but the A330, isn’t that the one that just fell apart in the air somewhere between Brazil and France?? And maybe built here,, but airbus is still foreign owned, profits go home to French and German owners.
Not to mention, in a bid how do you factor out the massive Euro government direct subsidies to that company? They walk in the door with some bidding advantages that Boeing doesn’t.
The Northrup-Grumman team had the better design that would have been more cost efficient for the Air Force. Not to mention it would have provided a multitude of jobs for our area.
You have to understand. A few years back Boeing had us as a finalist for a new plant. They didn’t choose us. Then Northrup offered us the tanker and we threw in our lot with them. Boeing then proceeded to take out an ad campaign attacking us as unable to build planes and all sorts of other insults even though they themselves had figured us a good enough spot that we had been a finalist for one of their facilities.
I’m sorry but I do speak for a metro area of more than half a million people when I say that I sincerely hope that Boeing and their goons rot in hell and that McCain’s probe of their contracting practice will show them for the corrupt shills that they are.
Northrop / EADS was proposing building in the U.S. the same tanker version the British and Australian air forces have, and they haven’t had problems with the 330 frame.
“but the A330, isn’t that the one that just fell apart in the air somewhere between Brazil and France??”
Yeah, after it was bombed.
From a purely chauvinistic point of view, it would be hard to complain about buying aircraft that were subsidized on the back of the European taxpayer (the poor slob).
“but the A330, isn’t that the one that just fell apart in the air somewhere between Brazil and France??”
So what if it was? Things like that happen. There have been Boeings that have broken up in flight in light turbulance. There have been others that have had large pieces fall off of them, then there are the uncommanded rudder deflections, etc, etc.
“And maybe built here,, but airbus is still foreign owned, profits go home to French and German owners.”
Northrup-Grumman is 100% American owned and would get some of those profits too.
“Not to mention, in a bid how do you factor out the massive Euro government direct subsidies to that company?”
You mean like the massive direct subsidies that Boeing enjoys through defense and space research? Then there are the massive tax breaks they get (they pay the lowest federal tax rate of any large corporation in the country) and get huge tax breaks from the state for every aircraft that rolls off the lines.
But by all means lets equip the Airforce with an obsolete aircraft design that doesn’t have the legs (range), nor the offload capacity that the Airforce wanted just to protect some union crybabies in Washington State.
FYI the tanker offered by Boeing to the Airforce hasn’t even flown yet which is the KC-767AT (Advanced Tanker), while the KC-30 has been flying for well over a year now. And NO, the KC-767AT is NOT the same aircraft that Japan and Italy was duped into buying.
No, it didn't fall apart. The plane was intact when it hit the water. The pitot tube froze over, which could be easily prevented in the new tanker design. The pilot also flew into bad weather that all other pilots were flying around.