Terrible Air Force decision

[1964455]

The Air Force was looking for a new fuel tanker plane, both Boeing and Airbus bid for the contract. The Boeing 767 fit the bill with modification. Airbus's bid was to build a whole new plane. Boeing farms out a ton of work to American small businesses, mostly machine shops, Airbus as I'm sure you all know is mostly French. The Air Force awarded the contract to Airbus who's bid was higher than Boeing... WTF? During the first gulf war the Belgium government refused to supply the British with ammunition because they disagreed with the war. The French came out against the current Iraq war (they might have been on to something but that's beside the point) What if they refused plane parts?

[jhowelb]

No American defense contract nor it's parts should be let to foreign contractors. I thought it was law but is just good common sense.

One could say the same thing about fuel supplies and refineries as well, go figure!

[mactec54]

Hi 1964455

Yes this is a little screwed up But not all is lost 60 to 80% will be made in the USA
The Boeing 767 did not fit the bill but the 777 would have if they had of used that
for the bid they probably would have got the contract

[1964455]

Oh ok, I heard the 767. I also heard that only the final assembly will take place in the US. Either way I think it stinks!

[RotarySMP]

Maybe it has something to do with Boeing use of corrupt practices and getting caught red handed back in the first USAF 767 Tanker leasing deal a few years back (cost Phil Condit the top job).

Maybe the 767 (a great plane in it's day but the design is long in the teeth - I worked on them in an airline) being smaller and having less payload.

Maybe the fact that the single largest supplier country on any Airbus is the USA (depending on model; the Engines, APU, avionics, Aircon Packs, Hydraulic system components etc).

Maybe the US jobs which will be created wherever Lockheed Martin sets up the final assembly line.

Maybe that the A330 tanker is not a "whole new plane" but a very good airliner (probably the best Airbus yet) which has already been converted into a Tanker (the Australians have ordered a few).

Maybe it is a USDD choosing not to end up with a single monopoly holding them by the balls.

Don't cry for Boeing. Remember them laying off 50,000 workers in the slump after 9/11? They sold the sheet metal production to a private equity firm (Canadian?). Now called Spirit aerostructures, they also now do contacts using for Airbus American factories .

Now business is booming, but Boeing have never re-employed to that level. The 787 is the most international project ever. Wings designed and built in Japan, fuselage barrels designed and built in Italy, major assemblies from Australia, China, etc. Instead of recreating a bunch of mindless rivetting jobs, they have been creating interesting, megabuck, supply chain management jobs.

At the end of the day, nationality is nearly meaningless in the Airbus vs Boeing competition. Given the weak USD and the strong Euro, you can bet that Airbus will me more than happy to maximise the local content in the USAF tankers.

Trying to "protect american jobs" is rubbish. America has the strongest, most dynamic labour market in the world. All those crappy slave labour factory jobs and dangerous mining and steel mill jobs - Good riddance if the Chinese are happy to do them for $3.85 a week.

I once did a holiday job on the assembly line making arc welders. Mind numbingly dull work, bad pay, and a control freak foreman. For the same crappy pay, anyone is better off working in shipping company arranging for the chinese welder to be shipped, or even at Walmart, selling the import welder.

Don't forget trade is a two way street. Right now with the cheap USD, you are very well placing to re-enter manufacturing, but if Americans let the idiot politicians play on basic fears, and turn their back on world trade, then Boeing will be hurt a hell of a lot worst than losing out on one (admittedly) lavish deal.

[Donkey Hotey]

Just to clarify: Northrop Grumman is doing the actual tanker conversion and final assembly in Mobile, Alabama. It's far from being outsourced to a foreign market.
Quote:

The KC-30 Tanker aircraft will be assembled in Mobile, Ala., and the KC-30 team will employ 25,000 American workers at 230 U.S. companies. It will be built by a world-class industrial team led by Northrop Grumman, and includes EADS North America, General Electric Aviation and Sargent Fletcher.

