. But sometimes when a defense contractor dominates a sector for a long time they bid what they have and really don't take the specs in the current request seriously. Happened with Lockheed on an intel satellite a while ago. Unfortunately, the new team that won was overly optimistic about their ability to bring their design in on time/cost/spec -- but that's in part due to them not having the chance to do more than simulations and small prototypes for years.

Not saying I'm happy about EADS on this one. But I could well believe that Boeing got overly complacent & just didn't invest in a new plane to meet the specs as laid down. Or - and these are related - they may not have been able to sell the Pentagon on why the old specs should have been retained.

So you get things like:

The procurement scandal had a chilling effect on Boeings relations with the Air Force, and it contributed to Boeings lack of understanding of the Air Force (tanker) proposal

and

Boeings commercial airplane division was too focused on the 787 to pay much attention to the tankers. The tanker was not as high a priority for Boeing as it was for Northrop-EADS, Thompson said.

Posted by lotp 2008-03-17 14:31|| 2008-03-17 14:31|| Front Page Top

#6 Break it down.

80% of the Boeing plane is US in origin.

60% of the EADS/NG plane is US in origin.

So neither is an exclusively "American" Aircraft.

In the EADS/NG bird, largest percentage of foreign components are from (in descending order) Spain (almost 15%), UK (roughly 10%), Italy, Germany, France. Key items like engines, boom, electronics and military avionics are US.

And more takers on smaller fields doesn't necessarily equate to more hoses in the air - thats Navy thinking. The USAF tends to run thing differently, SAC style (central control, US or large USAFB based ops). And many of their tanker sqdns are National Guard and Reserve.

I think the error here is the UASF trying to dotoo many roles with a single airframe.

The Airbus woudl flfill the old KC-10 role, strategic and long rage. And something from a 737 (best civilian jet in the world) airframe for tac and small field ops replacing the 135.

Posted by OldSpook 2008-03-17 14:44|| 2008-03-17 14:44|| Front Page Top

#7 lotp, not talking SBIRS-Hi? What a mess.

Posted by OldSpook 2008-03-17 14:46|| 2008-03-17 14:46|| Front Page Top

#8 USN Ret. - the Buy America clauses specifically allow for partnering with certain allied countries. May or may not be a good decision - there are pros and cons to it IMO - but it is legal.

My read from the public info is that Boeing took the business for granted and lost. But of course other things may have played a part - hard to tell without information.

BTW, that satellite bid that Lockheed lost, to the tune of $12 billion or so? They huffed and puffed and threatened a formal challenge etc. In the end they didn't even file one as it became clear they'd blown it.

FWIW

Posted by lotp 2008-03-17 14:46|| 2008-03-17 14:46|| Front Page Top

#9 FIA, OS

Posted by lotp 2008-03-17 14:47|| 2008-03-17 14:47|| Front Page Top

#10 lotp: never said it was illegal, but here in the manufacturing sector we have many hoops to jump thought to prove country of origin for all DoD-purchased metallic components in our product; its jut MHO that the same set of rules should be applied. when i have to spend hours proving where the titanium coating came from for nickel/dime bits and pieces, seems only fair to scale that same logic up.
Reference OS and "Navy thinking;" I agree, and that is a consequence of the DoD taking organic tanking from the USN and giving it entireley to the USAF shortly after Desert Storm. The Navy no longer has dedicated tanker assets ( think KA-6 and KS-3) instead you have the F/A-18 that is buddy store compatible; big difference between being able to give away 15,000+lbs of gas and 2k to get you wingman home.
I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment of the one size airframe does not fit all; please refer to my earlier comments re: the lawn dart.
Still wonder why mothballed DC-10s/ MD-11s were not bought and converted as stopgaps if the need was that critical....

Posted by USN, Ret. 2008-03-17 15:16|| 2008-03-17 15:16|| Front Page Top

#11 In what may be a related, or at least a taste of the future; today Lockheed-Martin and the Navy announced a delay and huge cost overrun in the VH-71 Presidential Helicopter deal. The VH-71 started out as a Eurocopter EH101 and then was outfitted with mission specific gear. The new cost for 28 aircraft is now @ 11.2 billion, almost double from first cost.
This 'partnership' beat out both Bell and Sikorsky, both long time suppliers of helicopters to the DoD.

Posted by USN, Ret. 2008-03-17 15:24|| 2008-03-17 15:24|| Front Page Top

#12 "the ability to land in more palces closer to cambat zones is really a back handed way to describe smaller airfields and related airside facilities."

Theres just one problem with this statement..size of the A330. Its over 50% bigger than than the KC-135 which means all those bases the KC-135 was stationed at need new ramps, parking areas and hangars to house these new birds (not to mention at each base you can now house fewer units). At front line locations you need larger parking spaces for the units as well.

Posted by Valentine 2008-03-17 16:04|| 2008-03-17 16:04|| Front Page Top

#13 If I were President I'd just be using one of those MD helicopter's light twins... cheaper, and more helicopter than I'd really ever need anyway.

