There’s Boeing and their lobbyists again.. the Northrup plane was a better plane, and was actually going to employ MORE Americans than the Boeing plane. Lesson: If you want to successfully bid on military contracts, you need to own the generals.
Now that the Airforce is done moving the goal posts while Boeing had already kicked the ball, they can come back with a superior design based on the 777 which will crush the Airbust A330 design.
Obviously a $40 billion dollar contract has serious political considerations. The generals got fired so I guess you need to know Senators.
Lockheed is a good company. Boeing is a good company. Airbus is not a good company.
Actually the Northrop offering is based on the A330
The Boeing bid is a modified 767
June 18, 2008—The following is a statement from Randy Belote, Vice President of Corporate & International Communications for Northrop Grumman Corporation: "We respect the GAO’s work in analyzing the Air Force's tanker acquisition process. We continue to believe that Northrop Grumman offered the most modern and capable tanker for our men and women in uniform. We will review the GAO findings before commenting further."