If you want a breakdown, take a gander here:
http://www.northropgrumman.com/kc30/...ts/impact.html

The airframe is just that: a chassis to carry everything that Americans are going to design and install into it.

[pminmo]

I wated Cspan the other night for 2 and a half hours. I NEVER watch Cspan. It was the political subcommitte on house arms procurement and the whole meeting was to query the AF cheif procurment executive, the head of the KC-X project and another AF general. As an ex Boeing/MDC retiree who had meany years dealing with Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR), I could identify with the Procurement Exec. Washington pretty much legislated the result, but didn't realize it. It was kind of funny watching the politicians pointing the finger at the AF, when the laws they setup were the problem. Turns out the "Buy American Act" required the evaluation team to not recogznize 10 foreign countries and companies in those companies any differently than a US company. i.e. to treat a France or Spanish company any differently than a US company is illegal during the evaluation. The politicians kept bring up job loss to foreign companies, and the evaluators couldn't consider that as it would be illegal. The politicians brough up industrial base capability, but again, if those companies are in the ten foreign, that can't be evaluated as it would be illegal. In the end, it was pretty evident, that Congress again shot common sense in the foot years ago........... I wouldn't be surprised if this decision is challenged and turns into a political nightmare. Murtha wants to nail McCain as it was McCain who challeneged the Boeing lease agreement two years ago as being not fiscally sound for the american taxpayer.

[High Seas]

Phil -

thanks for all the clarification and your time watching cspan. Don't get it here in Malaysia - well maybe with the right sat dish etc - but cnn has to do for now.
As an aside - I was pleased to be part of the culture change late 80s-90s in the AF - thats why there was an environmental impact and economic impact available (not me - but the change).
McCain was spot on in his challenge - and we need those checks and balances. Thats how the system works.

Well, I gotta go figure out whats gonna happen here in Malaysia now that the opposition has toppled the ruling party's 50 year reign. Guess we could move on - but gotta get ship-shape first.
Jim

BTW: the B1 had vendors in every congressional district - politic or smart thinking?

The F-16 (International Fighter) was built all around the world. Sharing the "wealth" is not a new paradigm in the weapons procurement industry.

[pminmo]

What McCain did was challenge the AF's worked out lease agreement without competition. He did the right thing, as time proved there were some under the table stuff going on and, and Boeing CFO Mike Sears was sentenced to four months in prison and fined $250,000 for secretly negotiating to hire Air Force procurement officer Darleen Druyun while she was negotiating with Boeing for the lease of 100 Boeing 767s to be modified into tankers.

McCain didn't tell the AF who to buy from, just that the procurement process should be competatively bid. How exposing government contracting fraud and illegal activity, and asking that tax payers money should benifit by competative bids rather than under the table favors is friut for the opposition's campain is hard to understand. But it will become a part of the campaign against him and already is starting to show up.

[High Seas]

DD had a few other skeletons in her closet too...
In the end; "The Truth is Out There..."
Senator McCain is a man to be respected for many reasons - mainly his core values are at the center of/and ground all of his actions. Not like many candidates we see today.

[Arty 3000]

80% of Airbus planes are manufactured in the U.S. i have worked and know shops who do allot of Airbus work. look at Alcoa hear in So. calif. most of the stuff they build are for Airbus. and they are running 3 shifts with 300 people per shift. this is just one. there are many. Adams rite Aerospace is another i used to work there and they do allot of work for Airbus. and the list goes on and on.

[pminmo]

I don't think anybody is disputing that a percentage of work will be done here in the US, and if Boeing had won the contract a percentage would have left the US. The difference is where are the profits going, where is the technology going, what is the economic impact to the US of one bidder verses the other bidder, what is the result on the industrial base, and should we as a country rely on a foreign country to be such a large stakeholder in a critical defense need, especially France, a country that has historically been a entity that follows their own "path". The prime contractor in absolute dollars (or euro's) is the biggest benefactor in profit. In this case though, NG is a "front/shell" to EADS, so the bulk of the profit will go to France.