Posted by Abdominal Snowman 2008-03-17 16:14|| 2008-03-17 16:14|| Front Page Top

#14 USN, yeah, and we know the Euro's will be great about the NATO mined / NATO smelt clauses; never will consider a non-NATO but cheaper source I bet ;)

Thinking on the last time we got non-NATO TI (Japan) in the supply chain. That disclosure was really fun.

Posted by bombay">bombay 2008-03-17 16:35|| 2008-03-17 16:35|| Front Page Top

#15 A couple of things that should be pointed out. Boeing intends to stop production on the 767 for commercial customers - but had the USAF bought the tanker version, they would have ended up being the SOLE customer for 767 parts, spares, and supports, until about 2050...now think for a moment about what a revenue stream THAT would have been for Boeing. The $600 toilet seat and $1000 hammer would have been considered bargains compared to what Boeing would have done on that account.
As far as Boeing not bringing their A-game, it wouldn't be the first time. An acquaintance of mine had access to the final presentation for the F-35 contract, and he told me that the Boeing crew showed up cocky, unprepared, and in many ways just flat-out unprofessional, with an attitude that the presentation was just a mere formality.
Finally, the 'land close to the combat zone' argument has been a bugaboo for contractors for decades now. The bottom line is that in anything short of a Tom Clancy scenario, the USAF is NEVER going to risk an asset like that close enough where some 15-year-old jihadi with a shoulder fired SAM can bring down a half-billion dollar airplane. That same requirement added literal billions to the cost of the C-5 and C-17, and it has never, ever been used.

Mike

Posted by Mike Kozlowski 2008-03-17 16:40|| 2008-03-17 16:40|| Front Page Top

#16 "all those bases the KC-135 was stationed at need new ramps, parking areas and hangars to house these new birds"

Hmm. Could that be a motive as well? More bucks for the bases, more budget for the USAF.

And USN Ret - spot on. They need to give the navy back the ability to do real "tankering" (Im a former armored cav guy so "tanking" involve a large 70 ton tracked armored vehicle with a stabilized 120mm smoothbore cannon)

And I see no reason why the Navy, given they can operate P3's re-tasked as pure INT birds, cannot do a land based tanker variant of the P3.

Or work up prop driven tanker versions of a COD. Those things have a 57K max wet weight for takeoff. Hollow them out, kit them up with bladders and wingtip drogues outside the prop wash (Navy probe-n-drouge pays bonus here lighter than a boom), and you have a tanker the Navy basically already flies. Only problem is they are on their last legs SLEP, and nobody builds them anymore.

Maybe the Navy ought to demand a new COD/Tanker for the new electomagnetic CVNs.

Posted by OldSpook 2008-03-17 17:22|| 2008-03-17 17:22|| Front Page Top

#17 Mike,

While i consider 'sole source' of parts a weak link, it is not unique to the 767 line; look at any number of weapons systems purchased and the resultant costs. And the vendor is not the only party to blame; the DoD adds cost due to some unique requirements that in many cases, have dubious value added. That is one of the key drivers in the DoD abandonment of Mil-Spec-based requirements and going to industry based SAE, ANSI, and the like.

Posted by USN, Ret. 2008-03-17 17:28|| 2008-03-17 17:28|| Front Page Top

#18 So here's a suggestion: DoD and the Air Force bring Boeing and Grunman/EADS into one room and split the contract. 80% goes to EADS for the A330 tanker, and 20% goes to Boeing for the 767. The price per plane is the same as it would be if each had the entire deal or it's no-go. Then you look each in the eye and say that Phase II of the tanker contract (the next 100 planes) is coming, and they'd better get ready.

Such a deal for Airbus gives them what they really want, which is their foot in the door for the tanker biz. They have the better plane so they win the big chunk of the contract. Boeing gets enough of a consolation prize that they'll come back for Phase II with either a 767 or 777 airframe.

That in turn keeps both sides honest for Phase II. It's win-win-win.

Posted by Steve White">Steve White 2008-03-17 18:00|| 2008-03-17 18:00|| Front Page Top

#19 >> The Airbus A330 is newer, larger and can carry more fuel, passengers and cargo. The 767 is smaller, cheaper to operate and can land in more places closer to combat zones.

Why TF is this even an issue?

And my old man used to build them. I was of the "if it ain't Boeing, I ain't going" crowd"

Boeing screwed the pooch with this original "non-contract" bid.

The European planes will be built in Ala., be cheaper. What's the downside? It's not like we're building stealth fighters in Russia.

Posted by Mizzou Mafia 2008-03-17 18:02|| 2008-03-17 18:02|| Front Page Top

#20 Boeing officials have said they were told by the Air Force that the changes were made to accommodate Northrop-EADS, which was again threatening not to bid. If the Air Force had wanted a bigger plane, Boeing could have offered its 777. But Boeing officials said they were discouraged from doing so by the Air Force. Northrop-EADS simply convinced the Air Force bigger was an asset rather than a liability, Thompson said.

