Posted on 06/05/2005 10:39:23 AM PDT by Righty_McRight
WASHINGTON - (KRT) - As the dust settles on a series of scandals at Boeing Co., the Chicago-based aerospace giant and its nemesis, Airbus, are now jockeying to revive a multibillion-dollar Air Force plan to purchase hundreds of modified airliners as aerial refueling tankers.
Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., quietly attached an amendment to the Defense Department budget bill last month that would effectively eliminate Airbus from a future tanker bidding competition, leaving Boeing as the only available option for a contract that could be worth billions of dollars.
The Airbus defense group - called the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Co., or EADS - is hoping to nix that provision, which seeks to prohibit the Pentagon from buying goods from foreign companies, such as French-based Airbus, that receive government subsidies.
EADS has also upped the ante, promising to name a new $500 million site later this month where it would assemble aerial tankers in the United States if it gets the contract, and has put together a formidable stable of Washington lobbyists to press its case.
"They are definitely the tortoise, but they're doing the right things," said Keith Ashdown, vice president for policy for the group Taxpayers for Common Sense, which was highly critical of the first Boeing-Air Force tanker deal. "They're lobbying better than a giant American company."
Hunter's amendment may not survive in the Senate, which must still work through its version of the defense spending bill. In that chamber, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has become the resident skeptic of Air Force arguments that its aging tanker fleet is in need of replacement.
But support from a powerful lawmaker like Hunter, chairman of the House Armed Service Committee, says a lot about Boeing's clout in Washington. House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., also has pushed for a tanker purchase, stating bluntly that the Air Force needs the tankers.
And plenty of members of Congress are willing to give Boeing the benefit of the doubt.
"It has to move ahead," said Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Kan. His Wichita district would be home to the Boeing plant where the company would make the new tankers out of its 767 commercial models. The existing tankers, he argued, "were built 45 years ago. Are you driving around in a 1960 Dodge Dart?"
Ongoing support from Hunter and other Boeing stalwarts on Capitol Hill is especially noteworthy given Boeing's recent troubles.
The first tanker proposal in 2001 resulted in congressional, Pentagon and Justice Department investigations and sent two of the company's top executives - one a former Air Force official - to prison in the past year. In that case, a Boeing executive helped negotiate the hiring of the Air Force official while she was still handling Boeing matters at the Pentagon. The probes also contributed to the departure of longtime Boeing Chief Executive Phil Condit in December 2003.
This week, the Senate Armed Services Committee will hold yet another hearing on the doomed tanker deal, this one focusing on a yet-to-be-released Defense Department inspector general's review of the tanker lease negotiations.
That scandal came in the wake of a 2003 federal prosecution in California over the alleged theft of Lockheed Martin documents by Boeing employees.
Condit's replacement, Harry Stonecipher, pledged to reorder the company's ethical standards. But Stonecipher was forced to resign in March after he acknowledged having an affair with a female vice president within the company.
None of those troubles, though, seemed to dim hopes within Congress and the Air Force for a new tanker deal.
Though it hardly has the glitz of a new jet fighter design, industry executives know just how lucrative a tanker deal could be over the long haul. With tankers, there's no need to spend money designing a new plane since tankers are derived by modifying existing aircraft. The Air Force's current fleet consists of 545 KC-135s - modified Boeing 707s - and 59 KC-10s, the military version of the DC-10 airliner.
Boeing wants to make new tankers out of its 767; it already has 767 tanker contracts with Italy and Japan. It also just launched a freighter version of its hulking 777 aircraft, which company officials said could also do tanker duty.
"We've got 60 years of experience making tankers," said Boeing spokesman Doug Kennett. "We can make any airframe into a tanker. It's a question of what you want."
EADS is pitching its A330 aircraft as a rival. It already has tanker orders from Canada, Britain, Germany and Australia.
To press its case, EADS has hired such lobbyists as Sam Adcock, a former aide to Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., and Quinn, Gillespie & Associates, the lobbying firm of former Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie. EADS communications Vice President Guy Hicks is a former staff member for Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Calif..
Congressional records show that EADS has spent $352,000 on lobbying in 2003 and $572,000 in 2004.
Still, that's nothing compared to Boeing, which spent $4.9 million on lobbying for all of its activities - civil and military - in 2003, and $5.5 million in 2004, according to lobbying records it filed with Congress.
As a relative newcomer, EADS never had much of a chance to bid for the tanker business the last time around. Air Force officials effectively ruled the company out because it hadn't developed a refueling boom that sends fuel from the tanker to aircraft flying behind it. Darleen Druyun, the Air Force official who later went to work for Boeing and then to prison, has also admitted favoring Boeing in the deal.
EADS has since developed a boom. And it hopes a commitment to a U.S. manufacturing facility will further boost its prospects.
