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I think you are wrong on this point.

Very wrong!

The Airbus design will require far more updating, of existing Air Force facilities, including run ways.

I try to deal in facts. My facts show that the A330, carrying the equivalent of a 767s full fuel load, can operate out of a shorter runway than the 767. The USAF requirement is to operate from a 10,000' runway at Maximum Takeoff Weight, which both aircraft can accomplish. Where do you get the longer runway data from?

Regardless, it's a moot point, because the way the KC-X RFP is now written, the award will go to Boeing, and NG-EADS may not even bother bidding.

Interesting tidbit: Boeing has never, in it's history, won a tanker competition with the USAF. The KB-29, KB-50, KC-97 and KC-135 were sole sourced to Boeing. McDonnell Douglas' KC-10 beat Boeing's KC-747 offering in the Advanced Tanker Cargo Aircraft competition, and the KC-767AT lost to NG-EADS' KC-30. in the last KC-X competition.

Looks like Boeing will win through a de facto sole source contract yet again. Nothing wrong with that, mind you. I like Boeing. But I do think the larger capacity and greater range of the A330 is going to come in handy in any future conflict in the Pacific against our Walmart supplier.