If this is the case, we need to start looking at the possibility of Northrop-EADS payoffs to Air Force procurement people.

Posted by Zhang Fei">Zhang Fei 2008-03-17 18:16|| http://timurileng.blogspot.com]">[http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2008-03-17 18:16|| Front Page Top

#21 Steve, generally split procurements with two different designs of equipment lead to massive, massive logistics and training issues for the services. Planes are typically slotted to last 20 years or so. That means that for 20 years you would be keeping dual sets of spare parts and manuals, training technicians, pilots and air traffic planners for both aircraft ... and that doesn't really bring home to real impact, since planes are complex systems of systems, each system of which has test equipment, potential software upgrades (avionics, flight control ...) etc.

Nightmare to manage.

Posted by lotp 2008-03-17 18:19|| 2008-03-17 18:19|| Front Page Top

#22 lotp, did you ever notice, however, that (for instance) the Navy had cheaper planes back when they had four or more types of planes on carrier decks than now, when they have two?

(Used to be they had A-6, A-7, F-14, and F-18, plus tanker and EM-variant A-6's and anti-sub and awacs planes...)

Posted by Abdominal Snowman 2008-03-17 18:51|| 2008-03-17 18:51|| Front Page Top

#23 the ability to land in more palces closer to cambat zones is really a back handed way to describe smaller airfields and related airside facilities.

Ground attack types need to be close to the combat zone because once they are constantly going between the front line and the base in order to rearm. Thus one hour of transit time versus five minutes in action is a bad bargain. That means being able to land in what is availble near the front is important for them.

But tankers circle faaaaaaar away from danger and do it for hours. In those hours they keep airborne they will fly thousands of miles so a couple hundred miles going from airbase to the orbiting zone makes little difference.

Posted by JFM">JFM 2008-03-17 20:15|| 2008-03-17 20:15|| Front Page Top

#24 Sure, AS. But except for the F-18 those were not modern fly-by-wire systems. We're talking orders of magnitude greater complexity in modern military aircraft, which yields greater capability as well.

Here are some stats that might put this in perspective a bit. The B1-A bomber had a large amount of software in its systems, including flight control, avionics, countermeasures etc. Let's call it 1 million lines of high level language code, say, JOVIAL, with some assembler code for critical real time functions. A SWAG. The real number may be a little less, maybe a little more.

The B-1B had by some estimates approximately 5-10 times the software in the B-1A.

And the B2 reportedly has approximately 10 times again the code in the B-1B.

Most of that code is embedded in hardware subsystems. For every subsystem you need test equipment and test procedures.

In the old days, without fly by wire flight control, upgrades to the plane seldom affected more than the avionics and comms and maybe weapons control systems.

In fly by wire planes, upgrades can affect every part of the plane. Specifically, it can affect flight control which is much more tightly integrated with other subsystems than in the old days.

Which means potential changes to every sub-system's test equipment, maintenance/checkout procedures etc.

The awesome capability in the B2 or the RAPTOR isn't magic. It's the result of incredible engineering work and seriously intensive validation and verification procedures. And that translates to logistical support demands.

Posted by lotp 2008-03-17 20:26|| 2008-03-17 20:26|| Front Page Top

#25 Just for what it is worth, one of the reasons that modern military aircraft are so expensive is Congress. The programs are structured to buy a given number of aircraft and when it comes time for production, Congress funds about a third of the original number so that economy of scale works against you instead of for you. Buying 23 B-2s instead of 132 is a good way to jack the cost up to almost $1B apiece, or for that matter buying 183 F-22s instead of 750.

Posted by RWV 2008-03-17 21:18|| 2008-03-17 21:18|| Front Page Top

#26 The subcontractors are also structured so that there is a plant in at least 300 congressional distr4icts that benefit from the program.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2008-03-17 21:20|| 2008-03-17 21:20|| Front Page Top

#27 VH-71 Presidential Helicopter deal. The VH-71 started out as a Eurocopter EH101 and then was outfitted with mission specific gear. The new cost for 28 aircraft is now @ 11.2 billion

Or $400 million each. That just boggles the mind. This Imperial Presidency crap has got to stop now. The Army is paying $11M for each Blackhawk and $35M for each Chinook. The EH101 is halfway between the two in size and capability. No amount of added communications gear or flying toilet bowl is worth that much money.

Posted by ed 2008-03-17 21:30|| 2008-03-17 21:30|| Front Page Top

#28 RENSE > GREAT BRITAIN IS REPOSSESSING THE UNITED STATES, vv financial markets???

RUSSIA desires to dominate SCO-CSTO + EURASIA - the USA in turn needs to show/prove its "Euro-ness"??? *OTOH, compare wid TOPIX [old] > THE RETURN OF THE FRENCH CONNECTION?; + SICILIAN MAFIAS RESTORING LINKS WITH THE US, espec after the recent arrests of vari GAMBINO Family members + Italian affiliates???

Posted by JosephMendiola 2008-03-17 22:46|| 2008-03-17 22:46|| Front Page Top

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