Posted on 02/29/2008 1:53:16 PM PST by skeptoid
Boeing has lost the long-awaited and lucrative Air Force refueling tanker contract to a competing bid based on an Airbus airplane, a respected and well-connected defense analyst close to the Air Force tanker deal said Friday.
Loren Thompson, an analyst with the Lexington Institute, cited "100 percent reliable" government sources for his information.
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.nwsource.com ...
If this turns out like the other foreign deals then they won’t see any production for a long time. I bet the first prototypes will be completely finished out in France and tested here...
“adding several thousand jobs to my state”
Don’t bet on it. Just hope for it.
Today the Dollar to Euro is 0.6592.
“I hope they do. Major defense items should be American made through and through, with American suppliers. “
Amen while gives 58% of the Project to US Citizens It Must be 100%.
So the old a weak dollar mean absolutely NOTHING!
Where can I buy a US mad Toaster,Microwave,TV or Printer?
Not merely assembled here but made here.
“Amen while gives 58% of the Project to US Citizens It Must be 100%.”
It doesn’t even give nearly that much. Most of the plane’s parts will be fabricated in Europe. It’ll just be assembled in Alabama at the last stage. This is nothing but a re-badging of an Airbus with Northrop Grumman’s name to make it more palatable to Congress.
“The US101 airframe is the best medium lift helicopter in the world. And quite frankly Sikorsky does not have the intellectual bandwidth to integrate the complex systems that need to go into the Presidents new transport. They are an airframer, not an integrator.”
That’s the most convoluted bullsh*t I’ve read all day. Marine One is nothing but a helicopter with some extra electronics for the President. It’s not the Space Shuttle or something.
“So the old a weak dollar mean absolutely NOTHING!”
Not to the Air Force it doesn’t. The Boeing Aircraft is $35 million dollars cheaper than the Airbus. They do mention that the Airbus can carry more payload but of course that “depends on configuration”.
In the end they won’t get the promised jobs in Mobile and Airbus gets to save the A330 line for a few more years maybe even decades because this contract could be worth $100 billion at the end of it’s life.
I don’t believe those figures for a second. Outside analysts say that the plane will be largely fabricated in European factories.
I’m angry at the Air Force leadership for this. Angry as hell. I’d like to know what the Democrats are going to say about it. Because opposition to this stinker of a deal could win them a lot of swing support.
If we don’t think Oamas staffers read posts here we are dreaming.
All Riley has done is to give Huessin a H U G E set of issues with which to clobber the GOP.
So future offshore Military projects will now be used to deliver my sons to the battlefield to fight muslims.
NOT ON MY WATCH.
Thank you ... that was my point. And that is why Sikorsky lost the contract, because that is what they proposed for a solution ... nothing but a helicopter with some electronics.
Fine, head designer for the S92 acknowledged ... but still second place for a reason.
politics most likely. You’d have to search more on that site to find out why, EH 101 is nothing like airbus’s A330. Look up who has sold more commercial orders, safety records of the two aircraft, maintenance etc. and decide for yourself.
Why is every win that is not the status quo attributable to politics? LM won the Presidential Helo program by proposing a better solution AND by demonstrating a track record of performance on other complex integration jobs; namely, the MH-60 integration and the continued successes on the Merlin 101 integration. If the Marine One bird was just an airframe with a couple gadgets stuffed in it so the President could make a phone call then Sikorsky would have held that contract.
It didn’t matter to me who won it because I own stock in both companies ... but let’s give credit where credit is due.
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