EADS has said that it expects to soon announce plans to build a new engineering facility in one of four Southern sites chosen from an initial list of 70 communities - Mobile, Ala.; Kiln, Miss.; Charleston, S.C.; or Melbourne, Fla. If EADS were to win a tanker contract, that site would quickly expand, company officials said, to a $500 million, 1.5 million-square-foot production facility where A330 tankers would be assembled.
All four of those states have members of Congress who rank high on the Armed Services and Appropriations committees of both the House and Senate.
"Every time you're looking at opening a facility of this size, one of the things you look at is are we going to be supported in the community?" Hicks said. "Do we have an environment of success that we're going to need? Do we have support in the congressional delegation?"
A decision on a new tanker deal is hardly imminent. Stung by the flap over the earlier proposal, the Air Force is studying just how many tankers it will need and what sort of force it will service. Production of two new fighters, the F-22 and F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, is just getting under way.
A study by the Rand Corp., due in August, to examine those needs could help push the case for new tankers. The Air Force is conducting a mobility capability study that is examining how its aircraft can be deployed around the world today, and how future deployments should be structured. Those results could also have a bearing on future tanker orders.
The Air Force, though, has already spent $10.5 million to set up a new tanker program office, said spokesman Doug Karas, with the goal of holding a competition for the tanker contract in the next fiscal year, which starts in October.
Given the attitude and behavior of France and Germany (et al) toward the USA, why should Airbus get ANY of this business??
Personally, I'd like to see the 787 made into a tanker. The airframe has size, range and speed, so should be able to service any aircraft in the inventory. I wouldn't trust Airbus to make a paper airplane in a math class, let alone a replacement for the good old -135! From KB-29 to KB-50, to KC-97 and KC-135, Boeing has built the best aerial refueling aircraft in the world.....why should we go with some French POS?
I guess which model they pick for the Tanker depends on when they air force wants it. Right now Boeing can produce the Kc767a, and has shipped the first two to Italy to be completed (part of the deal). They're not getting any new civilian orders for the 767 so they can start pumping that version out at a dedicated factory.
The backorder for the 787 is already three years. I'm not sure how many backorders they have for the 777. The 757 line is closed. The 747 line is open with few orders left.
It doesn't take a genius to design a hose to drag behind a tanker, although I've seen drogue systems that were scary, like the VC-10. As long as the Air Force has the whole male-female relationship backwards Boeing has the experience to build the boom that works and they have jet ready now.
Anyone other than a U.S. company should be considered treason.
the Army needs RPVs, not this crap
Long ago, DOD had plans to get French Roland Ground Anti-Aircraft system. Luckily, the project was canceled under the Reagan administration. I hope our country will never be invaded by French military products again. That will kill our own military industry.
And our military.....ever heard of the "Chauchat" machine gun?
I didn't have an idea about it so I searched it on the net. As my impression, it would be a good weapon to give to the enemies for self destruct by discharges. I wish some of them would be given to the terrorists in Iraq so that they would harm themselves :)
Well, I'd say you're wrong with your statement about needing a "genius" to design a drogue/nozzle system. Most of the engineers I worked with on 75% of the design were nothing spectacular - however, when it came to integration to the airframe and its' impact on aero performance, there you are wrong. Those aero guys who designed the GVT to validate the design are some of the smartest guys I've ever seen; to be without them would be to build a kluged system.
Yeah, lets kick Airbus out now, thus ensuring Bopeing will feel zero pressure to produce the best-valued product.
The replies on this thread are absurd.
They must not have used the geniuses when they designed the wing refueling pods for the 135. The receiver is flying in the edge of the wingtip vortices, but that isn't critical because once your in the basket you don't have to be that steady. If you screw up the placement of a boom it would be a totally different situation.
Only partially correct, Todd. The last production KC-135 was delivered in 1965. The last production KC-10 was delivered in 1988.
Wonder if he's as worked up over the B-52. The last of which came off the Wichita line in June of 1962.
Don't tell that to the Coasties who fly those Falcons and Aerospatiales.
The Army also needs Air Force aircraft for long range transport as well as reliable fighter and bomber support.
Without aerial tankers, the'll have little of either. The fleet badly needs to be updated with new airframes.
Unless we plan to fight the next wars with only RPVs, we'd better get some new tankers.
There was also talk about shutting down the 767 line because of weak sales --- they were counting on the tanker contract to keep the line running.
Both of these rumors are several years old...
But that would interfere with thre production of commercial 787's. That might cause customers to go to Airbus to order an A350. The 767 tanker has already been designed and tested, and it is produced on an already existing line from the 787.
The 777 is too big, and so is the A330. They take too much ramp space. The 767 has about the same wingspan as a 707-320 and just a little bit more than the KC-135, while the 787 has almost a 200 foot wing span. The 767 is a direct replacement for reengined KC-135R, but can carry about 10,000 more pounds of fuel and can can use the same hangers with a modification of the door height to allow the 767 tail to clear. The Using any other aircraft would require much higher costs to build new ground facilities.
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